San Antonio TX to New Iberia LA

Sunday, November 29, 2009

We were up and on the road at 8:30. Pretty good considering we had to pack up and then unpack into the Sprinter! First stop was the Alamo so Jane could get a photo without all the tourists in front!

Last v1ew of Alamo

The sky was very overcast so we will have to see how the photos turned out. We were out of San Antonio before we knew it and on I 10 headed east. It was almost 200 miles and our only stop was at a Flying J for gas and a bathroom break. Jane also had to search for another book on tape – boy did she pick some bad ones…we tried 3 and rejected them all as boring and with no plot. When you were 30 minutes into a tape and there was still no plot – not a good book. We finally found one that was pretty good. When it is over we will have to make a stop at a Cracker Barrel or a Flying J to rent one… These next few days of driving are fairly boring if we don’t have books.

Traffic through Houston was not as bad as we had anticipated and we were straight through on I 10 without any problems.

Houston and its' Complicated roadways

Then we headed east to Beaumont and Louisiana. We stopped at a roadside picnic area and had lunch. Later we stopped at a HEB in Beaumont for Jane to get milk and some chili peppers etc. This area of TX has a definite Cajun flavor with lots of Cajun food in the market alongside the Mexican foods. There are numerous chemical plants along the gulf slightly south of us and we recognize the names of many places that have had serious flooding over the past few years.

We crossed the Sabine River and were in Louisiana.

Sabine River - as we leave Texas

Having been in TX for a month it is sad to leave. Louisiana had their welcome center closed so it was good we got a map and information book on the way down. We continued on towards our goal for the day – Avery Island LA. This is the location of the Tabasco Manufacturing Site and we wanted to tour and buy some hot sauces.

We stopped first in Abbyville but neither of their RV parks had bathrooms so we continued on to New Iberia and are at the KOC Kampground. We are 7 miles from Avery Island and will head there first thing tomorrow. There is also a rice mill here that we might visit if we don’t stay too long at Tabasco. We arrived at 5 PM and got a recommendation for a restaurant to visit for local seafood. We had a hard time finding the R&M Boiling Point – but finally found it and had crawfish and shrimp. Neither of us had eaten crawfish – it was good – tasted sort of like clams – a little chewy. But we can claim to have eaten them now in LA too!

Campsite at New Iberia

Back at camp we finished organizing the storage. We have purchased several things and had to find space for them! Now it is time to estimate possible locations for stopping. We think we can make it in 3 days if we drive close to 400 miles each day – today we drove 480 so maybe we can take off some time tomorrow morning for touring. We really do not have to be back until Thursday so we have time.