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Day 4: Alas, poor Yertle
Aug. 27th, 2007 12:24 amMy title comes from the dessicated sea turtle skeleton someone (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eclectic_boy?) found hidden in the grass. The plates of its shell were dry and friable, like big flat Weetabix biscuits. I'm still kicking myself for not bringing its skull home.
We did more beach cleanup on day 4, working south and west from the ruined pier. I spent most of the morning ankle-deep in the surf, digging plastic bags out from the wet sand they were buried in (and filled with). We reached the boundary of the park, technically completing our assignment, then spent the rest of our time tidying up the shoreline of a big vernal pool, hot and shallow and home to hundreds of well-fed seabirds. It was formed when water was pushed up over a ridge of debris by Katrina, then had nowhere to drain to. And it was full of garbage. Mel and I hauled out a big freezer on the ATV with Jacob (a local volunteer, just out of high school). Before we left, we piled all our collected trash into a small hill and (those with working cameras) took photos. It was big enough that we could all stand in front of it and still feel small.
That was probably the longest unbroken block of work we did all week—we started shortly after 7AM and broke for lunch after noon—but we unexpectedly got the afternoon off, so it didn't feel too onerous. Mel let us frolic in the 90°, hurricane-spawning Gulf of Mexico for a few minutes before we left Grande Isle; I body surfed the six-foot breakers, tried to alarm the unflappable pelicans, and jumped away from the crabs I was constantly stepping on.crystalpyramid, alas, lost her glasses in the surf, and the heavily silted water meant there was no chance of finding them. We had fun anyway.
We were supposed to uproot some magnolias that had rooted through their pots and into the ground, but the owners weren't ready for us, so instead we spent the afternoon goofing off: we explored the geodesic and curiously butterfly-free Butterfly Dome, hiked a birding "trail" that was so overgrown we were tempted to fetch our machetes, and ate snowballs at a roadside stand. A snowball is similar to a snow cone, but the regional variation puts a blob of soft ice cream in the middle, and tops it all off with a drizzle of sticky-sweet condensed milk that eats down into the shaved ice like acid in an Alien movie. Mel was amused and/or dismayed by the amount of picayune debateadfamiliares and I, who were planning to share one, managed to have while waiting to order: "It's up to you." "No, did you want a medium?" "Okay, we've narrowed it down to sour cherry or peppermint." "Wait, what's 'frog in a blender'?" We can go for hours.
That night, I had the best meal I'd had all week. Maybe all year. We asked Jacob to recommend a local fine dining establishment, and he sent us to B&E Seafood in Cut Off. ("I wouldn't call it 'fine dining,'" he said. "I mean, it's no Chili's.") B&E was exactly what I'd been hoping to find when we planned this trip—fresh-caught seafood, plastic checkered tablecloths, walls covered with old photos of the extended family and their boats. The waitress called me "babe." I ordered a crawfish pirogue ("PEE-row"), which is—wait! First you have to know that a pirogue is a kind of flat-bottomed boat that Cajuns fish out of. The edible version is cognate with our submarine sandwiches, but instead of the roll being sliced a square hole is dug into it, and the hole is filled with a creamy, cheesy crawfish étouffée. Oh my God. We got two orders of fried crab claws for the table, and immediately had to order a third, they were so good. (Imagine: you're holding the hard, spiky "thumb" of a crab, and the joint behind it is mounded with crab meat, which has been breaded and fried. You eat it like an artichoke leaf: close your teeth around the meat and pull. Then die happy. Our excellent waitress sensed that we couldn't make up our minds about dipping sauces, so she just brought all of them. She was training to be a preschool teacher, and couldn't've been sweeter. Did I mention we left a 30% tip?) They only had one dessert to choose between, but it was beautiful: hot brownie, ice cream, pecan-laden praline sauce. It was like pecan pie with a brownie crust. Even the red cream soda I ordered to wash things down seemed like the perfect drink, the only possible accompaniment.
That night, we somehow convinced Mel to play the name game, and for some reason put giant salad bowls on our heads and bonged them. I told Mel about the two bikini girls I'd seen beside the road on the way to dinner, climbing out of ice chests. There was a lot of hysteria. Excellent night.
Coming tomorrow: our last "day" of work, and the luxury of sleeping in until 6AM!
