May 17, 2007 - Lafayette

May 17 Because we had a relatively short trip down to Lafayette we decided to drive back north into Shreveport for a visit to the Louisiana Boardwalk along the Red River. The Boardwalk is actually in Bossier City (pronounced Booz-uhr) and is a large shopping mall. It is beautifully laid out and made for a nice diversion. When I think about it, it was very similar to Branson Landing, right down to the Bass Pro Shop and a streetcar running down the middle. In the Bass Pro Shop, I lost Brenda (usually its in a dress shop, not sporting goods!)...

Apr 1, 2007 - Leaving Montgomery

Well, it was an uneventful first day on the road. Finally got my junk together and got on the road about 10:15 am. Boy, I am so glad to finally be through "getting ready"--it seems like I've been doing that for the whole past month. Much more fun to be on the road. It was great today in spite of the rain, just driving and enjoying the music on the iPod, and eating Godiva chocolate covered pretzels from the gift basket Jamie sent me recently. Gosh, they were fantastic--just enough of a little salty taste to go along with the semi-sweet...

Mar 27, 2007 - New Orleans (nope) - Lafayette

We started out this morning with the intent of stopping near or in New Orleans to see what has been happening in the aftermath of Katrina. We had made a campground reservation. On our way into town we drove by countless vacated homes and apartments along with abandoned retail businesses and the shut down Six Flags amusement park. We were suprised to see many middle-class homes that had been abandoned. When we arrived at the campground, we quickly realized that it was not yet in shape to feel comfortable and not roomy enough for the See Ya....

Mar 26, 2007 - Gulf Shores, AL to Duson, LA

Today was a driving day through the rest of Alabama, Mississippi, and into Louisiana. We drove across many bridges over bayous (we would call them swamps :)) We're outside Lafayette, LA, near Baton Rouge, the capital. Tomorrow Ed's getting our oil leak checked out at the Ford dealer before we drive farther west. Wish us luck!

Mar 25, 2007 - Louisiana, Cajin country

We were going to drive straight to New Orleans from Galveston but Louisiana looked so interesting that we decided to explore along the small roads along the old sugar Plantations and swamp areas along the mighty Mississippi river. The road was very flat and meandered through rundown little towns.(Louisiana has the 2nd lowest per capita poverty rate of all the states) Every town was clogged with queues of traffic we couldn't work out what was happening until we suddenly realised it was a Sunday and everyone was going to or from church....

Mar 1, 2007 - Lafayette, LA

We got into Lafayette Thursday in time to get set up and go to dinner. Friday, we had some errands around town and had gumbo for lunch. We found the Lafayette visitor's center, which was one of the nicest I've ever seen. There were Cajun style buildings on a small pond or swamp with lots of wildlife. The water was teaming with fish, some giant carp, tons of turtles, water fowl, and one alligator. We actually spotted the alligator and snapped his picture. There were ducks and some weird turduckgoosen looking thing. It looked part goose,...

Feb 13, 2007 - Broussard, LA

Cajun Country! Great music, good food, delightful accents! Prejean's in nearby Lafayette - a Lousiana legend and another award-winning find from "Roadfood" - had a crawfish sampler. We had everything made of crawfish: etouffee, pie, fried, boudin (balls), plus dirty rice and catfish with a crawfish sauce! It was hard to eat all this while tapping your toes to the songs sung in French/Cajun and accompanied by accordion, fiddle, and guitar. Bring your dancing shoes. The old capitol building in Baton Rouge is an architectural beauty. It's a...

Feb 6, 2007 - New Iberia, Louisiana

Wow, did you know that it is 877 miles across Texas ( at least along Highway 10) and that almost all of the 877 miles looks the same. The eastern edge of the state is definately more populated but if you were blindfolded and set down almost anywhere along the highway you really wouldn't know where you were. We visited some great sites and have added many to our list of places to return, but today we said good bye to Texas and Hello to Louisiana. We were through this part of Louisiana 4 years ago. There were several places we didn't have...

Jan 18, 2007 - What a night!

We arrived at Stelly's Truck Repair, Lafayette, in the mid afternoon, and after about an hour he found a place for us to park the rig. We had to pull up under a Carport like cover that is an extension to the workshop. Our rig is 2/3rd's covered by the carport covering, just leaving the bedroom out of the cover. We're parked outside the large rollup doors of the workshop, facing in towards the workshop, so they can work on the front of the rig under cover. At 5 pm they all locked up and knocked off work after giving us a 20 amp extension to...

Jan 14, 2007 - Scott, LA

Another travel day and another 243 miles of bad road. Louisiana's I-10 has to be the worst roads we have traveled across the country. It is really bad when crossing the huge swamps like Henderson Swamp near Lafayette. We really had to be careful opening any of the cupboards after we arrived in Scott because of all the shaking around. The Lafayette KOA Kampground is really nice and we have decided to stay put here for three nights. Of course another reason we are staying put is because they are calling for a cold front to move into the area...

Dec 19, 2006 - Cajun Country

It was a long trip yesterday! A lot of heavy traffic and stops and starts. About 15 miles from our destination our brakes started binding again, so we limped into Betty's RV Park. We will have to have this seen to whilst we are here for a month! This is a very usual park. Betty (who is a total character) has converted her property in Abbeville into a RV park with only 15 campsites. The downside is, no paved campsite or much lawn to talk about, but the upside is the price, $290 for the month and that is ALL INCLUSIVE of WiFi, Electric,...

Nov 2, 2006 - Lafayette, Louisiana

We left Mississippi early this morning and we both agreed that this area is on our list of places that visiting once is enough. Louisiana looked quite a bit different but in some ways the same. There's still lots of water. We crossed over the Mississippi River and the Tchoutacabouffe River. Now that's a mouthful, isn't it? We also drove for 18 miles on the "Swamp Highway" which is part of I-10 that goes over swamp land. It was actually very pretty and interesting to drive above this area on a low bridge. The welcome sign into Louisiana is...