Louisiana is like a whole other state

I went to the Mudbug Festival in Shreveport this weekend with a friend from work. Mudbug is another, less classy name for the Crawfish. The actual festival was smaller than I was imagining...I guess any comparisons to the Texas State Fair should not have been made in my mind. But the food, oh my. Booths and booths of things steamed and stewed and fried and smothered in cajun sauce. I had red beans and rice and hamburger (I'm not really the seafood lover) and Dip'n Dots. I did taste some fried alligator and I had several bites of the boiled crawfish...not too bad! I'm not saying there really needs to be a festival for them, but not bad at all.

This is a pile of mudbug shells. Disgusting looking, I know. The corn and potatoes that were served with them were possibly the best I have ever eaten.

Now I was so hot about 5pm. But after seeing those poor men cooking over the huge vats of steaming crawfish, I had to stop complaining. It takes dedication to share your crawfish love with the world.

Okay, I may have grown up only 50 minutes from the Louisiana border, but I felt almost as if I were in another country. And we were in north Louisiana. Imagine if I had traveled to the coast of Acadia. These are a few of the oddities I noticed:

1. The accents - There was a cajun guy who came up to the table we were at. He started talking to us, but it was a full minute until I could half-way understand what he was saying. It turned out he was only saying "Your red beans and rice sure do look good." But what I heard was The Waterboy assistant coach, "Yoourn red beenz n rizze surre dough luk good, un huh."

2. Drive through daiquiri barns - Come on! A little shack selling a very strong 20 oz frozen daiquiri with all kinds of liquor for only $6! And like the piece of tape covering the straw hole is really going to stop anyone from drinking and driving.

3. Dressing up 2 giant mudbugs as Santa and Mrs. Claws...in May! I'll let the picture speak for itself.