Bon Temps and the Bayou

When describing to my co-workers in London where I was going in the US, I would tell them that it was like the town of Bon Temps (which means Good Times) on the TV show "True Blood".










They actually shoot most of it in Los Angeles, but they shoot some location work up in Shreveport, Louisiana, which is just a little further north than Lafayette.






Tony's family lives in Cecilia, which is a little town just south of Lafayette. It is right on the waterway Bayou Teche, and borders a town called Breaux Bridge, which is named for the bridge that is right in the center of town.





Both towns grew up around the Bayous, which in the early days were important avenues for trade.

Tony laughs at me, as I like to walk down to the Bayou, which he takes for granted, but I think of as a unique place (remember, I grew up in Los Angeles where the only waterways were those lined with concrete).




It is a very unique and picturesque area.

One day, at sunset, the light was almost magical coming off the bayou. I walked around taking snaps and listening to the quiet noises of nature.



The colors were very different from the blues and greys one sees in London.

Tony always describes his backyard as being the community cemetery, which it is. I always find it interesting to see all of the aboveground crypts that they have down in that part of the country.






Sugar Cane and Rice are the main crops down here. In a lot of the Lafayette area, one can still find beautiful sugar cane fields. Sadly, little by little, they are being dug up and replaced by housing developements.






The other big crop (if you can call it that) is raising crawfish. You can find large crawfish ponds out in the Cecilia/Breaux Bridge area. Breaux Bridge calls itself the "Crawfish Capitol of the World".















You can even find wild crawfish digging their little stacks in grass fields. Tony has been very happy to discover that he can get crawfish in the UK as they raise them in Northern England and in Sweden. In fact, when we visited Sweden, it was at the height of their Crawfish Season.

Pecans are also a wild crop as many people have these huge Pecan trees growing in their yards. Many small businesses pay people to collect the pecans from their yards and deliver it to them. They in turn shell them and sell them. When we immigrated to the UK, we brought a whole bag of Louisiana Pecans from Tony's yard. They're almost all gone now.