From the Atchafalaya to Acadiana

Evenin' Campers! Silver Cliche' here with you again. Writing tonight from Sam Houston Jones State Park in Lake Charles, Louisiana. This park named for a governor of Louisana and political rival of Huey Long.

Wow! It's been a week already since Mrs. C', Romeo the puggle, Kailey the 126 year old Wheaten (in dog years) and I left Vero Beach and headed west. We've moved nearly 1,200 miles in that time. That's not the most direct route, but as you know we meander, take side trips and otherwise lollygag as we move along.

So today we started at Lake Fausse Pointe in south-central Louisiana. Tonight we are near the Louisiana/Texas border just north of I-10 still in the southern part of the state. If you think of Louisiana as the shape of a boot trying to kick Mississippi, we are right where the center of the heel meets the upper. We were not tempted to stay at Lake Fausse. The recent rains and the general sense that any ground in Louisiana sits about 6” above the water table makes moving on easy. Here, let me show you. Had we stayed at Lake Fausse we could have looked forward to an evening around the campfire here in this fire ring at our campsite…

 

I think you get my point.

The trip here was interesting. Lake Fausse is in the Atchafalaya National Heritage Area – a region which gets its name from the river that flows through central Louisiana and is the next major river west of the Mississippi. For the first 45 minutes or so out from the campground we saw field after field of plants that were young and healthy. Couldn’t figure it out. Eventually… “of course!”… it's sugar cane. This region is a thorn in Michelle Obama's side when it comes to national nutrition. I figure half the fields we saw today are used to supply powdered sugar to Cafe du Monde in New Orleans to hide beignets each in its own miniature snow bank. The rest puts pounds on Americans all over the country in cola, twinkies and ice cream.

Then we went through a college town, Lafayette and hit I-10 west toward Texas. All along I-10 there were flooded fields. Another brain teaser. There were occasional boats in the fields and each had a metal roof the length of the boat that looked like an archway made of corrugated steel providing shade for whoever was out there working. Each field also had what looked like bouys or the tops of pipes or something at fairly regular intervals. Still stumped. Rice? Probably not. Aquaculture of crabs or oysters? No… not enough water. I had to research this evening to get the answer. Crawfish. Yep. Crawfish are grown here and of course most are eaten here too. The bouys were actually the tops of crayfish traps. They do reportedly grow rice in those fields too… it helps to keep the water the right temperature and purity for the crawfish, but none was visible at this time of year.

The entire region from the Achafalaya to the Texas line is known as Acadiana. So, we thundered actoss I-10 and through Acadiana toward Lake Charles. I say “thundered” because the roads were so rough that at one point it sounded like we had a flat tire. I have never seen the contents of the trailer as shaken up upon arrival as they were today. And we're somewhere near 15,000 miles of travel with her at this point. Back to Lake Charles… this town has a direct connection to the Gulf of Mexico via a ship channel. It, like all of South Louisiana that we've seen so far, is absolutely criss-crossed by rivers, pockmarked by lakes and generally the space in between the rivers and lakes is bayou. If you don't speak Cajun, “bayou” means “swamp”. How they build anything here is a mystery to me. Just looking at this land makes it clear how storms like Katrina or this spring's flooding has such a devastating effect. Even a modest rise in water can impact large areas and the state is so flat that drainage is slow. If you look at Lake Charles on a map, it looks like a diagram from a high school biology text. The lake itself (yes, there is actually a lake called Lake Charles at the town of Lake Charles) is the stomach. A range of twisted, meandering rivers form the intestines and the straight-cut ship channel is the esophagus. We are camped somewhere near the spleen, I think. Never mind that. That's one of the most inappropriate and indelicate metaphors I've included in this blog. If I extended it to tell you where we ate tonight it would have gone too, too far.

