Archive for the ‘Louisana’ Category

Swamps, Bayous, Rivers, Lakes

Sunday, February 12th, 2023

There is water everywhere and where there is water there are snakes, alligators and tour companies that will take you deep into the woods! We found Captain Caviar who had small tours and Teddy could ride along! The only problem is his tour was 3 hours long and the restroom facilities were nonexistant! I survived and it was a beautiful day. Our original plan was to go on Saturday afternoon but it was cold, rainy and the sun never came out! So it’s off season and Captain Caviar was very happy to reschedule to Sunday.

We have been on Airboat Tours, large boat swamp tours, small boat tours that actually can ride in 2” of water (that was the most upclose tour). Captain Caviar is right on the Idlewild Plantation property on the Atchafalaya River . His boat can hold 5 passengers and he keeps it small and simple! His boat goes fast and not right into the swamp but we cruised along and he knew all sorts of things about the area. It was a beautiful day and the ride was lovely.

The wildlife is just starting to show up but we did spot this guy! He was sunning himself along with several turtles. When we got too close they all disappeared into the water! Glad I wasn’t swimming.

We even got to go through a lock on the river. Right now we were only going up about a foot but you could see the waterline where during the spring runoff the lock raises about 6 feet

Opening up
More wildlife
We saw mostly birds, including 2 Bald Eagles.

Captain Caviar was a great story teller; he wanted to tell us about the ghosts on his property and in the Bayou. I’m not really a believer but that could be because I’ve not seen a ghost yet. His family home, Idlewild is supposed to be haunted, infact as he tells it his previous girlfriend would not come back after she saw is dead wife following her! We had a great time listening to him tell stories about his territory. Another fun fact is he is called Captain Caviar because he is the creator of Cajun Caviar and sold it in 2019 to Emeril Lagasse’s Wife and her two friends. The caviar is hand harvested from the Choupique fish in the fresh waters of the Atchafalaya Basin.

We saw many camps in the bayou. No one lives there in the winter but they do use them for recreation and hunting/fishing. The camps use water from the Bayou and return the water to the Bayou!!! Perfect place for the kiddo’s to play and swim in the summer heat.

A view of the swamp, forest, bayou.
Not sure which is which
Teddy finally relaxed after about 30 minutes and actually seemed like he enjoyed the wind in his face

We picked a perfect day to get out on the River, Swamp, Bayou and Captain Caviar was very entertaining. We didn’t see enough turtles and alligators but that is fine by me. The lock’s were a treat for Paul and it was such a small lock that the operator stood on the bridge and chatted with us while we waited for the opening of the gates.

And we were done just in time to miss the kick off of Super Bowl XLVii. We enjoyed watching the game, not really interested in the halftime show and I kept forgetting to pay attention to the commercials (usually my favorite part). I was rooting for The Chiefs but felt like the Eagles had it in the bag! Some fun plays.

That is a wrap for Louisiana, tomorrow we head towards Alabama.

Down in the Bayou

Saturday, February 11th, 2023

We are going to spend a few days enjoying some downhome cooking and resting. Lake End Park in Morgan City will be very comfortable.

Sunset from my patio
Sunrise from my porch
Sunset from my patio

Lakes End is a very nice county park in Morgan City which is definitely not a tourist stop. We are about 60 miles from New Orleans and it’s Carnival season! All the little towns have parades leading up to Mardi Gras. We missed the parades because it rained but we saw several party buses around town and many homes and businesses are decorated.

Ready for the Party!

We found the cutest local restaurant, 4 tables inside it appeared to be her living room! Rita Mae’s Kitchen was definitely my style of restaurant when visiting these places. Her shrimp Poboy was amazing! Paul had gumbo which had so much seafood. We topped lunch off with a slice of homemade Pecan Pie. This cooking is like Mom’s! No website but easy to find. We are only in Morgan City a few days and I had a hard time not returning for more of her foods!

Rita Mae’s Kitchen

We did take a few drives to explore the area with a ride to Cocodrie which is a fishing village on the edge of Louisana, actually appeared to be at the end of the land. We saw lots of damage from the huricane from over a year ago.

Plantations have a special place in Louisiana with many restored and used as tourist spots. We found one in Houma that only the gift shop was open but you could walk around outside and enjoy the grounds. Southdown Plantation was beautiful on the outside; the caretaker and the gift shop guy were very talkative – I think they are ready to reopen. Its been over a year and they are very close to reopening.

