Rip Van Winkle Gardens on Jefferson Island

Today I went on an awesome 46.8 mile round trip bike ride to Jefferson Island with two of my cycling buddies. (Our goal was to bike off the previous day's Thanksgiving turkey!) We took a number of back roads that wound us through Cajun Country on some abnormally smooth surfaces for Southwest Louisiana- the city road crews must have known we were planning a ride because some of the roads were freshly paved!

Upon reaching Jefferson Island, the three of us had lunch at the cafe, wandered through the gardens, toured the Rip Van Winkle Home, and viewed the lake. The lake was of particular interest to me with how it expanded in size due to a salt mine being punctured in the 80s, thus creating a vacuum effect for sucking in neighboring water bodies and creating the present lake.

http://www.ripvanwinklegardens.com

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