1st Feb – 10th Feb 2022
A moderately long drive brought us to Lafayette, the 3rd largest city in Louisiana after New Orleans and its capital, Baton Rouge. Named in 2014 as America’s happiest city, its agricultural roots were superceded by the discovery of oil in the gulf in the 1940s leading to its growth and now it is a hub for tech, medical and financial business.
We knew that our next park would not disappoint us. As a KOA (Kampgrounds of America) campground, liveried in jaunty yellow branding, it was one of a large chain of parks which are all of a great standard with amazing facilities. This one was no exception. It was located just outside Lafayette city in a place called Scott, and if we ignored a bit of road noise from the nearby I-10, it was like an oasis compared to Crystal Beach. Good showers, an enormous laundry, firepits, a boating lake, swimming pool (unfortunately closed), and, wait for it….MINI GOLF! We thought that that would be enough for us, but it got better…we had accidentally arrived in the Boudin Capital Of The World and there was one of the best makers of said foodstuff, Billy’s, a mere 100 metres from our spot.
A boudin is a sausage-like creation, filled with a seasoned mixture of pork and rice and is quite delicious. Mostly eaten by squeezing the filling out of the caseing, it was like the lovechild of a sausage and a haggis although nobody has even heard of a haggis in Louisianna so that comparisson falls flat here. Our walk to Billy’s felt like a sort of pilgramage. To give the establishment it’s full title would be to call it Billy’s Boudin and Cracklins, which brings me to the second pork-derived product worthy of worship. Cracklins:deep fried, seasoned pork rind served warm and by weight. We approached the shop-front of the large shed with awe as if it was a shrine. Amusingly there was a drive-thru which was even busier than the shop. Only in America…! We spent a long time selecting our boudin varietals and were very restrained in only ordering a quarter pound of cracklins. We scurried home and had cracklins for our lunch. Delicious AND nutritious!!
One day we walked into the centre of Scott. This was about a mile and a half away and the experience was unremarkable for two common reasons. 1) There were almost zero pavements. No-one walks so no need for them. We muddle along verges and roadsides and luckily drivers are usually so surprised to see us that they give us wide berths and generally we feel quite safe. 2) There was no ‘town centre’ as we’d expect in the UK. This keeps catching us out in the USA as we forget that most towns and cities here have evolved with plenty of available space and since the invention of the motor car so their CBDs are disseminated and unfocused. We walked until we got to the vague central area of Scott but there was nothing really to see so we had a cold drink in a nice cafe and walked home, calling in at the interestingly named ‘NuNu’s Cajun Supermarket’. It sold some quintessential Cajun products…
Finally had some lovely warm weather here. We wore shorts, we broke out the BBQ, we had a few evenings sat out around the campfire, we played mini-golf (Nick won by one stroke after us being neck and neck for 21 holes), Tin Can and Big Dave got a long overdue wash, we walked laps of the park and its small lake.
Lafayette itself was about 8 miles away so one day we took an Uber into town to check it out. A cold front had arrived and it was chilly again so we bundled up and headed out early afternoon. Our plan was to get dropped off just north of ‘downtown’, explore, do some bits of shopping and then stroll slowly a couple of miles south to a bar/restaurant that had live music and looked a good spot for an early dinner. It was a good plan but again scuppered somewhat by the derth of civilisation/shops/anything to see or do in downtown. When will we learn?! We wandered around, cold and bemused, until we found where everyone was – a cool coffee shop in a re-purposed autoparts store. It was full of Gen Zs and Millenials. We felt quite old. We had cake. It helped. We started our walk towards the restaurant about 2 hours earlier than our informal schedule. It might be a very early dinner! Our route took us through the campus of the University of Louisiana. This was beautifully kept, had some lovely redbrick buildings, some magestic old oak trees and not a student in sight. It was a term-time week day. Where was everybody? Drinking coffee in downtown, perhaps? A couple of chilly laps around a small park filled another hour. Another hot coffee in a very cool retro diner warmed us up and killed thirty minutes. We’d made it to 5pm and headed to the restaurant.
We arrived at the appropriately named ‘Bontemps Grill’ after an exciting dash across a four lane road with no crossings or verges and discovered a full carpark – a good sign. Despite the early hour the place was buzzing and we had a welcome twenty minute wait for a table which we spent having a drink at the bar. This place served Cajun fayre and we ended up eating spicy deep fried Alligator bites, Fried Catfish with crawfish ettouffé (a spicy cajun gravy) and grilled chilli butter shrimp with sweet potato and sage mash. We very quickly decided that we love Lousiana and its food and we might stay forever. After dinner we moved ourselves back to the bar for some digestifs. The band was good but very, very loud. They were playing at about 4000000000 dB, making our conversation with a new friend very difficult. I think she was a lawyer called Lauren who was in town for a family funeral, But she might have been a librarian called Lyndsey who was in town for fun and frolics. Either way, she was very nice.
