honeymooners

  

  
I hadn't exactly planned on going to Breaux Bridge, Louisiana on my honeymoon, but when you call up a place like Bayou Cabins (individual cabins! on the bayou! with free boudin and cracklins upon arrival [pictured above]! and a massive crawfish decorating the front yard [also pictured above]!) and they tell you that the only cabins they have available are the Honeymoon Cabin or some inexplicably more expensive Other Cabin, well, you change your plans right quick. And we had to admit: it's hard to think of much of anything more romantic than sitting on the back porch overlooking Bayou Teche and listening to the cicadas chirp while enjoying some chilled Abita beers out of Evangeline the $2.99 styrofoam cooler (a fine purchase made at the Breaux Bridge Wal-Mart that same afternoon). I'm just not sure that my actual honeymoon will ever be able to top that level of class -- particularly when you consider the glory of the embroidered pillow we found on the Honeymoon Cabin's bed.

We spent an afternoon driving around Breaux Bridge and Henderson in search of Cajun music, ultimately finding it at Mulate's (which we rapidly dubbed "the real Merlotte's"), home of the swingin' octogenarians. Boy, could those old people dance. Before we landed at Mulate's, we had a heart-in-mouth introduction to driving on the top of the levee in Henderson, of which I have no pictures because I was too busy driving and trying not to die. (It looked a lot like this levee in Vacherie except the sides were much, much steeper.) You have to drive up and over the levee to get to any number of waterfront bars/restaurants/boat launches, you see, and we'd had a great recommendation for Cajun music at one such establishment, only to find out after we'd given up the hunt that the place was closed -- it had been flooded and wouldn't reopen until long after we'd left Louisiana. By the time we learned this we were done with driving on the levee, and I was thankful for it -- it was an experience, all right, but not one I'm much looking to repeat anytime soon.

Downtown Breaux Bridge is pretty big (it includes the aforementioned Wal-Mart), but the cute old part of downtown can be walked in right around one minute, or two if you linger and take a picture of the giant crawfish overlooking the main street -- which you should. But about fifteen minutes south of Breaux Bridge is Lake Martin, home of a shockingly high number of alligators, and also our swamp tour.