Fluffy Goes Cajun

Hi Kids,

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I just got back from Louisiana -- and I'm still so mad at Miss Elaine I could just growl! You know how she's always taking my picture getting stuffed in some animal's mouth? Well, this time it was a REAL animal! Can you believe she let that alligator crawl on my lap? I couldn't either. One of these days, I'm going to bite her!

We were at an Acadian village in Lafayette. The Acadians were French people who were living in Canada in the early 1800s. The French and the English fought over the territory and the English won. They kicked the French Acadians out of Canada -- kind of like the Indian Trail of Tears. They had to leave everything they had behind and often families were split up.

Many of the Acadians wound up in Louisiana because they heard there were French people here. Over the years, the name Acadian got shortened to 'Cadian then Cajun. They still speak French and they play old-timey music in Cajun style.

I got to hear lots of Cajun music on this trip and even met some of the musicians.

I hope you have a good summer! I'll miss you but I will have another class to tell about my travels next year!

Love,

Fluffy

Fluffy Visits the Capitol

Hi Kids,

Last week I visited the capitol in the capital. Do you know the difference in these two words? The capitol is a cool building. Out in front you can see a statue called "As Long As the Waters Run" and on top of the building is "The Guardian." Both of these sculptures were made by Indian artists.

I got to meet Governor Fallin. I thought she was very pretty. And I think she thought I was cute!

There are lots of neat things to see in the capitol. I love looking up at the dome. Miss Elaine laid down on her back so she could take this shot. Sometimes she embarrasses me!

This is the fourth floor rotunda. You can see part of the dome and some of the paintings around it. Below is one of my favorites. It shows Oklahoma's five Indian ballerinas. The artist is an Indian, too.

There are lots of paintings in the building and in the basement, there's an art gallery with more paintings, pottery and sculpture. Maybe this summer you can visit the capitol, too.

Love,

Fluffy

Fluffy Goes to L.A.

Hi Kids,

My last trip was to L.A. Did you think I meant Los Angeles? Wrong! In this part of the world, it means Lower Alabama. Look at a map. Do you see that little chunk of the state that crowds in between Florida and Mississippi on the Gulf coast? That's where I was.

This is a picture of me on the bed in our bedroom at the Grand Hotel and Resort on Mobile Bay. We could look out our window and see the boats in the marina. As you can tell from the picture at the top, the grounds were beautiful.

Mobile Bay spills into the Gulf of Mexico. We saw lots of pelicans -- I think they look like pterodactyls! Miss Elaine knows a poem that starts "A wonderful bird is the pelican. It's beak can hold more than its belly can!"

We visited several little towns in the area. I found a friend in Fairhope.

In Foley we went to a railroad museum where they had a really neat room with model trains. Besides trains, there were a lot of cool things there. At the little tiny fire station, you could see through the windows at firemen sliding down the pole. Then the garage door went up and the little fire truck came out and drove down the street to a building on fire. There was also a little drive-in restaurant where a tiny car pulled up to the window to order! If you look carefully in the middle of the picture, you can see a man -- that will help you see how big this train set-up was!
We rode through the Foley rose gardens in another train -- a little bigger than the ones in the model. Dave Ramey drove the train and posed with me for this picture.

In the town of Magnolia Springs, we went down by the Magnolia River. People who live on the river have their mail delivered by boat.

Later we went with a naturalist to see these interesting plants. They are carnivorous. Do you know what that means? In this picture you can see that the plants have several parts. The flowers are those pretty dark red and green things. The green and white cone-shaped things are actually leaves. They are specially designed to trap insects.

There was a stuffed alligator in the Nature Center. Miss Elaine thought it would be funny if it looked like the alligator was eating me. I didn't think it was very funny and I refused to speak to her for several minutes.

To be continued......

Love,

Fluffy

Bear-y Scary Times

Hi Kids,

I can't believe it's been a month since I've blogged. Time flies and soon school will be out! I've been on another trip but I haven't finished telling you about my last one yet! So here's a little more about my San Antonio trip.

At the top of this post is Miss Eva from the San Antonio Convention and Visitors' Bureau with me. She sent each of you a pencil -- which Miss Elaine needs to bring you!

This is me with Chef Donald Hoffman. We had breakfast with him at the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel. He gave us some of his special seasoned salt -- yum.

This is Miss Elaine and Chef Rudy at the Culinary Institute of America. We were learning how to make some dishes that people might have eaten in Texas many years ago. And they still like it now. Miss Elaine is making a salsa verde -- that's Spanish for green sauce -- using a stone molcajete to crush the tomatillos. Next time she'll use a blender!

And this is me in my chef's toque. They let me wear it but they wouldn't let me cook!

