Stopped in LA for Boudin Balls and then had a RV problem near Beaumont TX…

Our next stop on the road was near Lafayette Louisiana in the small town of Duson. We have stayed several times before at Frog City RV Park . It is a nice little Passport America park just of the interstate.  It has pull through sites, a little road noise, a small pool and a great location to try out all the boudin balls in the area.

Next to the town of Duson is a small town called Scott. Scott, Louisiana is smack  in the middle of a region in Louisiana known as Acadiana.  A lot of French influence historically in this area gave rise to the wonderful Cajun culture we so thoroughly love. Scott is a well known tasty stop off of I-10 for some of the best boudin in Louisiana.

There are four places in Scott known for their boudin balls  Boudin balls are a classic Cajun culture food staple. Made from boudin which is a pork sausage made with rice and seasoning usually stuffed into a casing. For boudin balls, they simply remove the casing, roll it into balls (about the size of a tennis ball), bread them and then deep fry them to a perfect crisp.

Healthy? No! But let’s be real healthy food will never tastes this good. We planned to try all four stops at Billy's Boudin & Cracklins, Kartchner’s Specialty Meats, The Best Stop Supermarket and Don's Specialty Meats. We managed to try three out of the four as Don’s was closing by the time we arrived and didn’t have what we wanted.

The winner for us was Kartchner’s Specialty Meats Jalapeno/cream cheese boudin ball and the runner up was Billy's Boudin & Cracklins pepperjack boudin ball. I also had to buy me some cracklings at Billy’s and had absolutely no regrets doing so. Man this was some fine, albeit unhealthy, eating. I am sure I’d be 250 lbs. if I lived near here!

We left the Acadiana part of Louisiana and stopped for one night in another site we have stayed at before in Texas just across the Louisiana border. Near the town of Vidor we stayed at another Passport America park called Boomtown RV Park.

We didn’t even unhook as we planned to leave the next morning. Well that is when things turned sour. As we were preparing to leave one jack would not come back up. I couldn’t retract it manually either since I didn’t have the right sized bit to use in my drill to retract it. We called the office for mobile RV repair guys and both of the ones I called couldn’t get to us for several days.

Not wanting to spend more time in Vidor we called the office again to ask if they had a commercial hydraulic jack and lucky for us they did. A nice young man brought it over on his golf cart and jacked up the front of our RV. Then I simply crawled under the RV and unplugged the Atwood jack. I then removed the four bolts holding it on and removed the jack from the RV.

The nice guy then dropped the RV back down and I tossed the old jack into our CRV. We even made our departure before the 11:00 am checkout time. We were so thankful that Boomtown RV Park worked with us to help get our RV mobile again. Now when we get to College Station I’ll have a longer time to solve this problem.

Hammond LA…

We left Biloxi early in the morning to miss the traffic caused by all the vintage cars at the Crusin’ the Coast rally. Before long we pulled into our next site at Hidden Oaks Family Campground in Hammond, LA.

Hidden Oaks CG is a mom and pop kind of place which hosts lots of weekend events and as such is rather large. It has over a 100 sites and lots of permanent residents living in park models with large shade shelters built over top of them. We can surely imagine this place hopping on one of those active weekend events.

We would only be in Hammond a few days so they put us on a nice gravel pull through. There is an old ox bow lake in the middle of the park and we were parked  where we could see the lake out the front windshield. Also we found some nice trails to walk inside the park including a daily morning loop alongside the little lake and down to the river on the south end of the property.

Another fun thing about the park is that there is a flock of peacocks who free roam around the park. There were about 10 of them and one all white peacock. They often foraged around the motorhome so I am pretty the locals often feed them.

The town of Hammond is smallish but it does have a small college in town and the downtown area has a fairly lively area as well. We even checked out a small brewery, Gnarly Barley, near downtown. They served some really good craft beer and while we were there they also had some nice live music. We also got a kick out of the food truck’s name, photo attached.

