Saturday, March 7, 2026

Swamp Tour Fun~ Alligators, Birds, a Sweet Racoon & More

Hello friends. Here in the DEEP SOUTH where I live Alligators are always close by! So...

A friend and I took a little overnight trip last night (FRUGAL ONE at that) and enjoyed eating, crafting and relaxing in the hotel. Then today we got up to EXPLORE THE LOUISIANA SWAMP LAND!

I don't live in Louisiana, but we are close by. We started yesterday (Friday) our travels. We enjoyed some wonderful Italian for dinner, and we were blessed with a meal!! A FREE Meal makes it even better. 



It was one of the best pasta dishes I have had at a restaurant. It was Chicken and Cheese Stuffed Tortellini. 

After our meal we went to check into our hotel to discover that they upgraded us to a LARGE SUITE for FREE! Seriously! We were actually already blessed with a very reasonable hotel rate due my husband having some points that we could apply for a very cheap night at a lovely hotel. 

After we got all settled in the room, we pulled out our craft we brought. As some of you know, I love rubber ducks, well so does she. I am also a Diamond Art crafter, so she found us these cute ducks to BEDAZZLE. 




My friend may have had an accident and hundreds of her little jewels went everywhere. LOL! We truly laughed!!!






My friend had this green color (above) and I had yellow. But I loved her color more. :) 


Aren't they just the cutest???? We had a lot of fun! It did take quite a while. We were able to catch up and have some good heart to heart conversations and crafting. 



Yes, you get to see me in my glasses and my bedtime hairdo as well as my exhausted self. I am still trying to fully recover from my sinus and ear infections. This trip one night trip was planned way in advanced sooo I had to go with it. 


After this we got ready and went to bed; we had to be up bright and early for our Swamp Tour. It was supposed to rain once we got there, BUT ONCE AGAIN the LORD BLESSED and THERE WAS NO RAIN and PERFECT WEATHER for the tour today! 



We were waiting to board our swamp boat and head into the bayou, marshland, swamp and part of a river. 


 
Right off the bat... as soon as we were getting on the boat we seen a gator. They were very active!!! We saw 20 plus on this trip. 












These are swamp houses and people live on these. YES... LIVE on them!!! 




Let me add.... if these pictures look like these gators were very close it is because they were. We were very very very close to the gators. I did not zoom in on these shots. These gators were very close to our boat. I truly could have reached out and touched some of them. 










In this picture below.... Can you see what I see??? It is not an alligator!!



We wrapped up our tour and headed to a Thrift Store. We got a few little deals. We then ended our day of exploration at Cafe De Monde which is home to the homemade famous Beignets and they were delicious.









I am now home all safe and sound!! I am cozy and catching up on blog reading. 


For those that may be curious..... Yes, I do travel and hike some with my husband BUT as a full time Bi-Vocational Pastor (that means he works a full time job outside of his pastorate on top of being full time pastor) it is hard for him to get a way and he really doesn't like to travel truly because he did it for years with work. He also does hike a little, but it is not as much as his thing as it is mine. We both have very different hobbies and interest and we support each other in them. :) 

So, TODAY he arranged a fun day without sons to skeet shoot. 

The GUYS doing THERE THING. Here are our two sons with my hubby!





Well, I know this was a long post and believe me I have so many videos and photos. Maybe one day I will share a little more. Thanks for stopping by and lasting thins long if you have....


With Love,

Chrissy T


As this gator (swamp puppy as the Cajuns call them) 

SEE YOU LATER ALLIGATOR..... After while Crocodile!


16 comments:

Billie Jo said...

Hello, my dear friend! There is so much to love here, starting with you and your friend having a fun time together! I love the idea of crafting together! That is such a good idea. And that gator tour! Thank you for the photos! Amazing! Your meal looked delicious! And the beignets???? Oh my! I am so happy you had a nice time and I hope you continue to feel better. Oh, and if only I looked that good before bed! Have a cozy Sunday!

Joanne said...

That sounds like such a wonderful getaway!

Chrissy T said...

Ha! I felt like I looked terrible. HAHA!!! Thank you so much for visiting me. It was such a nice time and now I am glad to be home. :)

Chrissy T said...

It was fun!!

Linda's Relaxing Lair said...

Looks like a wonderful time. Beautiful photos. ❤️ The green 💚 and yellow 💛 ducks are delightful. My favourite colour is green. Yellow is a cheery colour.
Thank you so much for sharing, Chrissy.

Prims By The Water said...

My granddaughter would love those ducks. Both colors turned out nice. Wonder if any of the gators growled at you being that close? Or are they use to the boat tours and are waiting for food to be dropped? I believe this is the time of year they are most active and looking for mates. Anyway, thanks for sharing your trip. Wish you could have also shared the beignet...I so love them. Janice

Mari said...

Chrissy, this is such a happy post. I'm thrilled you got to get out and do all these fun things and got a hotel upgrade too! This is my kind of getaway - nice room, talking, crafts, hikes and even the gators. Also that racoon is so cute. Now I want a beignet. :)

Jennifer said...

Wow. All I can say is wow. You had such a fun trip...and so many unexpected blessings! That is so exciting. You have to love a friend who crafts with you! But I just cannot get over those houses on the water. The alligator waters. And people live there. Much braver/hardier souls than me!!

Kim Carberry said...

It sounds like you had a great trip and what a bonus to have a free meal and the hotel upgrade!
The duck craft did make me chuckle but I love it! My eldest loves rubber ducks too and has hundreds. (all in her room though). The ducks look fabulous!
The boat trip looks like fun but I think the alligators would have scared me. Eek!

Chrissy T said...

I love our little ducks!!!

Chrissy T said...

Janice,
Those beignets were fabulous. Yes, one or two did make a hiss sound.

Chrissy T said...

The craft was def mindless but tedious fun! LOL!!!!
Yeah, a few times I was a little uncomfortable.

Red Rose Alley said...

My Jess just had cheese tortellini because we don't eat meat on Lent Fridays. I enjoy browsing through the thrift stores too, and especially when I find something to bring home. Yikes on the alligator. That's interesting that people live there on the swamp houses. Your little duckies are cute. What a creative project you and your friend worked on. My daughters have been to Louisiana, and had the best time there. I noticed you are not far away. My kids love that Louisiana food. ; )

Chrissy T said...

Yes, I am actually not the biggest fan of the food but I do like some of it. :) Louisiana has a culture like no other for sure. :)

Marilyn @ MountainTopSpice said...

OH what a fun post! I was so happy to see you had such a fun getaway with a friend, plus some crafting! The ducks were adorable! I love the laughs that happen with girl-time! And glad the guys got to have their time too! The swamp tour was quite intriguing. Wow. I can't imagine living with alligators around you! The beignets - oh my, they looked so good! What a fun trip - so happy for you to have this time to refresh :)

Chrissy T said...

Thank you!! Yes, actually a lot of places I hike I have to be very cautious this time of year. They tend to be around. I have walked up on some in a lake that I was hiking around. It is quite scary. We had a good time.

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