Louisiana
A road trip from Louisiana to Mississippi: Crawfish, beignets and beaches
The server at Suire’s Grocery was apologetic. They had just finished their lunch period and only had sandwiches left. Would that do? But before we could register a response a voice piped up from behind the hatch in the servery, insisting they had one last hot plate to offer. It was boudin and rice in gravy, take it or leave it.
Gratefully, we agreed to take it. We had hoped for their “legendary” Turtle Sauce Piccante, or Catfish Po’boy, or something else from their daily chalkboard of Cajun delicacies, all redolent of 300 years of southern Louisiana’s cultural hot-pot. But boudin and rice sounded intriguing. “What’s in it?” we asked, naively. The person next in line piped up. “Best not to ask,” she insisted. “But it’s good eatin’ all the same.” She wasn’t wrong.
Traditional boudin is a sausage made from pork meat, rice, vegetables and seasonings that vary from kitchen to kitchen and can include liver and heart, hence the whispered advice to stay ignorant of the recipe. We took the plunge and savoured a deeply flavourful plateful. The sausage had the consistency of pate and the thick gravy added a delectably gooey texture that hinted of bourbon, tabasco and something essentially earthy.
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Family-run Suire’s, in the rural town of Kaplan, was exactly what we’d hoped to encounter as our year-long RV circumnavigation of the US reached its 11th month. Southern Louisiana held the promise of experiences beyond the usual tourist trail, and we were soon immersed in a world of historical intrigue, ancient waterways, crawfish farms and fabulous food – the legacy of the 18th-century French Catholic expulsion from maritime Canada.
Here, along the Cajun Corridor Byway, we explored St Martinville, founded in 1765 and the setting for Longfellow’s epic poem “Evangeline”. We continued to the shrimping centre of Morgan City and White Lake Wetlands Conservation Area, where we were advised to keep an eye out for alligators. We also discovered Hebert’s Meats and dined on superb etouffee, jambalaya and more boudin.
Heading further east brought us to history-rich Baton Rouge via the 18-mile marvel of Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, an extensive causeway across America’s largest river swamp. From the elevated seats of our 36-foot-long Winnebago, we enjoyed a grandstand view of this million-acre wetland that is effectively the Mississippi’s dramatic overflow basin.
We checked in to the chic Tiger’s Trail RV Resort, an adjunct to the neighbouring L’Auberge Casino and packed with amenities like a swimming pool, lazy river feature, laundry and pickleball courts, plus the friendliest camp hosts we’d yet met. Fully in tune with the campground camaraderie we had come to expect, the Tiger’s Trail folks made us feel part of their family with a friendliness that was genuine and unmistakable.
Baton Rouge introduced us to the massive Louisiana State University campus with its stunning 102,000-seat American football stadium and an urban profile packed with modern art and period architecture, including its neo-Gothic Old State Capitol building, St Joseph Cathedral and Magnolia Mound Plantation House. The city’s oldest neighbourhood, the Civil War-ravaged Spanish Town, offered a collection of period homes, as well as the nearby temptations of Cecilia Creole Bistro, where we sampled fried oysters and alligators.
Resorting to our trusty tow car, we ventured in search of the rural towns and backwaters that reputedly make up 80 per cent of the state. Here, we could drive part of the Great River Road National Scenic Byway, a homage to the mighty Mississippi, studded with landmarks from the plantation era, notably Houmas House with its stately mansion and gardens.
The classic waterway of Bayou Manchac took us back into the 19th century, and the Southern Swamp Byway took us further still, with a timewarp journey into backroads where gators and turtles were often the only living creatures and crawfish farms were commonplace. Back in the 1940s, rice farmers realised their flooded rectangular ponds were the perfect breeding ground for crawfish, which thrived on the rice stalks, and promptly set up a two-for-the-price-of-one industry that supplies 100 million pounds per year of this delectable freshwater crustacean.
This symbiosis of backwater industry and dinner-table staple reached its zenith in New Orleans, where, for once, we were willing to drive our RV into the city to be close to the attractions. The New Orleans RV Resort & Marina proved yet again that a decent place to pull up and plug in is always on hand, and we dropped anchor for a week of Big Easy sights and tastes. Especially tastes.
