Galveston | Travels without Pinot

The Road to Bayou Teche: Feb 27

It had been our plan to head north from Brazos Bend, up through the Piney Woods of east Texas to Mission Tejas State Park and the nearby Caddo Mounds State Historic Site near Nacogdoches, then on up to Atlanta State Park just south of Texarkana. We’d then head back through Little Rock and Memphis to Nashville, where we’d turn north for home. But the forecast was for a cold front to come down from western Canada, which would cause the temperatures to drop 20 degrees and produce violent storms, with the possibility of tornados, right along our route exactly when we were going to be there.

So we decided we better stay south until the worst of it was past. It was for this reason that we headed for Galveston when we left Brazos Bend. Sande was sorry that we’d miss the Caddo Mounds, but I suggested we could go from Lafayette, LA, up to Natchez, MS, where there is a mound site, then up the Natchez Trace Parkway, along which there are numerous mounds. She was happy with that plan.

We therefore headed east from Brazos Bend on Farm to Market Road 1462 through more ranch country. When we’d gone about 15 miles, I spotted a post office and swerved off the road into the parking lot. I had a pocket full of change and a 50-dollar bill with which to buy the one stamp for Kieran’s birthday postcard; luckily I didn’t have to break the 50, as the stamp was $1.53, and I had exactly $1.55 in change.

At Alvin, we picked up highway 6 for a ways, then cut east to I-45, which runs from Houston down to Galveston. There were oil refineries further to the east, and as we drove south toward the coast, there were more and more resorts and RV parks and condo developments. As we neared Galveston Bay, the fog rolled in, but it wasn’t as thick as it had been when we came through here heading north in 2012. Soon we were across the Causeway and into the city of Galveston.

We had spent a couple of days here in 2012, camping at Galveston State Park and exploring the Strand (commercial) and East End (residential) Historic Districts. Driving through on Broadway Avenue brought back lots of memories, but we didn’t stop. We wanted to have lunch on Crystal Beach on the Bolivar Peninsula, so we went right on through to the ferry dock. It was a short wait and we got on the first boat (unlike two years ago); within a half hour we were driving along the Peninsula.

We pulled in to the Big Store to buy some beer and a few groceries, then drove a bit further along to a public beach access road. We parked on the beach with our back window facing the Gulf and had a lunch of tuna salad that Sande had made before we left Brazos Bend that morning. This was pretty much exactly the spot where we’d boondocked one night in 2022. After lunch, Sande took her sandals off and walked into the water a bit, just so she could say she’d done it. I was a bit worried that we’d get busted for not having purchased the requisite $10 annual beach parking pass, but there was almost nobody around, and only two vehicles drove by along the sand.

As Sande drove east then north towards Winnie and the I-10, I got on the Harvest Hosts app and booked a night’s stay at the Bayou Teche Brewery in Arnaudville, north of Lafayette, LA. This was the same route we’d traveled in 2022, and I-10 was as busy as ever. At Beaumont, we found our way to Spec’s Wines, Spirits & Finer Foods, quite a long way up US-96. They didn’t have the prickly pear liqueur that Sande wanted to buy for a neighbour, so she bought a bottle of bourbon-barrel cabernet instead.

I took over the wheel and soon entered a very long stretch of construction that made the driving even more of a hair-raising white-knuckle nightmare. At one point the lane I was driving in turned into an exit, and I ended up on a sideroad heading south. After a U-turn I discovered the on-ramp to the Interstate was under construction and closed, so (with Sande directing)I did another U-turn to get back to a service road that ran for about 20 miles before I could get back onto the highway.

We crossed the state line just past Orange and were soon motoring through Lake Charles. As I drove, Sande looked for a good Cajun restaurant in Lafayette, reading the reviews and menus aloud for me. When we finally got to Lafayette, it was still too early for dinner, so we decided to head into town and try to find the historical district. Our GPS didn’t seem to know where we wanted to go, so we overshot the mark and ended up in a pretty interesting working-class residential and commercial area on the south side. But eventually we made our way back along Congress to Jefferson, and drove slowly through an obviously bustling city core.

We followed Jefferson east to the Evangeline Thruway and turned north. Five or six miles beyond the I-10, we pulled in to the parking lot at Prejean’s Cajun Restaurant in Carencro. Prejean’s is a big barn of a place, with a stage at one end for the live music and tables covered with red and white checked tablecloths scattered around the floor. A nice bar (called the Cypress Tavern) along one wall and interesting decorations (including a 10-foot stuffed alligator on a log) make it seem almost cozy.

The menu has oysters and crawfish and gator. There are Zydeco Stuffed Shrimp, Crawfish Bon Temps Rolls, Fried Green Tomatoes, Catfish Grand Chenier, Crawfish Etouffee, and Seafood Gumbo. We shared a fried eggplant with crab béchamel sauce appetizer, I ordered a local IPA and an oyster po’boy (the first I’d had in at least 5 years), and Sande got a limoncello frozen martini and a pork chop with rice-and-beans and a side of very spicy green beans. It was all delicious, and we were so stuffed we could barely walk out of the place.

It was starting to get dark when we headed north on I-49. Ten miles up the road, at Grand Coteau, we turned east on state road 93. This narrow road winds through the Cajun countryside some eight miles to Arnaudville. When we got to the intersection in town, we turned right on highway 31, as directed by the GPS. As soon as we saw the Fire House Bar and Cafe, we realized this was the wrong road, the same one we’d taken the last time we were here, so we turned around. This time, we crossed Bayou Fusilier, then turned right across Bayou Teche on Fuselier St and right again onto highway 347, the Bushville Highway.

The Bayou Teche Brewery is about half a kilometer down. When we pulled into the brightly lit parking lot, we saw that there were a travel trailer, a truck camper, and a big motorhome already parked up. We pulled into a spot that was not too close to any of the other campers or to any of the dazzling lights. I went in to introduce myself to the young woman at the pizza counter inside, and she told me we were fine where we’d parked.

After setting up, we both went into the bar and ordered a couple of beers, an IPA for me and a Kolsch for Sande. We went out to a picnic table under the lights strung across the outdoor patio to enjoy our drinks and try to remember our visit here two years earlier. When I went in to pay, I bought 6 bottles of LA 31 Acadie French Farmhouse Ale to take home (alas, they don’t bottle the Kolsch, which Sande liked a lot).

It was about 7:30 PM when we got back out to the van. It had been a long day and a long drive, so we got right into our pajamas and into bed. We read for a bit, but soon turned out the lights. It wasn’t long until everybody cleared out of the brewery and the campers settled down, but the bright parking lot lights and the flashing sign by the road stayed on. It was quite warm, so I left my window open a crack, and we were probably asleep by shortly after 8.

Sande woke up at 4 and couldn’t get back to sleep because of the lights and the noise of the brewery’s compressors, which ran intermittently. Then, shortly after 5, traffic started up on the highway, probably commuters going to Lafayette or Baton Rouge, car tires whining as they picked up speed coming out of Arnaudville. That woke me up, but I managed to get back to sleep for awhile. Sande made coffee around 6, and we ate cereal for breakfast. After doing the dishes and packing up, we both used a spotless porta-potty over by the patio before hitting the road.

We headed north on 347, bound for the Mississippi River and Natchez.