Roadtripping

The American Queen: On a Louisiana bayou

On our first full day on the Mississippi River, we stopped at Vacherie, Louisiana, for one of several morning tours. About 50 of us signed up for a boat tour of a bayou. It’s a good thing I didn’t know how early it started – we had to be on the levee by the boat by 7:45 a.m. – or I might not have chosen this tour. Hey, this is vacation, folks! But this is an early-to-bed group on the American Queen, and what’s an early start for me doesn’t seem to faze the others.

The main attraction turned out to be alligators. Since I went to Shark Valley in the Everglades the week before I left on this trip, just seeing gators isn’t that big a thrill. But this was a private tour on private property, which apparently carries no restrictions on feeding wildlife.

So out we went on our boat, our Cajun guide calling out to critters and throwing bits of food to attract them, and before we knew it, half a dozen alligators were swimming toward us. The guide squatted on a platform on the side of the boat, dangling chicken necks. The gators raised up and snapped at the chicken necks like dolphins snap up fish from their trainers at a SeaWorld show.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Somehow our guide got through the feeding with all his fingers intact, and our boat started moving again when the gators were sated with chicken necks. He told stories about the history of Cajuns, hurricanes, alligator eggs, pirogues, tupelo honey, cypress trees, public schools, the difference between rivers and bayous, a cat that outsmarts alligators and just about anything else you could think of. And all the while he watched out for more critters, including a raccoon named Roxy who came out into the open to greet him and beg for food.

He must have thought our attention was lagging because our guide pulled out a baby alligator he had stashed in a small aquarium that we hadn’t noticed. The baby was maybe three feet long – the tail is longer than you think – and its mouth was gently taped shut so it wouldn’t eat us.

“I don’t know of any gator who has eaten a person, but people eat gators, so I’m not sure the right party has its mouth taped shut,” the guide said.

Then he handed the gator to the passenger sitting closest to him and we passed him around so we could take pictures of each other holding it. Now THAT was a thrill. 

 

Road trip attraction: Southern Food & Beverage Museum

When a flight carrying four would-be passengers on the American Queen riverboat was delayed on Thursday, the captain of the ship decided to postpone its departure an hour to wait for the passengers. Lucky for me, the ship was docked next to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum at the New Orleans Riverwalk, and the delay gave me a chance to tour it.

A foodie to the bone, I’d visited the museum in 2009, about a year after it opened, but this trip gave me a chance to see exhibits that had opened since then. The museum examines food, its production and preparation throughout the South, but its location in New Orleans gives it a Louisiana emphasis that has grown stronger since my last visit. A sugar exhibit, for example -- Tout de Sweet: All About Sugar – focuses on sugar production in Louisiana (what a missed opportunity, the story of sugar, politics and the environment in Florida!). La Galerie d’Absinthe, a collection of Absinthe artifacts and ephemera, tells the story of this licorice flavored liqueur that, although French, has strong ties to New Orleans.

(Pictured: the gears from a sugar refinery, dried stalks of sugar cane and other sugar items.)

An exhibit on coastal seafood, in contrast, applied to all the Gulf Coast states. But perhaps the most universal aspect of the museum is the wide array of Southern cookbooks in the gift shop. Not that I'm complaining -- the food of Louisiana is one of America's most intriguing cuisines.

The museum is already preparing to move to a larger space in the spring of 2013. Its new home will have 30,000 square feet, triple its current exhibition space. The plan is to feature food stories from every state, a museum staffer told me.  

For information on the museum, click here.

(At right, absinthe, its special glass and spoon and other ephemera.)