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Lafayette and Baton Rouge had whetted our appetites for the rich, rustic cuisine of the bayous, and we expected this foodie-centric city to raise the bar considerably. We weren’t disappointed. While we delighted in the unique French-Spanish-British culture that underpins New Orleans life, we happily soaked up the likes of shrimp etouffee, fried okra, gumbo and andouille sausage, all of which came with the Cajun “holy trinity” of chopped onions, celery and green bell peppers for stews, soups and sauces of lip-smacking pleasure.
We arrived just in time for the Wednesday concert series in Lafayette Square, a free weekly festival of live music and food kiosks that immediately got us up to speed on how to enjoy the city, especially when we came across the urban oasis of City Park, the second largest park in the US after New York’s Central Park. Its mixture of botanical gardens, amusement parks, museums, sculpture gardens and dog parks was balm for the soul and a feast for the senses, especially when we happened upon the beignets.
Aah, the beignets! These little portions of fried dough delight are a local speciality dating back to French immigrants from the 1700s, and Café du Monde has been serving them since 1862. Now in locations throughout the city, they are as iconic as Mardi Gras and twice as delicious. City Park’s café lacked the crowds of the downtown venues, hence we sat and ingested with enormous relish.
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While New Orleans beguiled with its cuisine, music and culture – including the renowned National WWII Museum, which brought us to tears with its section on the Holocaust, and Chalmette Battlefield, where the 1815 Battle of New Orleans effectively ended colonial claims on America – the rural areas south of the city caught us off guard. The painfully impoverished towns of the Mississippi River Delta were a reminder of a tragic past and uncertain future, with its historic high poverty levels now exacerbated by a succession of hurricanes that have left deep scars, along with the climate change forecast for more.
The state of Mississippi presented us with dazzling Gulf Coast real estate. As we pulled into Buccaneer State Park, another superbly equipped campground right on this captivating coast, we were aware of the beach just a few yards from our site, while the coast road disappeared to the east in a whispered promise of new discoveries.
Sure enough, we were right on Beach Boulevard Scenic Byway, a pristine 13-mile stretch of wooded seaside nirvana studded with two utterly charming towns in Waveland and Bay St Louis. While New Orleans grabbed all the tragic headlines of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Waveland was actually ground zero for the monster storm, with only one building left standing on the high street thanks to a 30ft surge that pushed miles inland and left 57 dead (out of a population of 8,361). Amazingly, the rebuilding effort has created a new-town appearance with old-school sensibilities, and the Byway provided outstanding sight-seeing as well as blissful beaches and the eclectic Mockingbird Café, a survivor of Katrina and now a community focus for breakfast, lunch and heavenly coffees.
The coastal idyll continued as we took Highway 90 through Pass Christian, Long Beach and Gulfport to Biloxi Bay RV Resort, and another exercise in high-quality camping. With its own lazy river feature, swimming pool and bayfront bar, we were totally cosseted for another week, while also enjoying local highlights that included the eclectic arts community of Ocean Springs – packed with restaurants, art galleries and its own beachfront – and Biloxi itself, with more dining delights, as well as 26 miles of white sands that wouldn’t be out of place in the Caribbean.
In many ways, we had uncovered the essential Zen of RVing with a totally chilled state of road-going mind, but there was more in store as we considered the final month of our grand adventure through Alabama and back home to Orlando.
How to do it
RV Factfile:
‘111 Places in Orlando That You Must Not Miss’ by Simon Veness and Susan Veness is out now for £13.99.
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V. Elaine Thompson, associate professor of history and undergraduate coordinator for the School of Human Inquiry at Louisiana Tech University, has received the Garnie W. McGinty Lifetime Meritorious Service Award from the Louisiana Historical Association.
The prize honors Garnie McGinty, a longtime professor of history at Louisiana Tech University, and is the organization’s highest honor. The honor is awarded annually to those who have made significant contributions to scholarship in Louisiana history, to the historical profession in Louisiana or to the association.
Samuel Shepherd, professor emeritus at Centenary College of Louisiana, praised Thompson’s lifelong dedication in his nomination of her for the award.
“Louisiana history has radiated through Dr. Thompson’s entire life,” Shepherd said. “Her passion about the state’s past has been matched by her extensive knowledge and deep understanding of it. She has enriched the minds of students and scholars, as well as the general public, and stimulated them to discover more about Louisiana and its people. She richly deserves her McGinty honor.”
