Hello Louisiana and Hello Shrimp Po'boys!

After enjoying our brief stay in Mississippi we moved on over to Louisiana after a 168 mile drive. We pulled into a familiar park at Fontainebleau State Park, near Mandeville, LA. We planned to spend three nights and just relax inside the park.

There are some nice trails to hike and with part of the park on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain it even has a small beach. One of our favorite places within the park to visit is the picturesque pier. The sunsets there are spectacular especially when the clouds are just right. We weren’t fortunate enough to have good clouds this trip but have seen some beautiful sunsets in the past.

Our favorite hike within the park includes a walk past gorgeous stately oak trees draped in Spanish Moss leading to a small piece of boardwalk out into the marsh on the north shore of the lake. We hiked it a couple of times and each time spotted lots of nice shorebirds as well as a few alligators. We love walking along the boardwalk and hearing the Common Gallinule’s send out their alarm calls or seeing yet another new bird on the expansive marshland.

I also had some fun mountain biking the a five mile loop trail in the woods of the park. It wasn’t an overly challenging bike ride but certainly was an enjoyable one.This stay sure was a nice respite to our frantic travel lately Pausing to simply enjoying the park was a true pleasure.

After our three night stay we moved on down the road another 139 miles to a new park for us in Duson, LA called Frog City RV Park. Our main reason to stop there was to go to our very favorite po’boy shop in Lafayette Louisiana called Olde Thyme Grocery. It is hands down one of the two best shrimp po’boys we have found in Louisiana.T(The other is at Bon Creole).

Another favorite stop in Lafayette is a place called Marcello’s. This is a great discounted wine store where we always find quality wines at incredible prices. This time was no different as we bought a few cases of wine to help us endure the winter in South Texas. Betty Bernard of Betty’s RV Park told us about this store and our only regret was knowing how close we were to Betty yet but not able to visit due to Covid… Most definitely next year!!!

The evening before leaving Louisiana I noticed the truck stop next to our park had a small diner inside which was actually affiliated with one of the best boudin stores in the area. Of course, I had to visit to look for some boudin to take with us as well. We walked over to the store and bought some boudin for the freezer and picked up few freshly made pepper jack boudin balls for a snack on the way back.

We sure were sad not to be staying longer in one of our favorite places. We love the Acadian culture, people, food, music and festivals so we will take comfort in knowing  we will be back as soon as we feel it is safe to do so…

NOTE:  We are currently in San Antonio Texas for four nights before heading south to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas…