May 28 – “Day 25: Into the Cajun Bayou”

After our whirlwind evening tour of New Orleans, we got up early to make our reservation to enter into the mysterious Cajun bayou of Louisiana.  Yep.  Swamp tour extraordinaire.  We saw lots of alligators.  Birds.  Nests.  Raccoons.  Squirrels.  But the best of all was our tour guide.  He spoke Cajun.  Didn’t really matter what he said.  He was just fun to listen to.  He told us all about the wildlife of the bayou.  He even had samples of the snakes (dead) and leeches (alive, but in a jar) and gars (his samples were dead, but we saw plenty in the water).  But he didn’t stop there.  AnnaGrace got to pet a baby alligator (well, we all did, actually, but she was really excited to.  Luke wanted to hold one, but that didn’t happen.  Guess you have to go to the Everglades for that experience).  Zak got yelled at for getting too up close and personal with an alligator sunning on the bank next to the docks.  Oh, and we picked up a straggler.  Puppet gator.  I couldn’t help it.  Cuteness overload.

 

The rest of our day was spent on the road.  We drove (and by “we” I mean Chris) all the way across southern Louisiana, hit Texas, and slid onto the ferry for the last leg home.  We all saw some dolphins, so that was a harbinger of even more good times to come.  We stopped by Whataburger on the way home to further celebrate being back in Texas.  As Zak described it in his family worship prayer, “Good Texas food.”  And finally we pulled into the driveway.  Home at last.  And imagine our surprise when we found our fridge stocked with milk and eggs and even some sweet tea all made.  Not to mention the muffin mixes, pineapples and bananas on the counter.  We have some great kids. 

 

And speaking of kids, we still had Josh and his family in tow.  They are sticking around for a few days, so the vacation is technically not over yet.  We’ll come up with some fun stuff to do with them and the rest of the cousins before they hit the road for the last leg of their journey as well.

 

Lots of miles.  Lots of new experiences.  Lots of memories.  Let’s do it again …

 

John 3:17 says, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”

 

Father, thank you for the sum total of experience these last few weeks.  It has indeed been memory-making overload.  Amen.