An all too short trip -- a couple of days barreling around the bayou area of western Louisiana, along I-10 between Lake Charles and Baton Rouge. It's an area of fascinating contrasts. Like everywhere else it is gentrifying, albeit perhaps a bit more slowly than most, but the old school bayou is still on display everywhere. I-10 itself straight-lines through some picturesque, even eerie, swamp scenes. The little towns along the way still look like support villages for agriculture or fishing or perhaps settlements of refinery workers.
And refineries -- the area primary industry -- are in evidence everywhere. Huge, complexes of gnarled metal and worn buildings and billowing smoke. Looking like a environmentalist's dystopian trope made real. They make a stark contrast to the lush greenery from which they spring.
Around the larger cities -- Lake Charles, Lafayette, or Baton Rouge -- is where you find the gentrification and homogeneity. Also, to no small extent, some solid tourist infrastructure. Although "tourist" in this case mostly means servicing folks from Houston. I-10 is the route between Houston and New Orleans. Since this area isn't a major national destination, the bulk of the tourists are daytrippers or weekenders from Houston. Folks from the booming Houston-Austin-San Antonio triangle have disposable income to spare.
So folks come by to fish the lakes and rivers, view wildlife, and gamble. Especially gamble. Lake Charles has multiple casinos the nicest of which is the Golden Nugget, which would not be out of place in Vegas. Neither would the table minimums. Weekend nights you won't find a minimum less than $25 which is comparable to the Vegas Strip. I'm sure the less glitzy casinos in the area are cheaper.
The Nugget also has the best restaurant selection in the area, although they are all upscale regional chains, nothing unique. They are still very good; I can recommend Vic and Anthony's Steakhouse and the Grotto for traditional Italian. I would not have known they were chains had I not been told since they don't exist in Michigan.
Another thing folks come down here for is genuine Cajun food. The area is peppered with the sort of dumpy food shacks that appeal to the contemporary lust for authenticity. You can tell from the warm swamp-friendly drawls of the denizens that, gentrified or not, it's still bayou. Outside you are likely to see a pack of road-worn pickups parked next the shiny Jaguar of an upper-middle-class foodie.
Sadly there was little luck to be had in that area, what with travelling on a holiday weekend. In the boonies, there is still respect for the sabbath to some extent. An attempt to get a po' boy at a highly recommended shack failed when it turned out they only serve pre-packaged BBQ on Sunday. On Monday (the Holiday) there was another scramble to find a traditional po' boy that ended with another false start and an unfortunate experience with service. (The names of these places are withheld to protect the innocent from the wrath of my multitude of fervent followers.) I would not mind giving a food adventure here another try though.
The single act of sightseeing involved a visit to Avery Island, the home of Tabasco Sauce. It's sounds silly, but it's actually a pretty cool place. You can do a brief self-tour of the Tabasco factory and learn the history of Tabasco (it's actually kinda interesting), but the real treat is the Jungle Gardens, 170-acre wildlife sanctuary.
Even in the middle of winter (it was in the fifties) it was quite lovely. It's easy to imagine how lush it would be in Spring. I assume the place would be full of cranes and various water-borne life. Huge flocks of hawks were gathering in the trees -- I had never seen hawks flock like starlings; I always assumed they were solitary or paired, but this was a hawk jamboree. There are thickly wooded pathways, a bamboo jungle, picturesque stone bridges, and, somewhat unexpectedly, a shrine to the Buddha. Very cool place; wish I had brought my DSLR instead of just my phone. In a distant way it reminds me of the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, or even San Simeon: a very wealthy man, or in this case family -- the McIlhennys, founders of Tabasco -- has a great financial success and devotes a good portion of their wealth to creating a space of great beauty, then sharing with the world. Were I ever to be worth a bajillion dollars I would hope to do the same.
I like the Bayou. Despite facing same sorts of upheavals the rest of the country is facing, it still has unique character, and that's not something many places can say in the face of the era of homogenization. Even in the middle of the flashy Golden Nugget, you would never mistake the natives for hipsters. That said, I'm not sure I would go out of my way to go back. It was cool and fun, but so are many places and travel time is dear. On the other hand, if I lived in Houston or even as far as Austin or San Antonio, I probably be weekending here three or four times a year at least.
They had better hope Texas never legalizes gambling. The blow to the bayou would be ruinous.
