Wilderness Wandering

Southern Edition Part 6

May 8 –  May 12

We made it to Louisiana!  I’m getting into the slower Southern ways. I love driving 10 miles under the speed limit on the quiet country roads and stopping in the middle of the road to take pics of interesting things along the way. 

We went over a huge bridge over the Atchafalaya River. After that, the country highway meandered through pretty farm country. 

We stopped in a town called New Roads. The town was named after the new road built by the Spanish in 1776  beaten Mississippi and The False River area.  False River is an oxbow lake that used to be the main channel of The Mississippi River through the area.  I liked the town and the pretty homes on the lake.  There was a beautiful Catholic Church. I picked up some pre made Cajun food at a little grocery store.  I picked up garbage to get some steps. The town has a well known Mardi Gras celebration and there was plenty of debris left.  

Next, we stopped at Port Hudson State Historic 

Site. It was where an important Civil War seige for control of The Mississippi River took place. We watched the park movie and did a 1 mile hike. 

Next stop was Baton Rouge. We drove into town on Scenic Drive which was a huge misnomer. The entire way was one oil refinery after another.  

Once downtown though, the riverfront is quite pretty. Tim went to check out the LSU campus while I went to visit the State Capitol building. Huey Long is an icon here. He was a politician in the 1920s and 1930s. He first served add governor and then a senator until he was assassinated by an angry constituent. He designed the current state capitol to be the tallest in the country. Huey got things done. I overheard a docent giving a tour to high school kids ask them “If Huey Long didn’t have the votes to get his bill passed, how did he make sure it would pass?” The answer was that he would send police officers to waylay the dissenting politicians so they would miss the vote. 

We had fried catfish and shrimp with fries and hush puppies for dinner. Delicious. 

The next morning we were driving along and a mile before Burnside, LA there was the gorgeous Houmas House plantation and The Great River Museum. I had to see the plantation house, What gorgeous grounds and the mansion was spectacular as well. There is a tour of oak tree in the south called Live Oak. Thru can live to be 600 years old. Houmas House had some spectacular ones!! We got a private tour since it was only us. The mansion has been extremely well preserved. It was easy to envision the life of a wealthy sugarcane plantation owner. 

People were selling watermelons along the road. I stopped and bought 1/2 of one. So sweet and delicious!

Neither Tim nor I had ever been to New Orleans. We were excited to check it out. 

 The weather forecast was for rain all day.  We arrived and parked and made our way to the waterfront French Quarter area. We walked along the levee and then tried to find Cafe DuMonde for beignets. There are several locations. The one we went to wasn’t open. We walked back to Cafe Beignet and ordered an order of 3. They came out hot and covered with powdered sugar. We polished them off in no time. Tim was a fan! I noticed an article near the bathroom saying the Cafe DuMonde is where the tourists go. That the locals prefer Cafe Beignet. 

We visited a shop that sold socks that say funny things. Tim bought two pair of socks. He asked the woman what we needed to try while we were here and she said the usual, but she told us about a nearby cafe that has a sampler. Next, we headed toward the Jean Lafitte National Park Visitor Center. It wasn’t open quite yet. We walked another block to the New Orleans VC. A helpful young woman told us how to take the street cars. Another group came in and asked for directions to Cafe DuMonde. She said don’t go there. It’s a tourist trap and sent them to Cafe Beignet. Lol. 

We went back to the NP VC and enjoyed some really good exhibits about the music and language of the area. Then we attended a Ranger talk. An intern who had a degree in music gave a very informative talk about the history of New Orleans Jazz. She gave us homework to go to Congo Park, the birthplace of Jazz.  

Next we went to Erin Rose Irish Pub for Frozen Irish Coffee. It was excellent! 

We did our homework and walked to Congo Park. It was easy to visualize the enslaved Africans hanging out there on a Sunday making music.  

From there we visited the St. Louis Cathedral. We could only stay a minute because a special Mass, their first since the naming of the new Pope, was about to begin.  Then we walked to The Market Cafe and ordered our sampler platter. It came with Gumbo, Crawfish Étouffée, Red Beans and Rice and Jambalaya. I think Tim and i both liked the gumbo the best, but it was all good. It was a great tip from the lady at the sock store. Plus, the cafe had live music. 

After lunch, we were walking to our next stop and we walked by a clothing shop. They had a cute dress with bikes on it. Tim had me try it on and he bought it for me!

I had heard about an antique shop called M.S. Rau. It was fabulous! They had an amazing collection of spectacular one of a kind things. 

We went to Fritzel’s for live Jazz. We shared a Sazerac, a NOLA original drink. There was a guy playing Jazz piano. Next we headed to Pat O’Brians for dueling pianos and a Hurricane to drink. It was a really fun place! After that we went to Brennan’s to share a Bananas Foster. To die for!

Next we went and had oysters at Oceana. They were delicious too. It was raining absolute buckets all afternoon. We were soaked by the time we made it back to Calypso. I thought we would be Walmart camping but I found a wonderful little State campground. It was a great end to the day. 

The next day I stumbled across another National Park. This was Chalmette Battlefield and National Cemetery. I entered and parked. I heard someone say “Who’s camper van is that?” I was the only van in the lot, so I said it was mine. The person asking was a NP Ranger named Carly who is dying to get a camper van! I gave her a little tour. Then I checked out the battlefield. While I was walking near the levee, I saw my first alligator!! 

The drive out of NOLA was pretty awesome. One road over lots of swamp area and little islands. Lots of bridges. The homes were all on stilts. I think they’re mainly vacation homes. They had individual signs with funny names.

When we reached the Pearl River, the bridge was closed. I had heard about it, but didn’t realize where it was. 

We did a small reroute, crossed over an open bridge the bridge we entered Mississippi. We stopped at the VC and got a map. Shortly after that we turned into Highway 90 and the rest of the ride was magical along towns with gorgeous beaches with white sugar sand. There were beautiful homes on stilts across the road from the beaches. I sat on the beach under a pavilion for a while enjoying the cool breeze. We both think we could spend a month here sometime.

We checked into our RV park and showered and Tim took me to dinner at The Reef for Mother’s Day. It was fabulous! Tim had shrimp and grits and I had locally caught ahi tuna. It was to die for!

After that, we drove to Chillville Creamery in Gulfport for delicious ice cream.

We were pretty lucky with not too terrible crowds given that it was Mother’s Day. 

The next day we were on a remote stretch of LA road. It was lunch time and I needed a bathroom break when we stumbled upon a gorgeous park on the ocean with an amazing beach and beautiful clean bathrooms!! It was a great lunch spot. 

We were right at the edge of Alabama. We drove over an 8 mile bridge to Dauphin Island. I snuck in a wonderful walk on a boardwalk there and watched the seabirds.  We drove to the Mobile Ferry launch. We drove onto the ferry and the guy loading us joked with us that we now owed him a Spotted Cow because of our WI license plates. We said “Do you want one?” He lit up like a Christmas Tree! We got out and gave him one.  

I thought we would camp at  Big Lagoon State Park about 15 miles down the road. I called to check on a campsite and they said the campground is currently closed. I looked where we were and there was a State Park called Gulf State Park right near us. We drove over and the park had over 500 sites! We got one and drove in and made camp for the night. The park was very pretty. Nice new bathrooms, too! There was water not far behind our campsite and signs saying alligators frequent the area, but we didn’t see any. We DID see and feel so many biting horses flies. I was covered in blood and retreated to the van for most of the night. I had a terrific walk on the ocean front beach in the morning.  This was my first time in Alabama. Being near the ocean this week has been fun!