Southdown Plantation
Non functioning light house across the river from Morgan City

This was an interesting find near our campsite. A family donated the land and a bell tower was installed along with a short trail. We saw a small family taking photos of the mom pregnant and a 2 year old. They looked odd being dressed up and we were basically in a swamp. Dad and the photographer looked much more prepared for a swamp!

Cemeteries seem to attract us especially when we are in the south. Louisiana has many and the graves are mostly above ground so they won’t float away during floods.

Love Louisiana but definitely would not enjoy living here as the summers are brutal; mosquitos, snakes, alligators and humidity!

Had a “little” rain last night

Wednesday, May 5th, 2021

Mandeville is just above Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana.  New Orleans is just south of us if you could swim.  We are staying in a very nice state park that is about 25% full.  We have been here a couple times before.  The location is great.  We arrived yesterday about 5:30, took a nice walk to the beach and returned about 6:30.  Within about 5 minutes of returning the sky opened  up and let the storm commence.  We had buckets of rain, thunder and lightening most of the night.  It finally let up about 8:30 this am. 

 

 

We were lucky, our RV pad is raised up, we couldn’t get to our picnic table; Some people did not do as well.  Teddy and I took a walk and several of the RV’s could not get out their doors.  The water started to recede about 10 so not so bad.  I look all around the park and all I think is the mosquitos are going to be partying soon.

The trees are beautiful with all the moss hanging down.

It looks like a scene from a movie.  And it just so happens that they are filming a movie right here in the park.  The only sign of anything happening is a little tent set up at the entrance to the Day Use area that a girls is checking cast and crew in.  She wouldn’t tell me the name of the film; maybe its a current series?

Its very quiet here and tomorrow we head to Mississippi where we will spend about a week just relaxing and enjoying some seafood I hope!

 

The Grand Finale!

Sunday, March 22nd, 2015

Wrapping up Louisiana with a powerful punch, we found room for several more meals, happy hours and great music as well as a visit from my sister.  Karol joined us in Abbeville on Saturday and even spent the night in our spare room.  Having her come visit us helped us to stay on our timeschedule to be back in Arizona by Friday.

Karol made it to Betty’s RV park about 10 am and after catching up we headed to Cafe Museum in Erath, LA to enjoy an afternoon of music.  Apparently there is a museum but all we found is the Cafe (Bar)  and lots of very happy retirement age people having a grand time in the middle of a Saturday afternoon.

 

A little Zydeco Music

A little Zydeco Music

Zydeco Music   Usually fast tempo and dominated by the button or piano accordion and a form of a washboard known as a “rub-board,” “scrub-board,” “wash-board,” or frottoir, zydeco music was originally created at house dances, where families and friends gathered for socializing.  Lots of good music and some dancing.  There was a couple of different groups that played, one was pretty much country and this man played most of the afternoon on his accoridan!  Lots of fun.

Erath is a tiny town with not much in it but they do have this museum, Saturday music and a very good spot to enjoy crawfish dinner during season.

Big Johns

Big Johns

Big Johns Seafood, not much to look at and about a mile out of town, plastic table clothes with the mayo already on the table along with trays for eating your crawdads.  We walked from the museum so that when we ate our 5lbs of crawdads we could know we had to walk home, about a 1.5!

Interior Design

Interior Design

When you sit down there is a menu to look at but the main attraction is crawdads,  3, 5 or 10 lbs.  We ordered 5 lbs to share as well as a pound of shrimp.  The table is set with large round trays that are for your individual pleasure of breaking the heads off and sucking the meat out of the tails!  On top of the trays are little cardboard boats and small containers of mayo.  You are suppose to apparently pour the mayo into the boat and add whatever you would like and make your own dip for the crawdads tails.

Yea right, no ones eats the corn!

Yea right, no ones eats the corn!

Karol saw what other tables were doing and proceeded to build herself a dip!  We never even ate the dip, the crawdads are plenty good all by theirselves.  I did put a bit of lemon on mine.  With your crawdads you can order a side of corn or potatoes but I think those are just to make you think you are having some vegetables!  They were just boiled and just took up space that could be filled with crawdads!

Paul doesn’t like crawdads or all the work so he ordered the pound of shrimp.  He had to work some because they came with the heads on!  Yuck!  With the heads removed these shrimp were still 6 inches long and very tasty.

That walk was needed after that dinner!  Sunday morning we were up and enjoyed a nice breakfast of yogurt so that we could go back to Suires Grocery for one last meal!  Again it was so good and we all bought some to take home so we can continue on our eating frenzy of wonderful cajun seafood, ettuffee, stew, gumbo and don’t forget the rice!

Laissez les bon temps roulez

Friday, March 20th, 2015

Laissez les bon temps roulez

A cajun expression meaning “let the good times roll”  conveys the attitude that prevades south Louisiana!