Not too far away from our campground there was a nice boardwalk trail out into a fresh water swamp. Sharon loves hiking boardwalk trails so we found this one and even though the hike was short it was a nice afternoon diversion. One thing we saw lots of on this walk was the pinkish eggs of the non-native Apple Snail.

At the base of nearly every Cypress tree we saw what looked like pink bubblegum stuck to the trees. But on closer inspection it was apparent that these bubblegum blobs were the snail eggs. A little search on google told us exactly what they were.

Thanks, Hammond for some good beer, nice hikes and for learning something new!

Fontainebleau SP and Hattiesburg MS…

We packed up the RV and headed east to our next stop near Mandeville LA at Fontainebleau State Park. Fontainebleau SP is one of our favorite parks to stay at in Louisiana. The park offers nice sized sites in the woods with hiking and biking opportunities.

We hiked the trails in the park that meander through the Pine-Hardwood forest and lead to the picturesque pier at the end of the trail. The pier is one of the highlights of this park as it sits over the northern end of Lake Pontchartrain. At Happy Hour it is always fun to stop in Mandeville at the Old Rail Brewery for a cold one.

Our next stop after Fontainebleau SP was a stop in a new (for us) town in Mississippi. We will spend a few nights in Hattiesburg MS at the Forrest County Multi-Purpose Park which is basically your typical fairgrounds site but this one does have sewer hookups as well.

As many full-timers know securing weekend spots while traveling is getting harder and harder so stopping at off the beaten path places like fairgrounds can fill the need for weekend campsites. Here we are able to have full hookups, just outside of town  for only $20 per night which is pretty hard to beat.

Adjacent to the campground is Forrest County Lake which allows fishing and hiking within its confines. Better yet there is a boardwalk/pier bisecting the lake making for some fun gazing into the water, watching sunsets or simply enjoying nature’s reflections.

We walked into the woods on the other side of the boardwalk several times and there were numerous (unmarked) trails scattered all over the place. It would be easy to get confused of your whereabouts if you aren’t paying attention. Each day as we walked back and forth on the boardwalk we would engage in conversation with the local fishermen. They admit to catching fish here but we didn’t see a single fish caught in  the three days we were there.

Hattiesburg MS is an interesting town as it has a mixture of areas that look like they are on the upswing yet there are many other areas that look impoverished. We did find a nice disc golf course that was heavily wooded and quite challenging. It was here we found our first freely suspended basket which made for an interesting challenge.

The downtown area is reflective of the town as a whole. Some nice, and some not so nice areas can be found. We were looking for a brewery downtown but the building was so poorly marked we nearly missed it. We were certainly glad we found the place (Southern Prohibition Brewery) because their beer was both exceptional and very affordable.

We didn’t have a single beer that we were disappointed in and we met some nice people at the bar. Sharon was chatting with one fellow who was delighted to learn we were fulltime RV’ers as his mom was about to undertake such an adventure. We gave tons of tips for his mom and he was so appreciative that he gifted us four different beers from a mixed case he had bought. Wow, it really pays to be nice to people…

Lafayette LA treats, Disc Golf and a Betty Visit!

Waking up in Vidor Texas to witness the sunrise over the large pond at the RV park while enjoying my cup of coffee was a great way to start this travel day.After breakfast we packed up and tested everything before leaving. Our towed vehicle lights are still not working properly so I had to re-wire the 7-way plug and clean it up. I got them working but I am going to need to replace that 7-way plug with a new end.

We hit the road and a few hours later pulled into Duson, Louisiana at Frog City RV Park. This was yet another good Passport America park honoring 50% off their regular price. We have stayed here before and after setting up I had to walk over to the truck stop nearby and buy some Pepperjack Boudin Balls. Man were they good. We love being back in Louisiana because the food is awesome.

Our first day we drove over to play some disc golf.at ‘Pa” Davis Park. We had never played at this park even though we have spent a lot of time in the Lafayette, LA area. The course was really nice and best of all it had a lot of shade making for a great disc golf day in the heat with temperatures in the upper 90’s.

