A Hot Time in Louisiana

Leg 5 – A Hot Time in Louisiana

05/14/2023 – 05/18/2023

How do you pronounce Louisiana? La weezian like the French or Luisiana like the Spanish? The temps are in the upper 80’s, the Cajun food is spicy and are ready for some Hot Times in Louisiana! The places we want to visit in the southern part of Louisiana are a little further apart than we normally like and will cause us to move around a little more than usual. Fortunately, it will only be 1 ½-2 hour drive days which is doable during the week. Our stops in the bayou will be New Orleans, Avery Island and a good Cajun food joint in the middle of nowhere.

It’s an interstate drive on I-10 to our first stop in Mandeville LA and our home for the first two nights is Fontainebleau State Park on Lake Pontchartrain.

Fontainebleau State Park

Fontainebleau State Park is on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain and was once a sugar mill plantation. The plantation was built in 1829 and remained active until 1852. Remains of the mill are still visible as well as the avenue of oaks where the cabins of the enslaved were located.

Why are live oaks planted in “avenues” lining the streets into plantations and around the houses? There are several reasons; the live oak grows to a majestic size in a short period of time and provides a “grand” entrance to the property and usually frames the main home. Their large canopy provides shade to help keep the houses cool and their root systems soak up vast amounts of water. This was beneficial during the rainy seasons when the muddy roads were difficult to maneuver with a horse and carriage. Not only are these mighty oaks beautiful, they also help control heat and moisture.

We hopped on our bikes and explored the park. There are several hiking trails, a bike path, a beach and fishing pier. We opted to get our suits, grab a cocktail and cool off in Pontchartrain’s cool waters to watch a beautiful sunset.

Lake Pontchartrain

A little bit of info on this BIG lake. Lake Pontchartrain is 40 miles wide, 24 miles long and covers about 630 square miles but is only about 12’-14’ deep. Crossing the lake is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and at 24 miles, it is the world’s longest continuous bridge over water. Another “World’s Largest” to add to the list. 😉

The causeway would be our route into New Orleans and of course I’m thinking 24 miles is a long way across the water. What happens if someone (or us) breaks down? I would hate to get stuck out here. You see, I am a proactive person instead of a reactive person. Translation, I need to know how to prepare for the worse case scenario before it happens. LOL No need to fear, there are emergency pull-off lanes every 5 miles and two tow trucks stationed about ¼ of the way across on both sides of the lake. But let me tell you, when you are at mile marker 12, you are in the middle of the lake and you DO NOT see any land. That’s a pretty strange feeling.

New Orleans

New Orleans and specifically the French Quarter have been on my “must see” list of places for a while. Everyone we talked to, from fellow campers to locals, warned us about the city and the stinky, dirty, crime ridden, drug infested quarter. Don’t go and if you do, be very aware of your surroundings. We are always aware of our surroundings, no matter where we may be. Well all that talk kind of turned me off to exploring the city. Bill and I were on the same page and decided we would just drive around the Quarter instead.

Beignet & Café Au Lait

The one thing I was really, really looking forward to was beignets and café au lait at Café Du Monde. I pulled up their website and found they had a shop right down the street in Mandeville. I’m okay with that and so Mother’s Day started with breakfast at Café Du Monde… in Mandeville. 😊 The cafe had a viewing window so we were able to see how the magic happens. Our beignets were served fresh from the fryer with a 1/2″ thick layer of powdered sugar and they were heavenly!

Tip: Do not wear dark clothes to eat beignet. You will undoubtedly end up with powdered sugar all over yourself! LOL

Sazerac House

With our bellies full of those delicious powdery pastries, we headed over the causeway and into New Orleans for a tour of Sazerac House. Sazerac began in the cognac region of France in the 1630’s and has called the Big Easy home since the 1800’s. Their cognac became a popular local drink. Enter Antoine Peychaud, a New Orleans pharmacist by day and mixologist by night.