Let's talk about dinner. I did my usual TripAdvisor search. I figured this is our last night in Louisiana (forever, I think) so I wanted to eat local and local is Cajun. The place where the locals go to eat Cajun is “Steamboat Bill's on the Lake”. My first warning should have been when I looked at the map to see where we had to go to eat local Cajun. “Steamboat Bill's on the Lake” isn't on any lake. I think we need to get the Federal Trade Commission energized to look into false marketing claims being made by Bill. They might demand the restaurant be renamed to “Steamboat Bill's on the I-10 Service Road about ½ mile from the Lake”. I'd accept that. Anyway, the locals say this is where you go for gumbo, shrimp etouffe', catfish and such. It also boasts “Boudin Balls”. We saw billboard ads from various restaurants along I-10 boasting about their Boudin Balls. I've traveled enough to be skeptical. I'll never forget that encounter with Rocky Mountain Oysters. “Hey”, I said “These are not really oysters, are they?”. I'm pretty sure my coworkers in Denver are still laughing. Anyhow when we got to the campground I looked up to see what kind of a critter the “boudin” might be. Fish?... Mammal?... Reptile? Imagine my relief when I learned Boudin is a type of sausage and the balls are deep fried lumps of flour, milk, sausage and, in some recipes, rice mixed with spices. I needed some of that. So we found and entered Steamboat Bill's. This is the only restaurant I have ever been to where you are handed menus at the entrance door and told to figure out what you are having. Unsaid was “and figure it out quick”. In about 20 seconds after entering we were directed to a cashier. We slowed the process considerably by taking cashier time to figure out what 20 seconds of cold prep had not allowed us to do. Eventually we had it: 2 Boudin Balls, a large chicken and sausage gumbo and a regular sized red beans and rice. We paid, got a number and our drinks and were directed to the back room. I think we were sent to the back because of that old restaurant trick of seating the groups who will attract new customers right in the front window. Usually this is the young, attractive couple who are clearly and deeply in love. Passersby who see that couple associate their obvious bliss with the food being served and (like the famous line in “When Harry met Sally” say “I'll have what she's having”). So, Steamboat Bill practices the same technique… place the right diners in the widow to attract more. We were sent to the back room probably because we had all our teeth. So, 10 minutes later the food is delivered and it's just as ordered. Along with the Boudin Balls was a side or what appeared to be ranch dressing. Here's a pic of a half a ball next to an intact one with the dipping sauce.

I'd call it “interesting”. Mrs. C' said “get that thing away from me”. The outside was fried to a slight crunch. The inside was very moist and slightly stringy. Something like damp shredded wheat. I guess that description will not be used by the Acadiana Tourist Board in their upcoming brochure. Among the strange foods I've eaten in our travels I'd say this was not as appealing as the Bierock I ate in Hays, Kansas or the Hot Brown at Lake Cumberland, Kentucky. It was, however, better than Rocky Mountain oysters.

There rest of the food was interesting, too. The beans and rice and gumbo were both very spicy, both used sausage and lots of rice. Both were served with a roll and the gumbo came with “potato salad” which in any other part of the country might have been described as “cold mashed potatoes with something like sour cream beaten in and bits of pickle”. Seriously. Strangest potato salad I've ever eaten. But remember, we set out to “eat local” and eat local we did! Now, if you've been following along closely you may have noted something. This meal included fried rice and flour balls, mashed potatoes, rice, rolls and (I didn't mention this earlier) crackers. It also included a few beans, some sausage and chunks of chicken. This dinner was 90% carbohydrate, 4% protein and 6% fat. It was also 0% fruit and vegetable (no… potato does not count as a vegetable). There may have been vegetables on the menu, we would have needed an additional 15 seconds of study at the front end to determine that. As we left the restaurant, I sure didn't see any on any of the tables we passed. Here's another shot from our table featuring the potato salad

So, our experience at Steamboat Bill's certainly was local and it also illustrated clearly why the stretch of land across the Southern states including Louisiana has the highest incidence of obesity in the country. I'm thinking we tell Michelle Obama to get out of the White House organic vegetable garden and send her here with a can opener and a semi-trailer load of Green Giant and suggest she gets to work on where the problem can actually be addressed… but maybe that's just me.

After dinner we took a short driving tour of old Lake Charles. It's known for its grand homes and we saw several including this one:

A southern town with a rich heritage and culture, hardworking people and a bit of a struggle now with alternating assaults from the weather and economy. I'm thinking that if these people have survived for generations on a high spice, high carb diet that they can survive the hard times they're facing now.

So, campers, that's Louisiana. Tomorrow we cross the border and head into Texas. That will be the 28^th state for the trailer in the 20 months we're been dragging her around. Not bad progress, I'd say. There may be no cell service at the campground we're heading to. It's pretty remote. If I don't write tomorrow, check Sunday night/Monday morning. We'll be just south of Dallas then.

Later!

SC'