This weeks update…..

Sarah and Craig came to visit us last Thursday. They left yesterday morning to go back to Iowa.  It was a nice visit. I’m glad they came.

On Sunday, the word around town was that the largest oil platform ever made was going to be taken out to the Gulf of Mexico. So, being Sunday and nothing better to do, we decided to go take a look. It was supposed to leave the port around 6:30 or so, so we went down at 7:30am because it would take a while to get there. This is what came up the ship channel:

It was very large, pulled by a large tug and pushed by another tugboat.  If you look real close on the red base of the platform just to the left of the white numbers you can see a couple men. This was pretty big. There were people everywhere watching it go out. This picture is of it as it was leaving the channel and going out into the Gulf.

As we were sitting around waiting for this one to leave, people around us were talking about the “second one” that would be coming. So we went back to the other side of the channel and saw this after several hours of watching it SLOWLY come up the channel: This one was HUGE! It had 5 tug boats around it pushing or pulling it. It reminded me of a giant mechanical bug. It was really amazing to watch this thing go up the channel. And to wonder about the engineering that is behind it and the amount of money it had to take to build this thing. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why the gas prices go up! This is the legs to the other one that was the top of the platform. The name of this platform is the Murphy-Thunder Hawk and it is supposed to be the biggest oil platform in the world after it is erected and pumping oil. It was made by Kewiut

Here’s a couple more pics of it. One of Al clowning around like always and another of some of the people watching it to really tell you how large this thing was.

Saturday we went to the Crazy Cajun restaurant to eat a shrimp boil.  Of course, you just eat it with your fingers. It was a mess, but very very good. We had shrimp, crab legs, crawfish, new potatoes, corn and sausage.

Spring break has started here. It’s really not too bad yet, but it’s a bit crazy some places on the beach. Here are a couple that we took yesterday late afternoon. The girls just walk along the road and lift their tops for beads. And of course each pickup or car has their own stereo up loud, so it' even sounds crazy. I felt a bit old driving down there. And of course the guys are all looking at each car to see if there is some chick in it to oogle. I’m sure they were sorely disappointed to see Al and I!

Today Al finally got to go fishing. He caught a few but nothing that he kept. The pelicans just hang around ready for any handouts and it was funny when they just about mauled Al to get to one fish he caught.  He threw it back and one of them jumped into the water and gobbled it up.  We also saw a Portuguese Man of War floating along in the water.  We see them on the beach every morning, but I’ve never seen one in the water. They are a kind of jelly fish and they will sting you. We see them all the way from 1” long to 8 or 10” long on the beach. This one in the picture was very large, probably 8 or 10”

OH! I almost forgot! Al was taking Roxie for a walk after dark the other night. He was up by the office in the campground and felt what he thought was a grasshopper land on the side of his ankle. He looked down and saw this:

 

He brushed it off and he felt a burning on his ankle. I looked it up because I had heard they could be bad, and I found this site amongst many about them:

http://www.toddshikingguide.com/FloraFauna/Fauna80.htm

The one that he saw was 6 or 7” long. Very scary! But it didn’t bit or sting him, he just got brushed by the body, and by the next morning all the swelling was gone.

Interesting things down here. More later…..