Peychaud’s Bitters

Antoine Peychaud, as pharmacist, mixed his homemade bitters into elixirs to make them more palatable. The bitters were made by infusing distilled spirits with botanicals and over time Peychaud’s bitters became very popular. As a mixologist in the coffee houses, he mixed the bitters with Sazerac’s cognac and served it to his fraternal brothers. It was an instant hit and set the stage for what would become New Orleans “official” cocktail, The Sazerac. Peychaud’s Bitters are still made on site at the Sazerac House today.

The Tour

The free tour begins on the 3^rd floor with the story of Sazerac’s beginnings as a coffee house in the Big Easy and the introduction of Peychaud’s Bitters. As you meander through the tour you will come across four cocktail stations. On the 3rd floor are samples Peychaud’s Bitters and The Sazerac. Winding down to the second floor is an introduction to Myers Rum and Sazerac’s many brands of bourbon along with two more cocktail stations featuring one of the 450 brands under the Sazerac umbrella. Today’s samplings were the San Domingo Julep and the Whiskey Smash, both very tasty. The tour ends with a small distillery where they make just enough rye whisky to mix the sample cocktails and sell in their onsite store. The experience was very well done and we enjoyed it immensely.

The French Quarter

It’s time to go see what the French Quarter is all about. As we are making our way through the quarter on the narrow, beat-up streets we take in all the old homes and businesses with their wrought iron porches. We drove up Royal Street and down Bourbon Street, we even picked up a hitchhiker on his skateboard! I did not see anything that would have made me uncomfortable. I want to go back to all those people and tell them, if you really want to see dirty, stinky, drug infested streets, take a trip to Portland, Seattle or San Francisco…

Even though the Quarter looked relatively safe, it still did not look like anything I wanted to get out and explore. It was hot and parking could not be found anyway. We were happy with our choice to do a drive-thru and now we were ready to head home. It was great to finally see NOLA but it’s not my jam. I much prefer the slower pace and southern charm of Savannah, Charleston and even Mobile. Box checked.

Avery Island

It’s an early start for us as we made the 2-hour drive over to New Iberia. Camp is set up, the work thing done and now we can go see where TOBASCO sauce is made. The smell of sauce is in the air as soon as you drive on the property.

Edmund McIlhenny began producing his tobasco sauce in 1868 after his banking career failed post-Civil War. It is now sold in over 195 countries and is a staple on most American tables and it is still a family owned and operated company!

After a brief introduction to Edmund McIlhenny, his sons and the role TOBASCO has played in American lives, the self-guided tour leads you through the entire process of making their full of flavor sauce.

Chili Plants

No one knows for certain where those first seeds came from, was it a Mexican-American War veteran or a former Confederate soldier that fled to Mexico after the Civil War and later returned to New Orleans? No matter, the chili plants growing today are from the seeds of the seeds of the seeds (get the idea?) of the original chili plants. The peppers are still hand picked to ensure the proper ripeness.

Mash and Aging

After the chilis are harvested, and this is the part that I found most interesting, they are ground up; skins, seeds and all and turned into a mash. The mash is then placed into white oak barrels with a little salt and moved to a warehouse to age for 3 years. I never would have imagined there would be an aging process, kind of like with bourbon. In fact, they use used bourbon barrels for their aging. Before the mash is placed in the barrel though, the cooper must remove the charred wood from the inside of the barrel and replace the original barrel hoops with stainless steel hoops. Stainless steel is used due to its tolerance to corrosion.

Blending and Bottling

After the aging is complete and a McIlhenny family member tests the mash for flavor and heat, it is moved to the blending house. The barrels are emptied into 1,800 gallon wooden vats where a high-quality vinegar is added. The mixture is then stirred periodically for 2-3 weeks. Once the stirring process is complete, the skins and seeds are strained. Another taste test is done and then it is off to bottling. And… they are bottling today 😊

It was a very interesting tour and I always enjoy seeing how things are made. We stopped in at the gift shop and sampled some of the sauces. Bill sampled all the sauces and then had “the sweats”! LOL We bought a few of our favorites, a couple of Christmas gifts and headed across the street to the Jungle Gardens.