Crawdads, fried trout, fried, grilled and stuffed shrimp, gumbo, crawfish ettufette, more shrimp, po boys and some amazing fresh cut red potatoe french fries!  Not gaining weight is getting harder and harder.  Besides going out for all this wonderful food we also enjoy lots of local greats at the Happy Hour at the RV Park!

And great music too!

And great music too!

There is lots of great music in the area but we are so lucky that many of the RV residents also love to play!

The wildlife is really fun also other than the biting bugs!  There are owls, all sorts of birds, armadillos, turtles, lizards, squirrels all within a short walk of our campsite and we are in a town!  I think I even saw a small black bear in the woods.  Today on my walk I saw this cute little guy.armadillo

I’ll be sad to be leaving on Sunday but excited to be getting back west very soon.

Laissez les bon temps roulez

 

 

3 miles that felt like 200!

Tuesday, March 17th, 2015

Tuesday morning we had to prepare to move the 3 miles to Betty’s RV Park where we stayed on our last visit to Vermilion Parish and where we will finish our stay this trip.  About 11:30 we are deciding to pull out and the Airstreams start arriving!  There will be a rally of 27 Airstreams here this week, hence why we are moving out and they are arriving early.  There are lots of people scurring around, doing what they think is helpful to the arrival so we chat with the rally captain and explain we will pull out, wait for them to clear the road which is very narrow and about a 3/4 mile long and then we will get out of the way.

Paul pulls the rig forward and Airstreams are still arriving!  So much for holding traffic up or giving us a heads up when it will be safe.  Eventually, the captain waves for Paul to pull up so they can get yet another Airstream around the bend and past us into the the campground.  Paul starts forward and realizes he pulled to far off the pavement and is in a bit of mud!  Whoops!  He backs up and the tires dig in, all 3 of them!  Great!  we have an audience, a bunch of excited people arriving and several that seem to be incharge but not really!

Paul gets out, checks it out and tells one of the guys he is going to need some blocks!  The guy had no idea!  Really,  a campground and no one can share their blocks!  I start calling GoodSam.  A tow truck will be dispatched.

Paul finishes raising the RV using the jacks and his crew help put some wood under the tires as well as our porch carpet.  Paul gets in the RV, everyone thinking this will never work and then the back wheels start actually moving back instead of in!  Very slowly Paul backs 40ft of RV back out of the mud and onto the pavement!

We were on the road and into our next spot about 1 hour after he pulled out of our site!  That was lucky but now I just want to sit!!!  The good news is Betty’s is a great place to sit and relax especially with the happy hour at 4:30!  Tonight is even a potluck, Mexican on St. Patricks Day?  Hmmm.  It was delicious complete with Green Margaritas.

Tourist stops we pass on!

Monday, March 16th, 2015

Another day out and about, exploring Louisiana and we see a sign for Rip Van Winkle Gardens.  “Hurry, turn here someone told me about this spot”  I holler and then I am trying to  remember who and who is Rip Van Winkle!  I have no idea but we continue down the road.  We arrive and check out the gift shop- very ecletic and realize this is a tour of a garden and it is also a venue for weddings and other events as well as a B&B.  Looking through the brochure we decide paying to look at a garden is not what we want and continue to enjoy another sunny day in the rockers on the nice wooden porch.

Then there is this loud rustling and I look over the railing

The male peacock is making his desires known!

The male peacock is making his desires known!

peacock4

peacock1

peacock

He turns from us in the direction of the peahen!

He turns from us in the direction of the peahen!

The dance was very interesting.  We watched his dance for about 15 minutes and then it was time to head down the road!

 

Everywhere you look

Sunday, March 15th, 2015

We are in Crawfish country. Abbeville, LA is in the Vermilion Parish and we were here in 2010 .  We are back because we loved the area and loved the food! It’s all about the crawfish and good cajun food!   This morning while waiting for Paul to finish up some work I sat outside enjoying the sunshine and spotted an Owl in the trees.  He was huge but I never thought of trying to get a photo.  Then when he flew away I watched a woodpecker above also.  You will just have to believe me as there are no photos.  And,  the owls are very loud at night!

