Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Avery Island's Jungle and Tobasco's Lore

Miles: 5518.0
Gallons Burned: 188.6
Caffeinated Drinks: 35

Sorry for the lack of chronological order in my posts. This post was composed during my diner at Pere Antoine's.
The morning after my revelation on sleep, I drove south to the world famous Tabasco Factory on Avery Island. A family by the name of McIlhenny settled here in the early 1800s and a genius created Tabasco Sauce. I really don't care for the "hot" sauce, but I was fascinated by the tour and fulfilled one of my trip's quests: Buy a gallon of Tabasco. I actually bought 2 one-gallon containers (increasing my danger in the event of a collision - "it burns, it burns!!").

As interesting as this red blooded piece of Americana was the Avery Island's Jungle Gardens was more so.
Okay, Okay. I know the constant "Asides" are getting annoying (but no more annoying than my excessive use of parentheses (it not annoying(okay maybe it is))), so how about one more, aside that is.
I am a visual dude. I love architecture, lighting, still photography when done well, and video. I love the visual arts so much that I spent all three years of my undergraduate education working for a division II football team as their video guy. I also worked for the college's video productions department. Then when I went to grad school up at Washington, I kept at it. I did 3 more seasons of football with the Huskies sports video crew and enjoyed every minute.
Here's the view from one of my locations during practice.

Clip from the USC game up in Seattle. This is where I am during games. I use a full size DVC Pro Panasonic to shoot play-by-play game action.

This picture has always stood with me. The framing is not the best, the white balance is a little hot, their is no specific point of attention, but I really love it. For me this is the breath before the plunge and a great memory. I am the shadow in the foreground.

End Aside.
Now that you know a little more about me you'll understand what a visual treat the Jungle Gardens of Avery Island were to me.
One of Tobasco's creator's sons was a naturalist who created an egret sanctuary. An egret is a big white bird that was endangered or something. The point is that there is a 250 acre Chinese-Japanese-Plantation garden in the middle of the bayous, pepper fields, and salt mines. Seriously, a genuine Asian oasis in the swamps of Louisiana.


A Blue Heron:


A little bit of Tim Burton in this spade or heart-shaped vine:

Remember the famous bamboo forests from Crouching tiger Hidden Dragon?


Reflection shots are cliche, but still cool.

There be gators about! I still have never seen one, they don't move around on cold days.


Gator tracks:

Later I'll post a New Movie Maker Project inspired by the Jungle Gardens.

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