After disc golf we stopped at our favorite wine store in Lafayette called Marcello's. The owner has a few restaurants in Louisiana and sells all of his “leftover” wines here resulting in some great bargains. This is the only wine store we stop at where we always have to use a grocery basket to load all of our finds. This trip was no exception…

We also stopped at Rouse’s Grocery store which is a Louisiana specialty stop and  tends to have all of the Cajun delectables. I love their homemade sausages and Cajun prepared meats. This trip we found some fantastic looking bacon wrapped chicken thighs stuffed with cream cheese and jalapenos all spiced with a Cajun seasoning. We bought these and cooked them in the air fryer for dinner. They were so good we bought more before we left the state.

Normally we stop at Betty’s RV Park when coming through this part of Louisiana but since we had to stay in College Station TX for two months we weren’t able to stay our normal month with her as she is officially closed until September. However, since we were close to the park we called Betty to arrange to meet her at happy hour. What fun we had!! It was so great to see and chat with Betty again even though we weren’t staying at her park.She is as lively as ever and seemed really excited about her summer vacation plans.

Before leaving this area we had to stop in at the Old Thyme Grocery and get, in our opinion, the best shrimp po’ boy in the USA. This po’ boy was no disappointment as we enjoyed each and every bite while washing it down with Envie craft beer made by Parish Brewing in Louisiana.

We love this area but it’s time to go once again…

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…

Last Weekend at Betty’s and Moving On…

Our last weekend at Betty’s was a blast just like all our weekends at Betty’s are. One event we enjoyed was when Calvin & Donna Touchet came over to the RV Park on Thursday and prepared a Cajun Spaghetti dinner. The dinner included salad and rolls so everyone else brought a dessert. The food was fabulous.

After the dinner and happy hour most of us headed over to Sounds on the Square in Abbeville for the free Thursday music series. While the music on this night wasn’t Cajun or Zydeco the band Bayou Beats was still enjoyable. It was also very nice to sit amongst the large and majestic live oak trees draped in resurrection fern and festive lighting. It made for a very relaxing evening. 

Our last Saturday we attended the black pot cook off at Touchet’s  Bar. Anytime we see there is one of these food type events I am there. I love the way the Acadians prepare their dishes and a black pot cookoff meant there would be plenty of different style of food to try. With a $5 entry there was unlimited sampling at the 30 plus booths and for entertainment, three different bans played that day. 

We sampled Cajun stews, Sauce Piquante dishes, etoufees, jambalaya,  a gumbo, egg and crab stew, shrimp n grits, rabbit, alligator and many more dishes with wonderful flavors. I sampled every dish and can only admit to not liking only one of them. Boy was I stuffed when I went back inside to listen to the bands play.

 We listened to a lot of great music that afternoon with each band donating their time to support the Cajun Culture Association.  One of the fund raisers was a 50-50. For those that don’t know this is where you buy a ticket for say a dollar and half goes to the charity (Cajun Culture Assoc) and the other half goes to the winning ticket drawn later.

When they drew the winning ticket we were told the ticket holder had to be present to win and no one claimed the winning ticket. After a few minutes it was announced they would draw another winning ticket and as they announced the winning number Sharon screamed out as she had it! She made her way through the crowd to collect the money ($351.00). We donated $50 back the Cajun Culture Association and spent another $40 on rounds but still came home with a tidy sum.

Our last happy hour at Betty’s was a festive one as several of us were leaving the next morning. As a result many of us broke out partial bottles of booze and everyone had a shot or two to help us lighten our load for travel day.

 The next morning came and it was time for us to go after many hugs to the group. We had  an appointment in Abbeville for a pair of new tires on the front of our RV before going on down the road. I researched tires and decided to replace my Goodyear G670’s with Toyo 122’s. With our newly installed Toyo tires we hit the road and even on the bumpy Louisiana roadways we noticed how much smoother our ride was. I think we are going to love our Toyos and at half the cost of the Goodyears we will also pocket some money.

An hour and a half later we pulled into our overnight stop at the Delta Downs Racetrack and Casino…

NOTE: We are now in College Station Texas until mid-May…