We took the National Georgraphics "Creole Nature Trail" journey today. It goes from Sulphur to Lake Charles on LA routes 27, 82, 14 and 384. The area is called Louisiana's Outback. It's a 180 mile journey. It normally offers lots of wide-open, unpeopled spaces. Today it included an upclose and sobering view of hurricane devastation by Ike and Rita (2 years ago).
LA routes 27 and 83 showed us the good and the bad …
- A marvelous view of the Intracoastal Waterway (a shipping route that runs from Texas to the Atlantic coast)
- Brackish marsh with few trees
- Sabine National Wildlife Refuge
- Small town of Hackberry – in the midst of recovery from hurricane Ike
- The town of Holly Beach – wiped off the map by hurricane Rita 2 yeards ago
- Highway berms were gone – carved away, leaving 2-3 foot drop-offs
- Small car and foot bridges destroyed
- Buildings damaged or destroyed
- A commercial fishing boat on its side, on land, on the wrong side of the road
- Debris all over the place
- Positive, friendly people
- Hundreds of recovery workers – they’re mobile workers, they fill the RV parks
Our journey ended at Lake Charles … at Richard’s Boudin and Seafood. This was our first encounter with Cajun cuisine. Our server did a wonderful job of explaining the options and what to expect. We had: shrimp gumbo, boudin (spicy rice sausage), garr ball, pistolette (craw fish in a pastry), fried shrimp dinner (with fries, hushpuppies and cole slaw). The shrimp was fresh and absolutely delicious!
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