Thursday  (5/7)  We went to Avery Island this morning, the home of Tabasco hot sauce made by the McIlhenny family.  The island is actually a salt deposit.  The tabasco sauce is fermented in old Jack Daniels whiskey barrels for three years. They drill holes in the top of the barrel and then cover the top of the barrel with salt.   The holes let the gases and excess liquid escape while the layer of salt keeps anything from getting in and contaminating the sauce.  While there we ate sweet and spicy ice cream and jalapeno  ice cream.  They were both interesting but the sweet and spicy one was good.  They had many foods made with Tabasco sauce including mayonnaise, mustards, pickles, jellies and spam (see picture.)

In New Iberia we visited the Konriko rice factory, America's oldest operating rice mill.  This factory still process rice as it was done 100 years ago.   Therefore,  Konriko only does specialty rice due to an inability to compete with new equipment.  They had a silo there that holds a million pounds of rice - it was really BIG.

Also in New Iberia is Shadows on the Teche (teche means snake).  The home, built in 1834, is situated on the edge of Bayou Teche which snakes along behind the house (see picture.)  The home was occupied by four generations of the Weeks family.  What makes this home so unique is that the Weeks family never threw away anything.  Thus, the National Trust for Historic Preservation has over 17,000 items (6,000 that are clothing) relating to the four generations who have lived in the home.  So concerned with saving things were they, that one family member asked when she wrote a letter to someone that the person receiving the letter return it to her after reading it.  The home is a wealth of historic information and thus is irreplaceable. 

It was a beautiful day, so we decided to ride down to the Gulf Coast at Cypremort Point State Park.  The 185 acre park was just a perfect place to sit and enjoy the afternoon.

As we leave the Bayou area, we will miss the great food.  While here we have tried many local dishes which include gumbo, jambalaya, smothered cabbage, craw etouffee and the best bread pudding we have ever had.