Traveled from Gautier MS to Morgan City LA today. Decided to take hwy 90 and avoid the interstate. Drove through Biloxi, Gulfport and Pass Christian before turning inland. Then drove through the southern part of New Orleans to Morgan City.
- 50 years ago when Sandy and I drove through here after hurricane Camille we saw a lot of houses that were gone with only the driveway, sidewalk, or front steps left. There are still a lot of empty lots with nice mature oaks and only a driveway or sidewalk to nowhere. Lots of casinos but little changed otherwise. The beach was just on the other side of the road from us. The water was glass smooth and the sand as white as snow.
- Crossed one little river or bayou on a bridge that was so narrow it had a 25 mph speed limit. We crept over it with about 3 inches on each side of the trailer in our lane. Passed several cars that were carefully staying on their side.
- Crossing into LA from MS was a major shift – lots of pulp pine trees on the MS side and nothing but swamp and swamp grass on the LA side.
- Lots and lots of small boats tossed on the south side of the road, some salvaged, some broken in half, some upside down, and some just laying there. A number of buildings smashed to kindling and many, many with the blue tarp roofs. All compliments of hurricane Ida.
- Spent lots of time on winding 2 lane roads with swamp on each side. Drove almost 50 miles looking for a place with a large enough parking lot for us to pull over and use the bathroom. Thought my back teeth were going to float away.
- Twas a slow trip (overall average speed of32 mph vs our usual 45 mph) but interesting.
Stayed in the Lake End Park and Campground on the north end of Lake Palourde just east of Morgan City. It’s a really nice campground with tall cypress trees covered in Spanish moss. It was really foggy this morning – visibility about 50 feet when I walked the dogs – and dripping on the top of the trailer, sounding like rain. The moss hangs down below eye level and I started to walk between a couple of strands and saw thick spider webs hanging down just in time to dip and miss them.
Was eating lunch on the picnic table and noticed a large ½” long mosquito had landed on a slice of apple. It was bobbing up and down like it was seriously sucking juice out of the apple. I smashed him and spoiled his day. First time I’ve ever seen that.
Amber and Tim’s wedding was delightful. The Church was beautiful, the ceremony was efficient without being rushed and the food at the reception was outstanding. Christina mentioned that Jared was responsible for the jambalaya. I asked if he used his Grandma’s secret recipe and he conceded that he used the Christina & Jared secret recipe. They shared it with us so I bought the ingredients at the store and made some of our own the next night. Christina had suggested that we also purchase some “Slap Yo Mama” hot sauce to spice it up. I declined because it was on the shelf beside the “Cajun Butt-Burner” sauce.
We cooked up one of the boxes and it was also outstanding and I now understood the unusual seasoning we found on the shrimp we had in Gautier. We ate the leftovers a few days later but added a half a can of diced tomatoes. Might have deviated from cajun doctrine but it fit our Virginia palates even better. The seasoning that seems to be the Old Bay of the cajun world is gumbo file. We also got some of that too.
The wedding was in Thibodaux, about 45 minutes away. On the way over, we were driving down a perfectly straight two-lane road bordered by low grass and swamp on each side. We could almost hear the da-da-dee-da of the Twilight Zone theme and Rod Serling’s voice in the background, “Imagine if you will, a senior couple, a man and a woman, driving down a long, straight road between swamp and overhanging trees toward a misty uncertain future…”
We didn’t get home until almost 10:00. We were making good time on the way back until we ran into heavy fog about 5 miles from home. Could only see 2-3 stripes ahead of the truck so had to slow down to about 30 mph. Really spooky driving.