 

American Queen: Getting ready to board

Here’s the American Queen, docked by the New Orleans Riverwalk. I’m getting ready to board for its inaugural cruise up the Mississippi to Memphis. The return of overnight riverboat cruises to the Mississippi is a big deal for cities all along the river where the boat will make port calls, as merchants expect passengers will inject money into the local economies.  Last night, I went to the Carousel Bar in the Monteleone Hotel in the French Quarter and found local residents talking about seeing the boat on the river in the last week or so and wondering when its official launch would be. Launches, maiden voyages and inaugural cruises are sort of like politicians declaring their interest, their exploratory committees and their candidacy – it’s hard to define which is which and when one becomes the next. The christening of the American Queen will be at the end of this cruise in Memphis on Aug. 27. 

 

National Park Week: Free admission

 National Park Week starts Saturday, and from then through April 29, admission is free at nearly 400 national parks and other monuments, refuges and other sites managed by the National Park Service, including Everglades National Park, pictured above. 

The National Park Service is pushing fitness for this week. Keep reading to see 10 park activities the service suggests to help you stay fit: 

Busch Gardens: Kasi the cheetah

This is just an excuse for me to post a cute photo on the blog. A year ago, when Busch Gardens Tampa Bay launched its new coaster, Cheetah Run, it also introduced a cheetah cub to the new cheetah habitat, a pairing of thrill ride and animal experience. The cub, 8 weeks old at the time, was named Kasi by fans via a Facebook poll. He was paired with a 16-week-year-old yellow Labrador puppy, Mtani. The pair have grown up together, and here they are, one year later.

Photo Credit: Busch Gardens

 

Road trip attraction: Biloxi shrimp tour

In Biloxi on Wednesday I went for a short cruise on a faux shrimp boat. The Sailfish is a tour boat that has been operating since 1955, touring the Mississippi Sound, and was later fitted with a shrimp net and a winch to show tourists how the shrimping industry works.

In the morning, a tour bus stopped at the Small Craft Harbor by the Hard Rock Café where the Sailfish is docked. The tourists filled the boat. But in the afternoon, there were only four of us on the tour, so we got a pretty good overview of the logistics and the economics of the shrimping industry. 

The Sailfish stays close to shore in shallow, protected waters where shrimp congregate and the crew drops a net that picks up whatever is swimming near the bottom. On Wednesday, the take was very small. As the winch hauled the net to the surface, seagulls descended, pecking at the flashes of silver scales visible in the green net. But they were tiny fish, two to three inches long. There were a few tiny crabs, as big as a man’s thumb, and one adult blue crab that was clearly annoyed. And one shrimp. Rough weather the day before had apparently driven the shrimp to deeper water.

A crew member picked out various creatures, told us about them, and tossed them back. Everything eventually went back into the water. The Sailfish doesn’t do commercial fishing; it educates tourists about it in a cruise that takes about 70 minutes. It's interesting, something a little different for tourists, and kids will love the crawly things that come up in the net. 

It was a pretty day in Biloxi, sunny and in the high 70s, and shrimp or not, it was the perfect day to be out on the water.

For information, click here.

 

A Mississippi River cruise

Thursday marks the beginning of Part 2 of this great trip I'm on. That's when I'll board the newly renovated American Queen for a steamboat cruise up the Mississippi River. Part 1 is the road trip I've been making from Miami to New Orleans, and I still have the last stretch of that trip before me.

The American Queen -- 418 feet long, 90 feet wide, with beds for 436 passengers -- will be christened in its homeport of Memphis on May 27. But first it is taking a boatload of guests from New Orleans to Memphis. I'll be on that cruise.

It's a milestone of sorts. Steamboats have been traveling on the Mississippi River for about 200 years. But overnight passenger cruises ended in 2008 when this same ship was foreclosed on and the U.S. Maritime Administration took custody of it. The new owner is the Great American Steamboat Co., which has some of the same principals as the previous owner, the Delta Queen Steamboat Co.

It's a weeklong cruise, with the boat traveling at 8 to 10 miles an hour -- plenty of time to unwind, just watching the scenery go by. I expect the ambience will be quie different from an ocean cruise, partly because of the speed and the scenery, partly because the steamboat is so much smaller than most ocean-going cruise ships. We'll stop in Louisiana (Oak Alley and St. Francisville), Mississippi (Natchez, Vicksburg) and Arkansas (Helena) before reaching Memphis.

