ALABAMA, MISSISSIPPI, LOUISIANA

Entering Alabama

Our first stop, after leaving Florida, was Mobile, Alabama. Sadly there is not much to tell about the trip or the stay. The weather was dismally cold and damp. Our RV park was in a very sketchy part of town with little or no redeeming qualities that would have made us wish to stay longer than one night.  I did manage to get this photo out the windshield of the welcome sign. Sorry folks, that's it for Alabama.

Entering Mississippi

Going westward in search of the sun you really only pass through a very small portion of Mississippi. However, better weather (again rainy and very cold) may make Mississippi a great destination. I did however get this picture, again, through the rainy windshield.

Please don't, in any way, think this is a slight on either state. Alabama and Mississippi may just be the place that you have your best holiday/vacation ever. For us, we are doing a circuit in six months and are kind of checking out places where we would like to spend winter months. It's cold and damp in both these places this time of year and the last thing you want is freezing weather in an RV. Winterizing becomes an issue we would rather not deal with.

Entering Louisiana

Then, it was on to Louisiana, an RV park between Baton Rouge (where Bobby McGee and Janice Joplin were busted flat) and Lafayette. Now Louisiana, for some reason, really appealed to us. It's a state we would definitely want to go back to in spring or fall, but not winter for sure. It too was cold and rainy for a bit but we did manage to get a couple of really good days which enabled us to check things out. One thing that really stood out in my mind, and Erik's too, was the incredible lyrical accent of the local people. I could have listened to it all day - it wasn't just a southern drawl, it was almost like someone who had a southern drawl but had been brought up somewhere in Europe and English was a second language learned in the south. Most enjoyable to listen to.

Mississippi River at Baton Rouge

Mississippi River

Driving through Baton Rouge we went over the mighty Mississippi River. Quite a river. It's very shallow in parts and barges were the order of the day. Not easy to take photos on a bridge with traffic barreling along at 60 or so mph but here are some.

The Louisiana State Capitol Building is the seat of government for the State of Louisiana and is housed in Baton Rouge. Louisiana is divided into Parishes (Fr. paroisses), rather than Counties and even in our short time there the French influence was very evident. Between Baton Rouge and our village of Breaux Bridges is The Atchafalaya Basin. It is an area that comprises 860,000 acres of swamps, lakes, and water prairies. Cutting a 15-mile-wide path along South Louisiana, it is the largest and last great river-basin swamp. I was able to get some pictures as we drove along this incredible highway, Atchafalaya Highway or Louisiana Airborne Memorial Bridge that was built on pylons; virtually a raised highway with a canal down the centre. Flooding from these basins is a real threat and like we saw in Carabelle along the Gulf coast, pretty much everything is built high or on stilts,  including the highway.. The swamp goes on as far as you can see. Butte La Rose, population about 1,500, is a small settlement in the this area that houses a Welcome Centre. In the Welcome Centre are depictions of the wildlife in the swamp, a movie that gives you a ride through the swamp and some really interesting literature about the many attractions there are for tourists. Truthfully, I was amazed at how many attractions existed.

                   Pictures taken along the Atchafalaya Highway or Louisiana Airborne Memorial Bridge 

Our RV Park was west of Baton Rouge and east of Lafayette in a small town called Breaux Bridge, very rural but still accessible to everything important like grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants and shopping. The area consisted of four corners with several small seafood/fish shops (happy, happy us) and take out restaurants with the most amazing Cajun concoctions. One evening we purchased some Boudin (describes a number of different types of sausage used in French, Belgian,  German, Quebec, Acadian, Austrian and Cajun cuisine), something we've never had before, delicious. We also had a huge feed of crawfish: peel, dip in sauce, eat, peel, dip in sauce, eat, repeat, repeat, repeat. Sitting in the sun, slowly peeling these little delicacies was a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours.

Before

After - all the little shells

The local fish market we frequented.

Crawfish (as the locals call them), or crayfish, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, or mudbugs, are freshwater crustaceans that resemble tiny, little lobsters, to which they are related. It's a lot of work to eat them, the only edible part being the tail which is about an inch or so long and the claws, if you have the patience to claw the claws apart. The effort is well worth it. The picture is of a four pound helping; sounds like a lot but the young girl who waited on us in the restaurant and weighed about 87 lbs/39 kgs said she can eat four  pounds all by her skinny little self. Her accent was so intriguing we carried on a longer than necessary conversation about crayfish (she calls them crawfish).

The name "crayfish" comes from an old French word escrevisse, modern French ecrevisse, again the French influence in this area.

The word Cajun is a derivative of the word Acadian. The Acadians are descendants of French settlers who settled in the Maritime Provinces in Canada and as far south as southern Maine. Because they refused to swear allegiance to Britain either due to religious differences or simply because they were anti-British, between 1755 and 1764, they were exiled from eastern Canada. The British destroyed around 6,000 Acadian houses and dispersed the Acadians among the 13 colonies from Massachusetts to Georgia. The single event that involved the most deaths of Acadians was the sinking of the Duke William. While the Duke William was transporting Acadians from Île St Jean, as PEI was known, to France, the ship sank in the North Atlantic on December 13, 1758, with the loss of over 360 lives. Although there were no purposeful attempts to separate families, this did occur in the chaos of the eviction.

We were both enthralled with this area of Louisiana. The diversity of the people (who were so very friendly with their cool accents), the amazing topography, the history,  just the general ambiance really appealed to us. We felt comfortable there and would definitely mark this spot as a place to come back to and spend more time really exploring and getting to know it better.

Next stop. Texas, Texas and more Texas. It's a very big state!!