(Footnote: Looking up snowball and pirogue on Wikipedia, I discovered an odd linguistic congruence. In Puerto Rico, snow cones are called "piragua", which is the Spanish word "pirogue" derives from. The snow cone discussion page explains that this is because the block of ice, as it is shaved, looks more and more like a canoe. So, in a sense, some of us had two very different pirogues that day!)
eclectic_boy?) found hidden in the grass. The plates of its shell were dry and friable, like big flat Weetabix biscuits. I'm still kicking myself for not bringing its skull home.We did more beach cleanup on day 4, working south and west from the ruined pier. I spent most of the morning ankle-deep in the surf, digging plastic bags out from the wet sand they were buried in (and filled with). We reached the boundary of the park, technically completing our assignment, then spent the rest of our time tidying up the shoreline of a big vernal pool, hot and shallow and home to hundreds of well-fed seabirds. It was formed when water was pushed up over a ridge of debris by Katrina, then had nowhere to drain to. And it was full of garbage. Mel and I hauled out a big freezer on the ATV with Jacob (a local volunteer, just out of high school). Before we left, we piled all our collected trash into a small hill and (those with working cameras) took photos. It was big enough that we could all stand in front of it and still feel small.
That was probably the longest unbroken block of work we did all week—we started shortly after 7AM and broke for lunch after noon—but we unexpectedly got the afternoon off, so it didn't feel too onerous. Mel let us frolic in the 90°, hurricane-spawning Gulf of Mexico for a few minutes before we left Grande Isle; I body surfed the six-foot breakers, tried to alarm the unflappable pelicans, and jumped away from the crabs I was constantly stepping on.
crystalpyramid, alas, lost her glasses in the surf, and the heavily silted water meant there was no chance of finding them. We had fun anyway.We were supposed to uproot some magnolias that had rooted through their pots and into the ground, but the owners weren't ready for us, so instead we spent the afternoon goofing off: we explored the geodesic and curiously butterfly-free Butterfly Dome, hiked a birding "trail" that was so overgrown we were tempted to fetch our machetes, and ate snowballs at a roadside stand. A snowball is similar to a snow cone, but the regional variation puts a blob of soft ice cream in the middle, and tops it all off with a drizzle of sticky-sweet condensed milk that eats down into the shaved ice like acid in an Alien movie. Mel was amused and/or dismayed by the amount of picayune debate
adfamiliares and I, who were planning to share one, managed to have while waiting to order: "It's up to you." "No, did you want a medium?" "Okay, we've narrowed it down to sour cherry or peppermint." "Wait, what's 'frog in a blender'?" We can go for hours.That night, I had the best meal I'd had all week. Maybe all year. We asked Jacob to recommend a local fine dining establishment, and he sent us to B&E Seafood in Cut Off. ("I wouldn't call it 'fine dining,'" he said. "I mean, it's no Chili's.") B&E was exactly what I'd been hoping to find when we planned this trip—fresh-caught seafood, plastic checkered tablecloths, walls covered with old photos of the extended family and their boats. The waitress called me "babe." I ordered a crawfish pirogue ("PEE-row"), which is—wait! First you have to know that a pirogue is a kind of flat-bottomed boat that Cajuns fish out of. The edible version is cognate with our submarine sandwiches, but instead of the roll being sliced a square hole is dug into it, and the hole is filled with a creamy, cheesy crawfish étouffée. Oh my God. We got two orders of fried crab claws for the table, and immediately had to order a third, they were so good. (Imagine: you're holding the hard, spiky "thumb" of a crab, and the joint behind it is mounded with crab meat, which has been breaded and fried. You eat it like an artichoke leaf: close your teeth around the meat and pull. Then die happy. Our excellent waitress sensed that we couldn't make up our minds about dipping sauces, so she just brought all of them. She was training to be a preschool teacher, and couldn't've been sweeter. Did I mention we left a 30% tip?) They only had one dessert to choose between, but it was beautiful: hot brownie, ice cream, pecan-laden praline sauce. It was like pecan pie with a brownie crust. Even the red cream soda I ordered to wash things down seemed like the perfect drink, the only possible accompaniment.
That night, we somehow convinced Mel to play the name game, and for some reason put giant salad bowls on our heads and bonged them. I told Mel about the two bikini girls I'd seen beside the road on the way to dinner, climbing out of ice chests. There was a lot of hysteria. Excellent night.
Coming tomorrow: our last "day" of work, and the luxury of sleeping in until 6AM!
(Footnote: Looking up snowball and pirogue on Wikipedia, I discovered an odd linguistic congruence. In Puerto Rico, snow cones are called "piragua", which is the Spanish word "pirogue" derives from. The snow cone discussion page explains that this is because the block of ice, as it is shaved, looks more and more like a canoe. So, in a sense, some of us had two very different pirogues that day!)
