Country Roads Magazine "The Road Trip Issue" April 2022 by Country Roads magazine

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Contents

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Events

11 6 8

VO LU M E 3 9 // I SS U E 4

Features

REASONS TO CELEBRATE Car shows, food fests, gardening extravaganzas, and live music everywhere you look

REFLECTIONS Location, Location, Location by James Fox-Smith

NEWS & NOTEWORTHIES

36 41 46

When God sends you to North Alabama by Chris Turner-Neal

(DE) TOURING MUSTANG ISLAND Embracing the road less traveled, Gulfside by James Fox-Smith

THE GRAND CANYON OF THE SOUTH Descending into the Red Bluff by Chris Turner-Neal

On a beautiful spring day in early March, 2020, photographer Brian Pavlich drove his utterly prosaic SUV to Natchez, Mississippi. His mission: Capture a cover-worthy photograph featuring five of the most beautiful vehicles ever built. With hundreds of highly desirable Porsches, Ferraris, Rolls-Royces, and Ducatis about to descend on Natchez for the annual Euro Fest Classic Car and Motorcycle Show, what better picture to feature on the cover of Country Roads’ April 2020 issue, we thought, than one of gorgeous classic cars swooping along the Trace at the height of springtime? Best-laid plans … As the whole world knows, the week following that photoshoot brought the cancellation of Euro Fest and every other event across the country as COVID-19 spread. Plans for that magazine cover had to change too, leaving our classic car photo shoot all dressed up, so to speak, with nowhere to go. But the resulting pictures were too good not to hold onto. So now, with the world open for business again and the Euro Fest Classic Car Show returning to Natchez this April 22–23, we can finally put Brian’s terrific photograph on the cover. We are grateful to the drivers, who brought their rare and valuable vehicles out to the Trace from Natchez, and as far afield as Baton Rouge and Jackson, Mississippi; then patiently drove around all day while we photographed them.

Read about one of the cars to be featured at this year’s festival , a 1956 Ferrari 250 GT “Boano” Coupe, in Publisher James Fox-Smith’s story on page 52.

6 Restaurants Worth Stopping For by Jyl Benson, Sam Irwin, Lucie Monk Carter, Chris Turner-Neal,

Catherine Schoeffler Comeaux, and Christie Matherne

Culture

MAN MEETS CAR How an impossibly rare 1956 Ferrari made its way from the Mille Miglia, to Baton Rouge by James Fox-Smith

The trials and jubilations of the road trip by Christie Matherne

60 64

A SMOKIN’ COLLECTION Douglas Diez’s 5,000 historic pipes

by R. Stephanie Bruno

VICKSBURG CIVIL WAR MUSEUM Charles Pendleton transforms his collection of guns and ephemera into a museum. by Cheré Coen

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Managing Editor

Jordan LaHaye Fontenot Alexandra Kennon

Creative Director

Kourtney Zimmerman

Contributors:

Cover image by Brian Pavlich

JUST GET IN THE CAR

Associate Publisher

Arts & Entertainment Editor

HOT PURSUIT ON THE NATCHEZ TRACE

ROAD EATS

James Fox-Smith Ashley Fox-Smith

On the Cover

Cuisine

Publisher

BRING ME TO BIRMINGHAM

Escapes

SUNSHINE’S CALLIN’ A road trip along the Florida Coast by Kristy Christiansen

PERSPECTIVES Rebecca Rebouché is a dreamer, a naturalist, and a myth-maker. by Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

Jyl Bensen, R. Stephanie Bruno, Kristy Christiansen, Paul Christiansen, Cheré Coen, Sam Irwin, Christie Matherne, Kimberly Meadowlark, Lucie Monk Carter, Brian Pavlich, Catherine Schoeffler Comeaux, Chris Turner-Neal

