Sun. 5/24… (League City , TX ) It rained hard on us this morning complete
with lightning and thunder and dumped a lot of water in the campground. But it let up a bit by 10:00am so we decided
to drive down to Galveston
Island to tour
around. I had been there when I was on
assignment in Houston
a little over 4 years ago so I knew a bit about the city but it was still fun
to go back. This place is like a huge Balboa Island
complete with plenty of tourist stops and restaurants! The beach is the
attraction but the weather kept most of them away at least for the
morning.
We decided to go tour
the Moody Mansion .
Designed by William H. Tyndall for Narcissa Willis, financial mogul William
Moody Jr. bought the mansion from Mrs. Willis’ heirs for $20,000 after the
great storm of 1900. The Moody
Foundation restored the mansion and property to its former elegance and the
$8.00 senior ticket was well worth the money!
Cameras are not allowed in the mansion but I got some pictures of the house.
Mon. 5/25…. (New Iberia , LA )
We had 240 miles to drive today so
we were up and out of camp by 9:00am. We
worked our way east and up around Galveston
Bay and to the I-10 then out of Texas and into Louisiana . No issues, just a stretch of really rough
roads which made for a long day! We are
now at KOC Kampground in New Iberia ,
LA.
The weather is just
plain hot! Up till now we had some cloud
cover when it wasn’t raining. Seems that
is over now and we have big white puffy clouds and temps in the 100s! Hot and sticky! Treasa is cooking tonight and she served up
spaghetti and salad and bread. It sure
hit the spot especially with a few cold Lone Star beers! We talked a bit about
plans for tomorrow. We want to go to
both the Conrad Rice Mill and to McIlhenny Company on Avery
Island and see where Tabasco is manufactured.
Tues. 5/26… (New Iberia , LA )
We left camp around 10:00am and
headed south about 6 miles to Avery
Island . This really is an island that was bought by
McIlhenny family and developed as a salt mine (cost us a $1 to cross the tiny bridge).
Avid gardener Edmund McIlhenny planted seeds of capsicum peppers and
then developed the recipe for the pepper sauce that is made to this day. The plant is expanding but we got the basic
tour through one room of windows.
Basically the peppers are harvested (under the supervision of a
McIlhenny) and sent to the mill where they are crushed and made into a pasty
muck which goes into barrels for 3 years.
Once opened, they add vinegar and mix and bottle the sauce immediately. Afterward, we went to the store where all
their products are available to sample.
They make seven versions of Tabasco
sauce but also steak sauce and others not available anywhere but at the
store.
Before and after....
After giving the dirty dog a quick bath, we then set out to find
the Conrad Rice Mill. P.A. Conrad
founded Conrad Rice Mill in 1912.
Konriko was an acronym for Conrad Rice Company. He changed the Cs to Ks
and thus the name. Our tour guide was
wonderful. She is a true Cajun and has
been working there for 10 years. Turns out she was married only 8 days after us! We saw a movie
about the history of the area and then she walked us over to the mill. This place was deemed an historical site in
1981 and cannot be altered in any way.
It is a working mill with only 17 total employees so they don’t market
that much product.
After returning we had
to check out the little time town of ‘Lydia ’, just a few miles down the
road. We went into the Lydia Food Store and bought some fudge, then cruised
around the town and took a few pictures. Just had to do it!
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