Saturday we took a drive around the countryside of Abbeville, very remote and you aren’t going to find any fast food chains!

crawfishtraps

Fields of crawfish traps

We were headed to a spot we had been to last time through here, Suire’s Grocery and Restaurant.  I can’t believe they have a website!  We couldn’t remember the name or where it was but I had a photo of the front of the place and we googled it and there it was!  Suire’s looks like an old gas station outside and inside is not much better but they have a few tables and a huge menu of cajun favorites!  I went for what I knew, the Shrimp Po Boy and it was every bit as good as I remember.  Paul couldn’t decide and asked the lady taking our order.  She recommended the Shrimp and Egg Stew which she said came with a piece of fish!  Pauls order comes, everything here is served to-go so it was in a large styrofoam box that weighed at least 3 lbs!  He opens the lid and on top of the foil cover is a large piece of deep fried fish.  I didn’t like the fish and figured it was catfish but being tourists we didn’t ask when we ordered.  Paul loved it.  Then he takes the foil off and he has a full meal.  Half of the tray was filled with a rice dish covered in a brown gravy full of shrimp and right in the middle is two hard boiled eggs!  It looked weird but the shrimp gravy was amazing!  It also came with a roll, potato salad and a small piece of chocolate cake.  We think we paid about $8  but we never saw it on the menu and I didn’t ask for a breakdown of the costs.  After Paul ate what he could he went up to the counter and asked a different girl what he just ate.  The look on her face was worth the whole bill.  She couldn’t believe he ate something that he had no idea what it was!  The fish was Catfish, which when she answered  she seemed like what other type of fish is there!  Later at home he googled shrimp and egg stew and actually found a recipe so I guess it is a real dish.

Another great experience in cajun country and today the sun actually came out and shined all day long!

Rain, Rain go away!!!

Thursday, March 12th, 2015

Wow,  it just keeps falling out of the sky.  We are near New Orleans this week and the sun has never come out!  It peeked Wednesday afternoon but it is just gray.  New Orleans is very damp and with the rain there are full drainage ditches and puddles everywhere as the ground can not absorb anymore.

On to more interesting things.  My favorite thing about Louisana is the food. Creole, Cajun or Southern fried it just doesn’t matter, they do it all perfectly.  Wednesday evening we drove all the way (40 minutes one way) into New Orleans just so we could go to Mother’s Restaurant for a roast beef Po Boy complete with Debris and au jus.

Debris \ˈdā-ˈbrē\ n. The roast beef that falls into the au jus gravy in the pan while roasting in the oven. A Mother’s original.

There is actually a Po Boy that is only Debris!  It is so yummy and so full of flavor.  We also enjoyed the seafood gumbo which Paul just loves.  I was hoping to splurge and get the Bread Pudding with Brandy Sauce but I was good!

We had been to Mother’s a few years back so we knew it would be good, not fancy but oh so good!  We were hoping to be able to walk along the Mississippi River to wear off some of that debris but the rain just would not go away so we traveled into New Orleans, found a parking space, ate our Po Boy and came right back to our home.  A long drive but well worth it.

Today I had to try another New Orleans favorite that I have not had before, Beignets and Chicory coffee from Cafe Du Monde.  The beignets are fried after you order them and served hot smothered in powdered sugar.  The coffee can come black or 1/2 and 1/2 with milk.  I chose black, thinking there are enought calories in the 3 serving size beignets that I didn’t need the milk!  These both are very tasty but I am not really a donut person so I probably won’t go out of my way to get those again.  And,  I love my latte from Starbucks better than most coffees so next time I will probably skip the donut and just get my latte!

Two tourist must dos while in New Orleans checked off our list and tomorrow we head further west to Abbeville to eat even more amazing cajun and creole foods!

We are moving really fast!

Thursday, April 5th, 2012

Tuesday we left Baytown and traveled the rest of the way thru Texas along Interstate 10 into Louisiana. Paul traveled the whole thing this trip.

Mile marker 880!

That’s a lot of one state!

Tuesday night we spent in a roadside visitors center near Baton Rouge.  The visitor center had a parking area for RV’s where we could really set up camp with the slides out and everything for FREE!!!  Of course we stayed.  I thought we would get a really great nights sleep because we were off the highway and there were no Big Rigs allowed but about 1 am the storm started.  I was awake several hours listening to the rain and thunder and watching the wind and lightening.  The storm lasted most of the night but by 8 am everything was pretty clear so we hit the road.   We spent last night in FountainBleau State Park on Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana.

Lake Pontchartrain

20 mile Causeway across the lake to New Orleans

Moss

What kind is it?

It is beautiful here and the lake is huge.  We had dinner last night at a great restaurant that had patio seating where we watch what there was of a sunset.  Rip by the lake was an excellent choice and I tried something new again!  Soft shell crab and fried catfish.  Soft shell crab you eat the whole thing.  Tastes like crab but the stuff inside I admit I ate around it!!!  The catfish was really good.