4-D Movie and Hot Stuff

Friday we drove to NOLA to see the National WW II museum which included a 4-D movie narrated by Tom Hanks.  You may be asking, "what in Sam Hill is a 4-D movie?"  The film included archived footage of WW II as well as a sensory experience when the seats we were sitting in moved and shook as tanks were rolling and bombs were exploding.  Smoke, and the smell of smoke, added to the intensity.  Snow fell on us as we watched the winter fighting action during battles in Europe, and a concentration camp guard tower rose out of the stage floor. 

This museum is an extensive display and history lesson of what led up to the war and how it changed not only the world, but the culture of our country.  Women joined the work force, and minorities took active parts in all facets of the war effort.  After Germany and Japan surrendered, things would not go back to the way they were and the Civil Rights and Equal Rights movements began. 

This experience was sobering and intense. I left the museum with a greater understanding of the history of WW II, but am still baffled at how Hitler and the Emperor of Japan could get so many people to follow them on their power seeking agenda, and not only going along with, but taking part in the horrific and brutal assault and massacre on other humans. 

Yesterday, Sunday, we spiced things up by taking a 380 mile round trip drive through Cajun Country to Avery Island, LA to tour the Tabasco pepper sauce factory.  We drove over miles and miles and miles of bridges that not only crossed rivers, but also wild swampland.  These bridges that cross the bayou and swamps are 4-lane highways built on concrete stilts. 

Avery Island is located on top of a gigantic salt dome (the size of mount Everest (or so I hear tell) and is also home to the Jungle Gardens and a colony of some 20,000 Snowy Egrets.  Cargil operates the salt mining operation.The 5th generation of the McIlhenny family still owns and operates the Tabasco Pepper Sauce factory on Avery Island, which was started post-Civil War.  Edmund McIlhenny invented and patented the sauce that is shipped to over 100 countries around the world, has been on the Space Shuttle, and has graced the dining table at the White House.

The sauce making process and history of the family business were fascinating but the best part was trying samples of the different flavored pepper sauces, pepper ice cream, pepper soda pop, chili, and pepper jelly. It was all mighty tasty and some so hot it would make a whore sweat in church on a Sunday.  Now, that thar is some Hot Stuff, HEE HAW!