Driving southeast from Oklahoma City, through eastern Oklahoma, the southwest corner of Arkansas, and the northeastern corner of Texas we finally entered into Louisiana. As centrally located as we were it seemed a little more like home here. The grass was green, trees were in full bloom and people had smiles on their faces. As it had been an all day drive from Oklahoma City to Shreveport we decided to take it easy for the night and enjoy our campground.
The next morning we woke up ready to explore Shreveport. Driving in the city looked like any other mid sized American city. We drove downtown and drove around a bit before finding a spot to park. After our short drive around though we didn’t feel that there was enough to actually see in downtown to explore. It seemed to be all office buildings and a few casinos on the riverbank. As Julie and I are both not gamblers and didn’t feel like throwing a dollar or two into a slot machine we hopped back into Bubbles and headed across the river to Bossier City.
Julie was in need of some new jeans and luckily enough there was an outlet mall right on the other side of the river. It was set up with a huge boardwalk next to the river with music pumping in from hidden speakers. It was a great vantage point to take a few pictures of the city. After getting all the city views that we wanted we wandered over to the GAP store, bought some jeans and headed back to the van.
Next stop for the day was lunch. As we had been having a BBQ lunch once a week or so while in Texas we figured that we should try some Louisiana ‘que. We asked our good friend Google where to go and Flying Pig BBQ popped up. Off we went and 10 minutes later we pulled up in front of the restaurant. It was a bit late for lunch and as we walked in there was only 1 group of ladies finishing up their meal. We sat down and ordered our drinks (Sweet Tea’s of course) and our meal. Julie and I both ordered 2 different meats and sides to try to get the entire flavor of the restaurant. After the food came and Julie and I were chowing down (the food was amazing) the owner/pit master (Carolyn Huggins Simmons) came out to see how we were enjoying it. This was quite rare to happen as, 1. Normally the chef isn’t the one to come out and check that their customers like their meal and 2. It’s even more rare for the pit master at a BBQ restaurant to be a woman. We told Carolyn that we loved the food. She then explained to us that she was a James Beard award winner and that she made everything that we were eating from scratch (also rare for a BBQ place). We then talked to Carolyn about our trip, the number of BBQ places that we had stopped at (hers was the 8th) and that hers was by far the best. Before leaving we took a few pictures with Carolyn, ordered some food to go (since it was that good) and said our goodbyes to Carolyn and her waitress Gigi (who gave us some great tips for when we reached New Orleans). If anyone is in the Shreveport, LA area please check out Flying Pig BBQ. You will not regret it. http://www.flyingpigrestaurant.com/
After all that BBQ we felt that we needed a hike in some nature so we drove out to the Walter B Jacobs Memorial Nature Park. We wandered into the visitor’s center, which told all about the plants and animals that inhabit northern Louisiana. We had not realized that both gators and bears were prevalent in this part of the state. Knowing this we were a little more cautious on our hike. We took a trail about half mile into the woods but had to turn back as it had been rainy in previous days and as a result the mosquitoes were out in full force. We had forgotten to put on bug spray so back to Bubbles we went. From the nature preserve we drove back to the campground, did our laundry and called it a night.
The next morning we woke up, packed the van and hit the road. Our destination for that night was Baton Rouge. After hitting the highway I realized that we would get to Baton Rouge pretty early and we were not planning on exploring the city until tomorrow so I started to look for a pit stop on the way. I found it in the beautiful little town of Natchitoches. After stopping, our first point of business was to find out how to pronounce the name of the town. A local kindly informed us that it was “Nak-e-Tesh”. We found out that the little town was full of history. It was the first town established in the Louisiana Purchase getting its start in 1714 by Frenchman Louis Juchereau de St. Denis and named after the local Indian tribe. The town has kept much of its French character, as it is one of the few towns in the area not to be fully burned down by the Union army in the civil war. We walked around browsing in a few shops then watched a crew team practice on the river running through town. After a quick lunch in the van we were on the road again arriving in Baton Rouge a few hours later. After setting up camp we made dinner and had a relaxing evening.
The next morning we woke ready to explore another capitol city. First on the agenda for the day was to visit the capitol building. On the drive in we immediately noticed that the building was different than most other capitol buildings that we had seen. Most capitol buildings in the USA (from our experience anyway) are usually made to somewhat resemble the Federal Capitol building in Washington DC. This means that they usually have a dome in the center with the two wings of government on either side. This capitol building however was a tower. The only state that we had seen this before was in North Dakota. This one however at 34 stories tall was the tallest building in Baton Rouge and the tallest state capitol building in the entire country. The main hall at ground level was beautiful. The walls were dark marble with a huge plaque in the center depicting a relief map of the state of Louisiana. We were also shown the spot in the building where in 1935, governor, Huey Long was assassinated. You could still see bullet holes in the walls, which we had not ever seen in a capitol building before. We then took the elevator to the top floor for a great view of the city.
From the capitol building we walked downtown, wandering over to the old state capital building. It was much smaller but pretty nonetheless. From there we continued our tour of the downtown area stopping in a small market picking up a few items for lunch then walked back to Arsenal park next to the capitol building where we ate. From there we drove over to Louisiana State University (LSU) and drove amongst the huge oak trees on campus. We had been to a number of big schools across the country (U. of Michigan, U. of Wisconsin, U. of Washington, U. of Arizona) and as the rest this one was beautiful. We wandered around for a bit taking a few pictures before jumping back into Bubbles and hitting the road once again.
Next up….We travel to the biggest city in Louisiana, New Orleans!
