tagged as louisiana tag leader rebelsadventure

Headed over to El Dorado Casino after the show tonight. Quiesto wanted to learn how to play Craps. Our stage manager Michelle happens to be a veteran of the game. So we took off into the night on our gambling adventure. The casino was pretty nice considering this is Shreveport and not Las Vegas. I decided to just observe the game. I'm not much for gambling and I don't understand anything that is going on most of the time. It was quite interesting to say the least. Michelle took home over 500 dollars. She proved to be a great teacher and Quiesto won 150 dollars. Not bad for 1 hour of work on the table. Feeling vindicated after his loss in Vegas, Quiesto collected his winnings and took me to a wonderful midnight dinner. New York strip steak and red velvet cake. Delicious! We headed back to the Hilton around midnight. Now it's off to bed for the kiddie show. Goodnight world!

New Orleans, LA at 8:16pm CDT.

Departed from Barataria, LA at 3:11pm CDT. Arrived at New Orleans, LA at 8:16pm CDT.

Barataria, LA at 3:11pm CDT.

Barataria, LA at 2:50pm CDT.

Jean Lafitte, LA at 1:42pm CDT.

New Orleans, LA from 10:59am to 11:30am CDT (31 mins).

New Orleans, LA at 8:52pm CDT.

Port Allen, LA at 7:42pm CDT.

Departed from Haughton, LA at 5:12pm CDT. Arrived at Jacksonville, TX at 7:13pm CDT.

Ruston, LA from 3:03pm to 4:11pm CDT (1 hr, 8 mins).

In case you were wondering where to find a decent frog, Rayne is The Frog Capital of the World. And if you were still in doubt, note the plague of frog murals and statues that festoon the town.

Passing through Church Point (Buggy Capital) on the way to Rayne, we found ourselves in a little gift shop.

Eunice, LA at 11:07am CDT.

Like most of this area of Louisiana, time has forgotten The Palace Cafe. There's still a lunch counter with swivel stools, a waitress with braces who tries awfully hard to please, plate lunches and iceberg lettuce salads with a bit of tomato and homemade Italian dressing. We're awaiting the big World Championship Crawfish Etouffée Cook-Off this Sunday in Eunice, so steered away from the crawfish in favor of a shrimp and okra gumbo made in heaven, broiled catfish with a crawfish sauce (they're unavoidable, I guess), and chicken livers with mushroom gravy over rice. Eunice is the yam capital, but for some reason the menu was yamless. But not yumless.

Eunice, LA from 11:25am to 12:06pm CDT (40 mins).

Drove down to Avery Island, home of Tabasco, mainly to tour the factory and hit the gift shop. But we spent so long strolling around the adjacent Jungle Gardens, picnicking, watching the egrets and gators, smelling the camellias and such, we missed the tour.

Don't know why they're called Jungle Gardens. They're beautifully manicured bayou gardens, including an 11th century Buddha facing a lily pond with a few small gators and turtles.

We'd read in our twelve-year-old guidebook about the beauty of Abbeville, a town on Bayou Vermilion, seat of Vermilion Parish, and "home to three of the finest oyster bars anywhere."

Sadly, Abbeville has not fared so well in the last decade. Like in so many of the towns we've visited here in Southwest Louisiana, where the town centers lie a few miles from the main state or interstate highway and the inevitable Wal-Mart, the core of Abbeville has been sucked dry. Downtown Abbeville looks like it was evacuated in an air raid drill in 1962. Beautiful brick storefronts faded and empty. You can stroll down the middle of main street at 6:30 in the evening. There's no one to run you over. So sad.

I happened into the town's record shop, where the proprietor and her family were presiding over the shop's liquidation. Her late husband's chopper still stood in the front window. The display cases held only a few CDs, divided into categories—Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp. Everything 50% off. She said they'd opened in 1955. "We had a good run." On her recommendation, we bought a couple local artist's CDs—$10 for both.

Also on her recommendation, we ate at Dupuy's, the oldest of the town's great oyster bars, established over a century ago. Six perfect raws on the half shell, a decent seafood gumbo, forgettable fried gator bites.

Wanted to explore a plantation house and grounds, but arrived close to closing time and thought better of paying the admission. Outside the grounds was a space with huge live oaks and abundant moss.

Pulled into Houma, the seat of Terrebonne Parish in the middle of the bayou country, just before dark. Spent most of our tie hunting accommodations, including a funky bed and breakfast in the spare bedroom of an elderly couple's home in the suburban outskirts. We wound up at a nondescript Hojo.

Ate at "1921" a classic seafood joint serving boiled crawfish shrimp, gumbo and lots of fried stuff. Our perky little waitress turned us on to the "boil soup" (I think), a concoction made of the boiling broth used for the crawfish and shrimp, along with potato, corn and some extra shrimp and crawfish. Yum yum.