From Lafayette/Scott we headed south across the flat and wet lands of rural Southern Louisiana, travelling deeper into the bayou. We were going to Abbeville, a small but well serviced town that we had visited before. Stalwart TinCan Travels fans may remember our stay here in early November 2018 for the Great Omlette Festival where the town has a parade of eggs and chefs then cooks up the ‘world’s largest omlette’ made from approx 5000 eggs. This visit was less eggy, although we did stop at a cute Mom’n’Pop restaurant for breakfast where eggs were involved and then we stocked up on provisions for our next stop, a state park about 12 miles south.
Palmetto Island State Park – named for the Palmetto, a trunckless palm tree – was a delight. The park itself was quite small but the campsites were huge and well kept and we discovered to our suprise had both laundry and wifi. Both of these are apparently normal in Louisiana but we had seen neither at any other state parks in the rest of the country. Here we went the full banana on our camping experience. All the toys were liberated, the fairy lights were deployed and we sat around the campfire every one of our five nights here. There were some walking trails, some small fishing/boating lakes and there were enough paved roads through the park to make a bike ride of about 10 miles.
In this area was another eatery that Anthony Bourdain had visitied for his show, Suire’s Restaurant and Grocery. We decided that it was worth offloading Tin Can for the day to go and visit for lunch and to take the opportunity to explore the area a bit further. Firstly we headed south to the coast to an intriguingly named conurbation called Intracoastal City. This is not really any sort of civilisation at all, more a collection of shrimp boat docks, boat yards and businesses servicing the offshore and inshore oil industry. It has a shop but only a small number of homes. Calling it a city was using some creative licence, but I don’t think that the Louisianans care.
Further along, at the end of the road are some large locks, allowing the large barges carrying oil to navigate up the intracostal canal to and from Texas. The internet informed us that although the locks were gated, all one had to do was ring the buzzer on the gate and one would be granted access. We pulled up and saw the gate and buzzer and a sign saying that the locks were operated by the Army Corps of Engineers. I rang the buzzer.
Me: ‘Hello, can we come in and watch the boats come through the locks?’
Intercom lady: ‘Urm…What’s your affiliation?’
Me: ‘Affiliation? We are just tourists exploring the area and were advised we could come in if we rang the buzzer’
Intercom lady: ‘Urm…hold on a second, I’ll check for you’
Pause.
Intercom lady: ‘Urm, Mam, this is a Army Corps of Engineers facility. We do not allow civilians to come in and wander around.’
So we failed to gain access to a US military site by ringing the doorbell. Who’d have thought?? Just goes to show, the internet can be wrong…
Never mind, by now it was lunchtime so we drove up to Suire’s. It is part of the fabric of this area having been family run from this site for 92 years. Part grocery store, part take away restaurant with seating, it was a shabby looking place, but appearances were very deceptive. The walls were covered with art, memorabilia, photos and print articles. Anthony Bourdain’s visit was only one small part of this local gem’s history. Apparently the fried chicken on special was amazing, but the group of burly crawfish farmers who arrived just ahead of us cleared the kitchen out of that. Rats. Instead we shared ‘turtle in sauce piquant’- slow cooked turtle in a spicy red sauce, served with fried catfish and a carbohydrate fiesta of rice, cornbread, potato salad and a piece of cake – and an deep fried shrimp po’boy (a long soft roll) with Cajun fries. Whilst waiting for our food to be prepared we got chatting to a very friendly local rancher called Tommy who imparted his life story to us with chapters being delivered like automatic gunfire. He, like many in this area called Acadiana, spoke a form of Cajun French and peppered his conversation with random French terms and phrases. He was very entertaining and interesting but it was a surreal ten minutes. The food was amazing and we reafirmed our new love for Cajun cuisine. By the time we finished our meal we had the place to ourselves and spent some time chatting to the owner and reading the walls.
Our time at Palmetto Island State Park passed in a blur of camp fires, walks, bike rides and the odd game of Weasel Bag (My name for our small, plastic, travel version of Corn Hole – if you don’t know what that is, google does.) We didn’t really want to leave, but this charabanc keeps on rolling and after six nights we moved on.
