For a finishing touch to my new, romance novel, “Breaking Faith,” I will be returning to New Iberia, the little town where my new murder, mystery novel will take place. I visited Louisiana originally to find a town where my murders in “Breaking Faith” could take place. We chose New Iberia. We rented a car and drove down the Bayou Teche until we came to a town named New Iberia. There, I chose the spot where the murders would take place, drove the streets of New Iberia, researched its beers and southern habits. We visited Cajun towns to pick up their language and lore. It’s all there in my new novel, “Breaking Faith,” which will be out in October. I’m through with the novel and wished to go back and revisit New Iberia to see if everything that I saw then was true to my book. My husband and I will drive along the Bayou Teche, through New Iberia’s neighborhoods, its cane fields, etc.
The first time we visited New Iberia, my husband and I landed at Lafayette. My husband being the pilot made it very convenient to select the city where we wanted to land. In August, we will land at Lake Front Airport near New Orleans. It’s an interesting airport because it’s next to Lake Pontchartrain, right next to the water. My husband will fly us there. We have landed at Lake Front Airport many times during out visits to New Orleans, one of our favorite cities. He will fly us there again, and as he is landing, it’s rather interesting. We have to fly very low over Lake Pontchartrain. Just before we land, I actually feel every single time that my bottom is going to get wet and I lift my hips because I feel like we’re going to touch water. That’s how close we come to the water when we land. But, it’s a fabulous experience. From there, we’ll rent a car and drive up to New Iberia on business. We’ll also visit Cajun towns and like they say that in Cajun country, things ain’t always what they seem. Things are really interesting there, very varied. Then we’ll return to New Orleans for fun and southern hospitality. My husband and I love to sit at the levee or sit at the window of our hotel and watch the ships that travel down the Mississippi River. I don’t know whether most people know that when those large ships navigate the Mississippi River , the captain of the ship has to turn over the ship to a Mississippi River pilot. The reason is simple. There are many sandbars and currents up the Mississippi River, and captains, who aren’t river pilots, don’t know where they are. The Mississippi River pilots are well grounded on the locations of those sandbars, currents and other things in the river. They will take those large ships safely through. An international captain could run his ship aground on those sandbars in the Mississippi River, and it would take him a long time to be dragged off the sandbar. In New Orleans, we would feast for a little while, eat the country’s tastiest food, pirogue through the Bayou Teche in search of alligators and other wild life, enjoy the flora of the Bayou Teche, go to the bars to listen to lovely Cajun music, go to a Cajun Fais-do-do. We will follow Plantation Road, again, where we can sleep in antebellum plantations furnished with the furniture of the period, eat southern food in the gentility and formality of the past and live for a short time the life as it was in the South then. Ya’ll come back, now. Ya hear?
