Gifts of the sea

The refuge ends at the Gulf of Mexico at a lovely beach of coarse, pale sand. Except it isn’t sand at all, but the tiny remnants of countless wave-worn shells. The queens enjoyed picking among the abundant in tact shells, some as big as grapefruit.

Faster than a speeding bullet

While visitors are welcome to certain parts of the refuge in
specific months, able to do crabbing and crawfish trapping,
only the staff have full access to the 26-mile coastline via
airboats, which are powered by enormous airplane engines.
The Fur Queen arranged for her guests to zip through the
marshland at thrill-ride speed aboard airboats like this one,
which she shares with the Frog Queen.

Smile pretty

The Fur queen’s next stop led her peers to the Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, 76,000 acres of marshland. Home to ducks, geese, spoonbill, egrets, deer, armadillo, muskrat, nutria, and mink, among other species, the refuge is perhaps best known for its alligators. But at the visitor’s center, your first greeter is this madly grinning coyote, which was bagged in the refuge. Chelsea tries to match his smile with some killer whites of her own.

Home is where the hurt is

The banner at right is hung on the Christmas tree in the children's room of the Calcasieu Women's Shelter, where the Fur Queen was joined by the Frog and Cotton queens for a morning of community service, helping do clean-up, sorting children's toys, and doing small home repairs in the women's rooms. Hearing from a shelter staffer that a woman is abused every 9 seconds somewhere in the country really made an impression. As Brandy, the Cotton Queen (far right), said after meeting several of the families housed there, “I realized how sheltered I’ve actually been.”