One of the best things we did was go to Sea World. And do you know who else was there? Jungle Jack Hanna was there and he brought lots of animals with him. He REALLY liked me!

This was the scary part. We went to his dressing room after his show and he had two cheetahs running loose. Their names are Bella and Jacob and they are five months old. They looked like big kitties. I got in Miss Elaine's bag. I didn't want them to think I was a play toy!

Then we went to the Shamu show. That wasn't scary -- just a little wet when the whale hit the water!

Love,

Fluffy

Cruisin' Down the River

Hi Kids,

Well, I've been on the road again -- finally! Miss Elaine and I left last Thursday for San Antonio, Texas. And it wasn't easy. We left early for the airport and got there only to find out that our plane was indefinitely delayed. BUT there was another flight leaving in only ten minutes. We ran to the gate and were able to get on that plane. We felt so smart! Then we sat on the tarmac, and sat, and sat. Finally, the pilot's voice came over the intercom, "Sorry, folks, we can't take off because the Houston airport is shut down because of fog." We had to fly to Houston to get to San Antonio. Look at the map -- this doesn't make any sense! But that's the way the airline routed us.

We finally took off, arriving in Houston three minutes after our connecting flight left. Because the airport had been shut down, all the flights were messed up. We couldn't get another flight to San Antonio -- all the seats on all the flights were filled for the rest of the day.

We didn't know what we were going to do until the people picking us up at the San Antonio airport called and said, If you can get on a flight to Austin, we'll drive there and pick you up." And that's what we did. After we got to Austin, it was a little over an hour's drive to San Antonio. We got there just in time to join our group for a relaxing dinner cruise on the San Antonio River.

At the top, that's me with the captains of our two boats. The San Antonio River used to be a big muddy ditch which occasionally flooded. Back in the 40s (I think) the city put in flood control dams and made the river beautiful. Now it competes with the Alamo as the number one attraction in San Antonio. And it inspired people in Oklahoma City to build the Bricktown Canal.

This is a picture of our boat as we boarded. We started our dinner with a spinach salad. We also had salmon (I bet they knew that bears love salmon), rice and broccoli. For dessert there was a big piece of chocolate cake. I was very careful not to get any frosting on my fur!

Here's some video Miss Elaine took from the boat. You can see the pretty lights and all the people on the sides of the river walking or eating. It is a very lively place with lots of restaurants and shops. You can also hear the captain telling us about the sights along the river.

Love,

Fluffy

Fluffy Meets Fidget

Hi Kids,
I can't tell you how boring it's been at my house. I've been sitting in the bedroom for two months now -- just looking at the suitcase and wondering when I'm going to get to go somewhere again. Miss Elaine always has the same excuse, "I'm working on the book." So we haven't been anywhere. But I never shared this video with you from our trip to St. Louis, so I made her help me post it. We were at the St. Louis Zoo which is just about our favorite zoo of all time. Ask me if I really got to meet Fidget. No! He was afraid of me so I had to get in the bag -- then he was afraid of the bag! So I had to sit in a corner -- but I peeked out a little bit. I hope you enjoy the video. Do you think you can find out where Magellenic penguins live -- besides the zoo?
Love,
Fluffy

Where is Fluffy?

Hi Kids,

I bet you thought I was hibernating! It's been over a month since I've written. Sorry! I personally blame Miss Elaine who is working on a book and hasn't been traveling. But she never helped me tell you about my last trip to New Mexico.

We went to see art and artists of the northeastern part of the state -- Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Chimayo and Taos. We saw a lot of churches and a lot of religious art. The Spanish were the first settlers in New Mexico -- after the Indians. Priests often traveled with explorers and settlers. Their job was to spread the Catholic faith. Many of the people they taught couldn't read so they took paintings and statues of Bible characters and holy people. Flat paintings on wood were called retablos and carved statues were called bultos. We saw lots of these! This retablo and this bulto are very old.

And we met several artists who paint santos (holy images, either retablos or bultos or both). This is Arlene Cisneros Sena -- she painted a beautiful altar screen for the cathedral in Santa Fe. That's it up above.

We also visited the Taos pueblo. The houses are made of adobe -- some of the buildings are multi-storied. The Indian people have lived here for over 1000 years. The houses have no electricity or running water. The little round igloo-shaped things you see are ovens. The people who live here choose to live here because it is the traditional way.

We got to meet Robert Mirabal, a well-known musician, who lives close to the pueblo. He invited us to his house to eat traditional Indian food. We had venison stew (deer meat), trout, corn soup and lots of other good things.

It started snowing that afternoon. Everything looked so pretty! Do you wonder why I'm not in any of the pictures? It was COLD and I didn't have an extra coat! When I wasn't in the room, Miss Elaine carried me in a bag. It was so snuggy in there I didn't want to come out.

Love,

Fluffy