RIP VAN WINKLE GARDENS SERIES

Jungle Garden bird sanctuary can also be found here. It’s been operating in the same place since 1868 and the factory is open for tours. Today, Avery Island is the location of the Tabasco pepper sauce company. That original sanctuary eventually became Jungle Garden. He became a naturalist and in 1895 he founded a private bird sanctuary. As a young man, he studied the plants and animals in the area. In 1872, Edmund’s son, Edward Avery “Ned” McIlhenny was born on Avery Island. In 1868, he developed the recipe for Tabasco sauce and the rest is history. Edmund McIlhenny, inspired by an earlier sauce created by another entrepreneur, experimented with making a sauce from the peppers in the Avery family garden. In 1859, Edmund McIlhenny married into the Avery family. This community owes its existence to the creation of one of the spiciest substances known to man. Over the years, the Avery family created a self sufficient community in this little corner of the world. It’s here, on this dome at the edge of Vermillion Bay that the Avery family settled and the land was named after them.

RIP VAN WINKLE GARDENS SERIES

Eventually the salt is covered over by layers of sediment and through a complex series of geologic process the land becomes a habitable place situated on top of salt rather than rock. A salt dome forms when salt-rich seawater flows into a basin, evaporates over time, leaving behind large deposits of salt. The on-site swamp added a Louisiana flair.Īvery Island is a unique place, not truly an island but a salt dome that rises slightly higher than the surrounding land.

I’m not usually one to give in to peer pressure but it’s an area we’ve never explored so we caved.Īs usual we’ve chosen a place off the beaten path to stay and the road we had to traverse to get to the park was beautiful with moss hung trees and a muddy creek running beside. This stop was not in our original plans but friends insisted that we must stop to tour Avery Island and the Tabasco Factory. This morning, we are leaving Galveston and driving to Bayou Wilderness RV Resort in Carenco, Louisiana where we plan to stay for a couple of days. You turn around and can’t believe your eyes! A giant whirlpool is opening up in the middle of the lake! In horror you watch as a huge barge is sucked into the maelstrom and your boat is heading toward the same fate.īut I digress…every story must start at the beginning. Suddenly you notice that the boat has begun to move backward, it’s picking up speed, faster and faster toward the center of the lake.

The sky is blue, the water calm, the fish are biting and life is good. In addition to the feathered residents we saw many gorgeous plants, beautifully carved sculptures, and massive live oaks – including the Cleveland Oak apparently named after President Grover Cleveland took a nap under it.You’re sitting in your little fishing boat on a lake. The day of our visit was warm and humid and so we opted out of touring the house since we were unable to leave Allie in the vehicle but we all had a lovely time strolling around the grounds and gardens where we joined (much to Allie’s delight) by dozens of wandering peacocks. Famous for his (4,500!) stage portrayals of Rip Van Winkle, he became quite wealthy and purchased the island where he built his grand hunting lodge years later a second owner created completed the surrounding gardens and named them after Rip Van Winkle. One of these surviving structures is the mansion built by actor Joseph Jefferson in 1870. Thankfully no lives were lost and most of the structures on higher ground emerged unscathed. Like Avery Island where we’d visited the birthplace of Tabasco, the land rests on huge salt deposits that extend miles below the surface but Jefferson Island is unique in that it was completely reshaped in 1980 when an oil drilling rig pierced the salt mine below, creating a massive influx of water from the Vermillion Bay and transforming the 10-foot deep freshwater Lake Peigneur into a 200-foot deep brackish body that swallowed up much of the shoreline. Our last activity before leaving southern Louisiana was a visit to Jefferson Island, another of the salt dome “islands” that rise above the southwestern delta country.

Rip van winkle gardens