Thompson’s honor completes a trio of distinctions within the Louisiana Historical Association, as she has also served as president and been elected to the Company of Fellows.
“It has been my privilege to serve the members of the LHA, my colleagues, and my students during the past two decades,” Thompson said. “ I’m honored and delighted to be recognized for my efforts, and I look forward to many more years of diligent work in researching, teaching, and promoting Louisiana history. I’m so grateful to the Louisiana Historical Association and to the McGinty Trust for this award.”
Thompson, who grew up in Clinton, has been a member of the Louisiana Tech faculty since 2004.
BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – The Louisiana House passed a bill that would hold parents financially responsible when their children threaten schools.
House Bill 137 would allow courts to fine parents up to $5,000 if a child under 14 is convicted of making a school threat. The bill now heads to the Senate.
The convicted children could also face a mental health exam, up to a year of probation or six months in juvenile detention, and mandatory counseling in a back on track youth program.
Supporters say the measure will deter threats, while critics call it a dangerous precedent.
The proposal is making its way through the legislature as part of the 2026 Regular Legislative Session, which must adjourn no later than 6 p.m. on Monday, June 1.
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Louisiana
Louisiana could get rid of inspection stickers — in most places. Is your parish on the list?
Drivers in most of Louisiana would no longer need to get inspection stickers under a bill advancing in the Legislature with Gov. Jeff Landry’s support.
Instead, personal vehicles would just need a sticker that lists its vehicle identification number.
Drivers in some parts of the state, however, would still have to get inspections.
New Orleans, Kenner and Westwego have their own rules requiring the stickers — which locals famously call “brake tags” — and those would “still be allowed to continue as they are,” Office of Motor Vehicles Commissioner Keith Neal said.
And, emissions testing would still be required for drivers in several Baton Rouge-area parishes because of a federal air quality order under the Clean Air Act. Those parishes are Ascension, East Baton Rouge, Iberville, Livingston and West Baton Rouge.
Commercial vehicles and school buses would still be required to do regular safety inspections.
House Bill 838, sponsored by Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall, would set a $6 annual cost for the new VIN sticker, and the fee would be assessed and collected by the Office of Motor Vehicles during registrations and registration renewals.
For example, someone who renews a vehicle registration every two years would pay $12 and someone who renews every four years would pay $24.
“The good thing about it is you won’t have to go get a sticker,” Bagley told members of the House transportation committee. “It’ll simplify many things.”
For most parishes, inspection stickers would no longer be required effective January 1. Starting June 30 this year, law enforcement would be prohibited from issuing citations for not having an inspection sticker.
In the five-parish capital region that’s subject to federal emissions testing requirements, the law would take effect once the Environmental Protection Agency approves the change.
The House transportation committee approved the bill Monday without objection.
Valerie Brolin, a spokesperson for the City of Kenner, said Mayor Michael Glaser would consider whether Kenner should end its brake tag program if HB838 becomes law. “Kenner’s not going to independently do it on its own,” she said.
What the new stickers would do
The new stickers would contain a QR code that, when scanned, lists the VIN.
“The only thing that’ll be in that QR code is the VIN,” Evelina Broussard, chief information officer for the state’s Office of Technology Service, told lawmakers on Monday.
Bagley in an interview said having the 17-digit VIN accessible to law enforcement through a QR code allows them to more easily enter it into the systems they use for ticketing or other searches, rather than enter it manually.
Landry called for eliminating inspection stickers in his “State of the State” speech to open the legislative session earlier this month.
“It’s time to eliminate the inspection sticker and stop this major inconvenience for Louisiana drivers!” Landry posted on X Monday after the bill passed out of committee.
Landry previously said the state may eventually use the sticker to display insurance coverage information.
Asked about the plan to display insurance information, Bagley said it is not currently part of the legislation, though it “possibly could” be in the future.
Bagley, who has served as a state representative for 11 years, said he’s been trying to pass the legislation since his second year at the Capitol.
Landry’s support of the measure is what’s made the difference this year, he said.
“He’s saying he’s going to change Louisiana for the better, we’re going to see a lot of changes,” Bagley said of Landry. “This is one of them.”
Bagley said so far this year there’s been no opposition to his bill.
“Why would you want to fight a first-term governor that’s popular when you know there’s probably not much you can do,” he said.
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