Story is if one is going to the zydeco breakfast in Breaux Bridge you need to get there as early as possible. Word has it that the lines get pretty long to eat breakfast to Cajun music. So, I set the alarm for 6:20 a.m., shut my book, and turned off the lights about 11:00 p.m., anticipating a great breakfast in the morning. The alarm goes off, and I jump out of bed eagerly looking forward to a pretty, early morning ride. After, as they used to say down here in the deep south, my "morning toilet," I see by the ol' bedside clock it's still a few minutes before the appointed meeting time of 7:00 a.m. so I turn on the TV to catch the weather. Imagine my surprise when the reporter gives the time at 5:55 a.m. You gotta be one dirty bird to set the clock ahead an hour on a motel clock. Not funny. Not funny by a long shot.
After a couple of cups of motel coffee and a chapter or so in my book, I met Bobby J. downstairs for the ride to Breaux Bridge. I didn't wear my riding coat and it was nippy in the air, with morning mists over the fields and canals. An absolutely beautiful ride. Of course, as I usually do, the camera is in the tank bag and I'm too busy enjoying the ride to take pictures for this blog. My bad. But a good ride.
Downtown Breaux Bridge, La.
(Click on any picture to enlarge.)
We found the Cafe Des Amis in Breaux Bridge and snuck in about 8:15 a.m., just as the band was setting up. Good breakfast and good music. Can't beat that. I'll tell you one thing. If your foot doesn't tap to zydeco music, you're a damn commissar. No doubt about it.
Bobby J and the "door lady." Her job is to collect the $4/person cover charge which is applied toward your breakfast. No problem. The day I can't eat $4 dollars worth of something you can put me in a hole. I'm done.
The band, all tuned up and ready to play. They took awhile getting ready, but, just as I heard Roger McGuinn of the Byrds say back in the 60s, "We tune because we care."
And the folks danced for their breakfast.
Beignets in Louisiana, in the morning. Not bad. Think of fried dough with powdered sugar on it. Sort of like doughnut holes, I guess, but less "puffy." We ordered these because, according to James Lee Burke, the best beignets are at the Cafe Du Monde on Jackson Square in New Orleans. How we gonna verify that if we haven't sampled others? And, it's all about sample size, you know. I've applied this requirement to beer, scotch, various liquors, and now fried bread. Works. Works well.
They bury 'em above ground here. They say because of the water table. I'm not sure.If some of Burke's characters are buried here, the devil maybe pushing 'em back up.
Lots of Catholic influence, churches, and burial grounds around there. I suspect lots of Catholics, too. See, those statistics classes weren't wasted on this ol' boy.
Did see a Methodist church somewhere while riding this morning. Should have taken a picture of that. Certainly more rare.
After breakfast we rode over to Lafayette. That's pronounced La-Fi-eeeeeette, with the short "e" as in "I et breakfast." This was so Bobby J could get the obligatory Harley dealer T-shirt. By the way, one of us wasn't wearing a helmet. Can anyone guess who that was? Of course, no cops, no shouts of "Put it on." (You know, on reflection I've heard that somewhere before...never mind, different subject.) Anyway, not one damn cop said a word and we must've passed a brigade of 'em. Bobby's wearing this flat little leather, Harley French lid-type cap. I have the GPS so I'm leading most of the time. I guess they see me in my big ugly bucket and just assume he has one on. That or, hmmm, perhaps my paranoia isn't misplaced.
After contributing to the Harley-dealers retirement fund we rode back to New Iberia and visited the Tabasco plant on Avery Island.
This is where they make it. Not an inconsequential capability. They make 700,000 2-ounce bottles per day and sell in more than 123 countries. I'm impressed. Figure it out. If it's an 8 hour shift, that's 24 bottles per second. The magic may well not be the recipe, but how they move the bottles that fast.Equally impressive is it's all stayed in the family and, I think, without too many money fights over the generations. Of course, what happens here stays here too.
Bobby J. coming out of the Tabasco Shameless Commerce building with his usual supply of "gotta haves."
This entire area is filled with some of the most beautiful old oak trees I've ever seen.
This was a "youngster" outside the Tobasco store.
The road going out of Avery Island.
Came back into New Iberia and took a little ride through the town.
Lots and lots of these old homes.
Some more hidden than others.
Beautiful homes, usually with nasty secrets. Secrets like small, dinky rooms, with window air conditioners, hot in the summer and cold in the winter.
But...still beautiful. Many have horrible signs in front telling us things we don't want, or need, to know.
I believe I mentioned the oak trees. There was one smaller than this outside the restaurant last night which was documented to be around in 1636. God only knows all this guy's seen...and for how long.
Strange place this New Iberia. Can't help but wonder what the old one was like. We came back from the Tabasco plant and decided we'd like a little cool libation, so we went looking for a sports bar so I could have a Rocky Cola and Bob his usual Diet Coke. Couldn't find one! We rode up and down the main drag. The "biker" bar we'd noticed last night between the police calls for helmets, was closed. The sports bar I'd noticed early last evening was closed. Man, it was Saturday afternoon about 3:00 p.m. You can't spit without hitting a screen with a football game on it, and the sports bars of New Iberia are closed? What in the world is going on here? And it's full of roughnecks and platform workers. Something ain't right here...it ain't fittin', it just ain't fittin'.
Finally giving up on twelve screens, Bobby and I decided on the Chilli's. Can you possibly get more commercial than that? Showing four screens, two football, one NASCAR, and one baseball game. Gives one time to pause to contemplate which is more boring, going around in circles, or gonad scratchin'. My vote's hung on this one.
Had a couple of Rocky Colas and a decent hamburger and did what all old guys do after such a meal: went back to the hotel for a nap. Fortunately, the Chilli's was adjacent to the hotel so one doesn't have fully don the armor to ride across a parking lot.
I'm pretty sure Bobby didn't wear his helmet at all.
Having fully recharged batteries, we decided to check out a local establishment. Evidently, Gustav or Ike caused a little damage. I thought we were going in to hear a program from humorist, Art Buchwald, but couldn't have been more wrong.
That's the better side of me here, putting away my HELMET, and donning the nice $18 red, with torn visor Tabasco hat purchased earlier in the day. That's when you recognize the marketeers have taken over the world; when you pay $18 for a hat that's intentionally made to look old and worn. What the hell, they've been doing it to blue jeans for a generation or longer.
Anyway, it wasn't a Texas bar. How do you tell if you're in a Texas bar? Easy, they frisk you at the door; if you don't have a gun, they give you one.
A few lemonades later we made it back to the motel. I think Bobby actually wore a helmet back. Of course, we had to pass the gauntlet of cops just up the street.
Tomorrow: Hopefully, Herbert's (that's "A-Bears) in Houma, then New Orleans.
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