This was definitely the highlight of our trip home. We decided to not go toward New Orleans, but instead hang around in Louisiana for the day and do a late afternoon swamp tour and then head all the way home the next day. We went on our swamp tour in Breaux Bridge, LA, the crawfish capital of the world. We were on a swamp and a bayou off of Lake Martin, this area's cypress swamp was created and remains as it is because of the levee maintained around lake martin by the state. At the visitors center in Breaux Bridge before the tour we learned how crawfish make thier homes and saw crawfish houses under the bridge and had a picnic along a section of river that had a miniature drawbridge. Our guide was very knowledgable both about the native plants and animals and birds as well as about the invasive species that are in the swamp. There were nine of us on the boat. We saw alligators, dragonflies (which eat all the mosquitos--there were NO, ZILCH mosquitos on the whole tour), Cormorants, Black crowned Night Herons, Great Blue Herons, many other nesting birds, frogs as tiny as your pinky fingernail, amazing spiders, an alligator nest, and lots of alligators! Thank you to our guide for this wonderful 2.5 hours! On the way home we went through Mississippi, we missed seeing you Terry and Aaron, but glad you had a fun trip....We stopped to visit the Ave Maria Grotto in Cullman, AL before we arrived safely home. It was close to sunset, so the glass at the Grotto was pretty. The kids liked the castle with the dragon underneath. It is amazing what one man started and created. We bought one of the beeswax candles that the monks make to burn for our baby's birth. The kids also liked the "chipmunk crossing" and the mysterious cat that followed us around with gorgeous green eyes.....There are more photos of this portion of our trip on flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eastofthebox
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