Day 3 - Abbeville, Louisiana

California or Bust…

Day 3 – Abbeville, Louisiana

Monday, October 24, 2011

On the road at 8:30 am… I think it’s because our body clocks are still on Eastern Standard Time and we were up early and ready to go.  Our plan is to drive about 290 miles to Abbeville, Louisiana and stay a couple of nights there to explore the SouthWest coastline.  Abbeville is located in the Vermillion Parish and is considered “the MOST CAJUN” place on earth.

Trivia of the Day:  What’s the difference between Cajun and Creole cooking?  Cajun cooking is country cooking of southwest Louisiana and its gravies, stews and gumbos contain no tomatoes unless specifically making a tomato based sauce.  New Orleans serves Creole food, not Cajun, which is basically city cooking and they tend to use hotter peppers in their seasoning.  Tomatoes are a staple in Creole foods.

M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i

 



Crossing the Mississippi River



The Mighty Mississippi...

We crossed the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge which looked extremely busy with barge traffic.   And then proceeded to drive on a causeway over the Atchfalaya National Refuge and Bayou Des Ourses (can anyone translate?) for approximately 25 miles… full of cypress trees and I would guess plenty of alligators.  It is the largest swamp in the United States and is a combination of wetlands and river delta… it was absolutely beautiful!



Atchfalaya National Refuge & Bayou



Exiting I-10 in Lafayette, we made our way by the active University of Louisiana campus and drove another 18 miles South to Abbeville and Betty’s RV Park.  Betty’s came highly recommended on many of the RV Park review sites and we were not disappointed by her welcome… “ya’ll make sure you come to happy hour at 4:30” where everyone got together and visited.  One couple visited Betty’s RV Park and decided to move to Abbeville and still comes to hang and catch up on the latest happenings.  I decided to attend a ZUMBA class at 6pm and Drew continued to visit with his new RV friends.  We found the only taxi service in Abbeville, David’s Safe Way Taxi, who took me to and from my Zumba class… then came back around 7:30pm to take and pick us up for dinner.  The small town southern charm was evident when David kept a running total of our fares until the final drop off.  David had grown up in Lafayette and with his family moved to Abbeville… he had some interesting stories about the history of the area.   He described himself as a “genuine coon ass”.     

Southern hospitality from Betty

Caught in Betty's Web

The "most cajun" place on earth

Upon the groups recommendation, we went to The Riverfront restaurant for dinner… Drew had the Catfish Acadian which is fillet of catfish with local gulf shrimp etouffee and I had the Eggplant  Evangeline which is eggplant topped with blue crabmeat bechamel… sides of sweet potato fries, cabbage and tasso and sweet corn macque choux.  The waiter brought us a special seasoning to add to our meal called Cajun Power… it’s a blend of cinnamon sugar, vanilla and Cajun spices… something completely new to us but common for this area.

Drew with a full cajun food belly...

Tomorrow we head even deeper into Southwest Louisiana…