Priscilla Presley, the ship's godmother, will preside over the christening on April 27. Then I'll come home, and the American Queen will continue up the river to Cincinnati.

Watch this blog for my reports.

 

Road trip attractions: Mississippi's Tamale Trail

I had tamales for breakfast today. I made a special trip to d'Iberville, Mississippi for them. Doris' Hot Tamales is the southernmost point on the Mississippi Tamale Trail. Although they're similar in concept to the ones I ate growing up in Los Angeles, there are some crucial differences: Her tamales are stuffed with ground beef instead of shredded meat. From the fine grain, I'd say that the dough is made with cornmeal instead of the traditional masa of Mexican tamales. Spice was mixed into the dough as well as the meat. And Mississippi tamales are simmered in liquid rather thsn steamed. Still, they brought back memories. It may sound odd to talk about eating tamales in Mississippi, but they are part of Mississippi's heritage. You'll find references to Mississippi's hot tamales in songs by bluesmen as far back as 1928. The Tamale Trail has dozens of spots where you can eat Mississippi hot tamales, most of them in the Delta area, especially Greenville. You can find a map of the trial at www.tamaletrail.com.

Road trip attraction: Don't throw your rolls at me!

I passed this Lambert’s Café in Foley, Alabama, today. If you wonder why its website is throwedrolls.com, it’s because a member of the wait staff walks around with a basket of dinner rolls and will throw one at you if you want a roll with your meal. I ate at the original in Sikeston., Mo., a few years ago and found no charm in having rolls thrown at me. I'm apparently in the minority, however, since Lambert's baked -- and presumably threw -- 2.2 million rolls last year. As far as I know, the roll-throwing Lamberts are no relation. My branch of the Lambert family has a dominant clumsiness gene. We can't catch.

 

Road Trip: Margaritaville on Pensacola Beach

I’m in Pensacola Beach, sitting on my enormous bed and watching the Gulf of Mexico waves pound the sand.  It’s early Monday morning and there’s a lone woman doing stretching exercises at the tide line and letting the fading ripples of the waves wash her feet. If there’s noise, I can’t hear it above the roar of the ocean coming through the open door to my balcony.

I’m staying at Margaritaville, Jimmy Buffett’s hotel, which opened not quite two years ago.  I wanted a view of the water, and when I made my online reservations (about 30 minutes before I got to the hotel, after I'd surveyed the other hotels on this resort strip), I settled for a bayfront room for $149. But Sunday is a quiet night, and the front desk clerk upgraded me to an ocean front room, $199 if I had reserved it online. (The hotel staff doesn’t know that I’m a travel writer, and I’ve set up this post to go live after I’ve checked out.)

I love the room. It’s big and airy with kind of a Key West décor – a small mural of the ocean, Bahamas shutters, faux-plank flooring like a deck, seashell light fixtures and other beach items. It’s got a small refrigerator, robes, a coffeemaker, free Wi-Fi, enough outlets to plug in all my gadgets for recharging at once, and a newspaper at my door this morning.

Last night I had a crabcake sandwich at the Frank and Lola Love Pensacola Café off the lobby. It was almost 10 p.m., and the hostess hesitated when I asked if the restaurant was still serving, but she was happy to seat me at the bar and handed me the menu. I ended up chatting with a young couple on a meandering trip back home from Biloxi to north Georgia who, like me, had decided on an impulse to stay here.

Back in my room, I stood on the balcony and stared into the dark, the ripples of white foam barely distinguishable.  I love the sound of waves crashing on the beach and thought about leaving my balcony door open, but the sound isn’t gentle – it’s a roar that would keep me awake.

Now it’s check-out time and I’m tempted to condense my sightseeing plans and stay another night – the ocean is mesmerizing – but Alabama calls.