Jungle Gardens

Edward McIlhenney, Edmund McIlhenney’s son, was a conservationist and in 1895, helped save the snowy egret from extinction. He established a private wildlife refute on the family estate and it is now open for public enjoyment. The gardens are comprised of 170 acres and contain a bird sanctuary, lagoons a Buddha and over 600 varieties of plants from all around the world.

We enjoyed the drive, spotted a few gators, watched the egrets fly around and rescued a Honda! Apparently the driver and passengers were all looking at bamboo and didn’t see the bend in the road and ran into a ditch. Womp Womp… Bill and Erin to the rescue!

Avery Island and the TOBASSCO Factory are well worth the couple of hours we spent here. If you go, don’t forget to try the ice cream 😉

Boudin and Cracklins

There was one more thing we needed to get before we left New Iberia; boudin and cracklins. There are signs all over the place for boudin and cracklins and I had no clue what it even was. Bill simply said it was something we needed to try. I spoke to the hostess at our campground and she pointed us to Legnon’s Boucherie. Oh my word! What a great find! The ladies behind the counter were very helpful to us boudin and cracklin newbies. Boudin (pronounced BOO-dan) is a pork meat and rice combined with vegetables and seasonings and stuffed into a casing. Very tasty! But the cracklins? They are like pork rinds with a little of the meat, deep fried and seasoned and they are OUT OF THIS WORLD! I don’t imagine they are very “point friendly” but man oh man it is worth it!

D.I. Cajun Restaurant

Our last “must do” in LA is dinner at D.I.s Cajun Restaurant in the middle of nowhere Louisiana. The closest town to this place is 8 miles away and the closest RV park that could accommodate us is 30 miles away, Red Shoes RV Park at Coushatta Casino. Good food and a little gambling? I can handle that.

Why drive out of our way for one night to eat here? That’s easy…Because We Can! Bill was doing a job in this neck of the woods many years ago and the locals told him he needed to go to D.I.’s for dinner, which he did. It must have been really good because when I started planning the trip back to the PNW this summer he said, “You gotta route us to D.I.’s, you’ll love it!” And here we are.

Crawfish Farming

Crawfish are a big thing in Louisiana, Mississippi and East Texas. You can buy them in the grocery stores, you see people having boils and picnic tables heaped with the little mud bugs. Have you given much thought to where crawfish come from? Are they really farmed? Yes, they are.

We drove through miles and miles of crawfish farms along the Cajun Corridor Byway. A lot of these farms are actually “dual crop” fields. Not only are crawfish raised, rice is also grown in these fields. The crawfish are raised in shallow ponds and collected in wire baskets that are gathered by hand using a special boat that has wheels and a paddle. Pretty neat to see.

Dinner at D.I.’s

There are back roads and then there are back roads. We took a back road out to D.I.’s which provided a better view of the crawfish farms. At one point the road turned to dirt and led us through a little swamp area. I thought for sure we would see Bobby Boucher’s place.

We finally made it to D.I.s and had the best crawfish etouffee and fried crawfish ever. The crawfish was tender and full of flavor. This was my first time trying etouffee and now I am going to have to try and make it myself.

How did this hugely popular restaurant end up out here in very rural Louisiana? D.I. had a crawfish farm and a unique way of boiling the little bugs with special seasoning. He began selling his boiled crawfish on weekends out of his equipment shed; all you can eat for $5 and the locals feasted. Word spread and D.I. bought the house next door and opened a restaurant. Two expansions later that restaurant now includes two dining rooms, a large waiting area, a dance floor and bandstand that features famous Cajun bands on the weekends.

Sadly, we did not get to hear any live music, but thoroughly enjoyed our meals. If you are driving through Louisiana, look this place up and try to get in on a weekend for a great experience!

I loved the gulf coast of Louisiana. It was everything I thought it would be; bayous, cypress trees, marshes, crawfish, gators, Cajun/Creole culture… It was fantastic!

What’s Next?

We’ll be taking a little two-step across Texas. Planning a visit with my brother in San Antonio and some friends who escaped Oregon and now live in Cleburne.