Saturday Lauren arranged a swamp tour. I love the swamps; it’s one of my happy places I go to in my mind when I’m experiencing pain or anxiety. We chose this tour because it was super Cajun and they give the best tours. It was a beautiful day.
I had watched a documentary on a cursed swamp about a month before the trip. A voodoo priestess named Julia Brown was upset that the new German settlers were cutting down the Cypress trees, causing the land to erode, making everyone’s property smaller. She is said to have sung songs on her porch, specifically one that said when she died she was taking the whole town with her. During her funeral, a massive hurricane hit and destroyed the town, killing everyone except for three people who made it onto the train trestle. Some people say the swamp is still cursed. They didn’t find all of the bodies, so there are also stories about hauntings.
This is a longer video if you are interested.
I didn’t even realize we were in the cursed Manchec Swamp until I saw this cemetery. This is rumored to be the people who were at Julia Brown’s funeral, so their bodies were found.
This is said to be the grave of Julia Brown, but people say it is just for tourists, and she was buried somewhere in an unmarked grave.
Some people are surprised when I tell them how beautiful swamps are.
They had a baby alligator and some turtles for us to check out. The tape around the gator’s mouth comes on and off easily and doesn’t hurt him. Turtles are Bob’s spirit animal.
I got kind of obsessed with this gator, and I was leaning out of the boat taking pictures. It was making Bob nervous, and he kept telling me to stop. Finally the tour guide snapped at me to get back in the boat. That made me lean back in really fast. I didn’t know there was a crab trap hanging next to me where I was sitting in the corner of the boat. When I jumped back, I hit the trap and it swung around and hit me in the back. I thought the alligator had jumped on me!
More gators
Ed took a video of people feeding marshmallows to the alligators.