Louisiana – October 2023

Natchitoches, LA.  How would you pronounce this city name?  Here it is: Nak-i-tush!  So why didn’t they just spell it that way? I had wanted to stay in this town but had to cut it out of the itinerary, so I spent a sunny fall afternoon looking around the historic district. It was quite small but had a wonderful park and walk next to the Cane River.  This was my first stop in Louisiana. There is a lot of Spanish and French architecture in Louisiana. My favorite being the wrought iron railings on the buildings with all manner of scroll work.  Since I was only here a few hours there’s not much to tell. There are a couple pictures to give you an idea of my first take on LA.

It was a long day and I continued South to Lafayette, LA which is fairly directly East of New Orleans.  Lafayette ended up being my favorite place in LA. There were so many things to see and do here, with still plenty more left unseen.  I had several tours planned here and all of them were great!  My first tour was the Cajun Food Tour!  Our guide gave us a historical narration as we drove around and even gave a short tour of the sights downtown (which isn’t that big). We stopped at Cathedral of St John the Evangelist where there is a 500 year old Live Oak in the courtyard. In 2015 it measured 9 feet in diameter, with a circumference of 28 feet 8 inches; it stands approximately 126 high with a spread of 210 feet across.  This tree is a Monster! And beautiful with moss and ferns growing along its giant limbs. The stained glass windows inside the cathedral were works of art. The pictures I took didn’t do it justice. Multiple churches have been built in this same location starting in the 1700s, but the current building was completed around 1916.

Continuing with the Cajun Food Tour, we stopped at 5 different eating establishments (one being an old historical grocery store). Each location had a specialty item that we got to taste.  One was a Po’boy shrimp sandwich, another was smoked cajun sausage, my favorite chicken & sausage gumbo, boudin, and finally my other favorite bread pudding with white chocolate rum sauce at Wild Cat Brothers Rum distillery. With a little rum tasting on the side!  I even bought a bottle of spiced rum as a souvenir.  It’s amazing how affordable alcohol is here without the myriad of taxes that Washington adds. Wild Cat Brothers won some awards for their rums, and the one we tasted as part of the tour was indeed unique! I don’t think I’ve ever had rum so potent or so smokey flavored.  It wasn’t one I wanted to take home but I could appreciate the artistic quality of it. 

Of course, you’re all wondering what Boudin is, right?  Boudin (boo-DAHN) is like sausage but made from already cooked meat, rice and seasonings. The origins of boudin date back over two centuries to when the Acadians migrated to Louisiana from Nova Scotia and France. It’s not chunky like sausage but smoother as if it’s ground up to a putty consistency. It was very tasty and rich. Just like sausage, you can get all different flavors. I would highly recommend this tour if you find yourself in Lafayette.

My next tour was Champagne’s Swamp Tour. They claimed you didn’t need insect repellant here, but I couldn’t quite believe that and brought some along just in case! It is true there were no mosquitoes… ok, one or two. Tupelo Gum Trees in the swamp are a natural mosquito repellant and it made for a super enjoyable, comfortable tour. The morning started with quite dense fog, and I was afraid it might ruin the tour. It lent a completely different, almost eerie, feel to the swamp.  The trees were silhouetted against the white fog background and made it look like a watercolor painting. Almost washed out.  The boat was flat bottomed, and each person had a seat that swiveled along each side of the boat. Most of the area was only a few feet deep in water and we scraped the ground a couple of times. We saw many herons, egrets and alligators.  We even saw a mother alligator with a bunch of babies about 1 foot in length.  The bald cypress trees were beautiful with their wide trunks growing out of the water.  It was quite colorful in the swamp. Bright green moss and duck weed along with gray green spanish moss hanging out of the trees. Toward the end of the tour the fog lifted, and the sun brightened up the swamps hidden corners!  This is another tour I’d highly recommend.

Avery Island, LA is the home of world-famous Tabasco sauce! The production factory is quite large with a self guided museum and tour of the facility. I was lucky to be there on a day when the factory was bottling and labeling green and red sauces. Tabasco was established in 1868 and today there are 9 varieties of sauces. The tour takes you through how Tabasco produced without all the fancy equipment of today; then you see how it’s done today.  On the bottling line they even had a machine breakdown and, true to most manufacturing facilities, on went the Red light to show where the line stoppage was located. The mechanic rushed over and worked to fix the problem. One machine installs the little clear cap with the hole in the center (where the sauce pours out of). An employee sat where the bottles came out and would manually place a cap on the bottle if the machine didn’t get it on there. I noticed there were hundreds of little caps all over the floor and asked if they sterilize and re-use or throw them away?  She said they are thrown away.  They must be cheap!  Backing up a little to the beginning of the process, once the ‘pepper mash’ is made it is put in oak barrels and aged for up to 3 years before being bottled. The storage warehouse doors are open so you can see the rows and rows, and stacks of barrels.  In addition to the museum and facility tour, the gift shop has Everything Tabasco.  They even have a tasting bar to try every flavor. Too bad they didn’t have Tupelo Gum trees here. I was eaten alive by the mosquitoes!

Part of this great estate includes Jungle Gardens. It is a several mile drive winding through a park created by the family. Lots of trees, lawns, and ponds. Trails to walk. And a huge rookery for nesting Ibis. However, nesting was already over and no Ibis to be seen there.