Day 27 - Lafayette to New Orleans, Louisiana

We had lots of high hopes for today. Early start, visit to a nearby huge garden locals call the jungle, maybe arrive early in New Orleans and do something memorable for the evening. Didn't happen. Oh, we got to New Orleans alright. But we didn't have much time to wander around before getting here. The problem was the sewer tank. Most times you just hope that it doesn't require any work and you can successfully dump the sucker each morning without much in the way of trouble. Well today that wishing came to naught.

We usually roll out of camp each morning around 9:00 a.m., sometimes as late as 9:30. That allows us to get up around 7:00, have a leisurely breakfast, do the dishes, make the bed, generally tidy up the rig, and stow all the gear. Of course, stowing all the gear involves reeling in the electrical cable, disengaging the fresh water line, taking the truck off whatever elevating blocks that might have been required, and dumping and backflushing the sewer tanks.

We had done each and every one of these tasks this morning and I was ready to roll by 9:00 a.m. That's when I noticed that the sewer tank had not responded to my procedure and evacuated properly. Soooooo, I dragged out the flexible sewer pipe and hooked it up again. Then I hooked up the fresh water flush hose to give it some extra incentive to dump (I always do this if I have water hookup). After everything was in place I went through the dump procedure for a second time.

Nothing happened.

It was at this point that my visions of spending the day just meandering and wandering our way to New Orleans went right out the proverbial window. With a sigh, I took Concetta's suggestion and hoofed it back to the KOA office to see if they could recommend a RV fix-it guy who might make house calls.

"Sure," the KOA clerk said, "I was just texting him. He's coming over her anyway on another call."

"What sort of time frame might we be expecting," I asked.

"Well," the clerk said, "Don't really know. Might be he'd be able to get to you this morning. Or....he might not get to you until this afternoon."

Perfect, I thought, and trudged back to the RV to wait the appearance of the repair man.

Incredibly, it was only about 15 minutes later that the repair man showed up. I was impressed! I found out later that he had for some reason moved me to the top of the repair list. Don't know why. The repair man, a tall, slender chap named, of all things, Bubba, seemed to know just what needed to be done. Using a variety of tools I wish I was carrying myself, he managed to clear the blockage, flush the tank, and have us in tip top shape in about an hour. In addition Bubba recommended tools that I should buy and carry, as well as substances I should be using in the tank.

Considering Bubba was providing curb-side service, the tab didn't come to much, not even as much as I had expected. While paying the bill at the office, I went ahead and purchased not only the substances Bubba had recommeded, but decided to take the opportunity to pick up the 30 amp cable extension that I had been wanting.

Even though we had come to a happy ending, it was almost 11:00 a.m. before we cleared the park gates. This didn't leave us much time to do the day's shopping, have lunch, visit at least one point of interest, and get ourselves to New Orleans in an expeditious fashion.

So, in the end, the one point of interest we felt compelled to visit (mostly because our son Rob told us to) was the McIlenny Tabasco company on Avery Island on the Gulf. While I'm not, and never have been, a Tabasco user, I'm always up for a new adventure. So it was that we headed off down route 90 which headed essentially southeast from LaFayette, Louisiana, and used Concetta's IPhone to guide us to the one and only Tabasco company in the entire world (who knew that Tabasco was a company brand). By lunch time we were sitting in the parking lot having lunch with an eye towards 1:30 p.m. for the official tour of the company.

I have to say that I have been on better tours. Still, We got to hear a short history of the company, see a few of the 750,000 bottles of Tabasco bottled each day run by our viewing window, and listen to a tour guide with the world's screechiest voice tell the story of how Tabasco is "aged" in used whiskey barrels for three years. After that they take another 28 days to turn it into something that will shake out of those tiny bottles.

We learned that most Tabasco peppers of the capsicum variety are grown in central and south America for the longer growing season. The peppers that come from Avery Island are grown specifically for their seeds, which are then sent south to grow the actual pepper plants for the product.

The Tabasco company got started right after the Civil War and the recipe has been the same for all these years. Of course now the company produces other flavors of Tabasco under the Tabasco trade name that were not available back then. Basically, the historic recipe is mostly capsicum peppers, vinegar, and a small amount of salt. I was surprised to learn that there is a salt mine right on the Tabasco property that has been around since the earliest days and was the reason that Avery Island was invaded by Union soldiers during the Civil War. The north wanted to deny the salt to the Southern Confederacy.

One last bit of trivia. Our guide informed us that the salt dome from which the company mines the salt used in the Tabasco process is as deep in the ground as Mt. Everest is tall. Now that's DEEP!

Tomorrow we're headed into New Orleans and plan to stay here another night. Not sure what kind of adventures that will be coming our way, so stay tuned.