Swamp tour, with gators

As part of my vacation, I went on a Cajun Encounters swamp tour with my family. The pictures really say it all.

My one-year-old niece, all suited up and ready for the swamp tour.

Headed into the fire swamp.

Swamp near the Pearl River, Louisiana.

Gator.

See the gator?

There he is.

Meet Big Al.



I would just like to point out that the alligators completely ignored the marshmallows the tour guide used as bait, ate the hot dogs with disdain, but really went nuts for pieces of raw chicken. Let this be a lesson to us all: even large reptiles with brains the size of peanuts know the difference between junk food and real food.

Also, that's about as close as I ever care to be to a ten-foot alligator.

No, I'm not dead

I know I haven't posted anything interesting in a while, but nothing particularly interesting has happened. Work, garden, etc. DH has been working late quite a lot. My tomatoes are starting to produce, and I should have ripe ones in a couple of weeks. Got a zucchini and a handful of green beans out of the garden over the weekend. I know, yawn.

BUT!

We'll be on vacation very soon...so expect hot and sexy posts from N'awlins, dripping with hot sauce and Abita beer. If we don't both gain 20 pounds by the time we return, something has gone very wrong.

I got a haircut!

Yesterday, I chopped six inches off my hair and I totally love it.

I also learned something important about my hair: any longer than shoulder-length, and it gets so heavy that it pulls all the curl right out. Its previous length (middle of my back) had just enough wave to make it unruly, but was otherwise bone-straight. I was tired of it, and bored, and wanted something different, and so went into the hair salon where they gave me two suggestions: chop it to shoulder length and let it do what it wants, or go with a straight-hair-with-heavy-bangs thing.

I opted for shoulder-length, and I'm so glad I did. Immediately my head felt 10 pounds lighter, and today all the natural curl has returned: a beautiful loose beach-wave curl that is exactly as low-maintenance as I wanted it to be.

Vacation, here I come!

Mystery mushroom

Does anyone know what kind of mushroom this is? I found three of them, in different colors, under a bush in the front yard. They're HUGE--the size of my head. Don't worry, I won't try to eat them unless somebody tells me they're edible.