Cover Artist

Brian Pavlich

Advertising

SALES@COUNTRYROADSMAG.COM

Sales Team

Heather Gammill & Heather Gibbons

Custom Content Coordinator

Lauren Heffker

Advertising Coordinator

Laci Felker

President

Dorcas Woods Brown

Country Roads Magazine 758 Saint Charles Street Baton Rouge, LA 70802 Phone (225) 343-3714 Fax (815) 550-2272 EDITORIAL@COUNTRYROADSMAG.COM WWW.COUNTRYROADSMAG.COM

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Copyrighted. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced without permission of the publisher. The opinions expressed in Country Roads magazine are those of the authors or columnists and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, nor do they constitute an endorsement of products or services herein. Country Roads magazine retains the right to refuse any advertisement. Country Roads cannot be responsible for delays in subscription deliveries due to U.S. Post Office handling of third-class mail.

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Reflections FROM THE PUBLISHER

hose who read this column with any regularity already know that Country Roads got its start in St. Francisville. For nineteen years after 1983—the year my mother-in-law started a magazine about things to do between Natchez and New Orleans—it all came together in West Feliciana, initially from the dining table of Dorcas’s farmhouse, then after 1995 when my wife and I came on the scene, from various office spaces around St. Francisville. Then in 2002, we made the decision to move the mountain to Mohammed, so to speak, by relocating Country Roads’ headquarters to Baton Rouge. Moving to the city would bring us closer to more of the readers, advertisers, and subscribers that our little company was working hard to reach. And with our team having grown from three to ten, it seemed reasonable to assume that we’d be better able to attract bright young minds to our publishing enterprise if based in a capital city with a major university. Granted, by moving the business, Ashley and I had consigned ourselves to a two-hour daily commute. But hey, we told ourselves. We’re young! It’s not a bad drive! Gas is cheap! And besides, we had lots of friends in Baton Rouge. How hard could it be?

Time flies when you’re having fun. During the twenty years that followed, based out of downtown Baton Rouge and working with a small cadre of smart and wonderful people, we produced some 240 issues of Country Roads, developed the magazine’s digital presence, launched weekly and monthly digital publications, and started and grew the Country Roads Supper Club and the St. Francisville Food & Wine Festival. All while schlepping a hundred miles a day, back and forth between the office and that farmhouse in the far northern reaches of West Feliciana parish that we still call home. When our kids were born, they commuted to work with us. When they started school in St. Francisville, we’d drop them off on the way, tying ourselves into ever more complicated logistical knots to juggle work with the logistics of after-care, homework, school sports, music lessons, doctor’s appointments, and all the rest. As time went by, the commute between our two worlds came to represent various things: a burden, a solace, a refuge, and an escape. But always it was a commitment, an immutable fact of life—just the cost of doing business that enabled our team to gather, collaborate, be creative and connected and effective. Or so we thought. Then came COVID-19. And everything. Just. Stopped. Like almost every business, in March 2020 the Country Roads office closed and we all went home, scattering to various corners of the com-

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Photo by Raegan Labat

pass to figure out what this Zoom thing was all about. Months went by, and our little team settled into a strange, new, remote working reality, setting up home offices and learning how to collaborate effectively across space and time. Two years later, with our staff now comfortably ensconced in living rooms and home offices in Lafayette, New Orleans, Alexandria, St. Francisville, and North Carolina as well as Baton Rouge, the issues keep coming out on time. And you know what? I don’t think we’re going back. So, when better than in a “Road Trip” issue to announce that Country Roads is going (okay, staying) remote? Coming full-circle, Country Roads’ global headquarters returns to St. Francisville—this time operating out of a funky little cabin behind the Magnolia Café, where Ashley and I log on each morning to connect with a team dispersed throughout the region the magazine covers. Sure, there are things we miss about spending

our days together. The in-person brainstorming sessions, the deadline-day potlucks, and end-of-week drinks. But in their place come different opportunities. Having team members scattered all over the region enables Country Roads to better reflect all of the communities in which we live. When we do get together, which we make a point of doing every couple of months, it’s an occasion to celebrate and an opportunity to re-set priorities. During the ten additional hours that Ashley and I have gained, a variety of eccentric new pastimes have flourished. Ashley’s garden has never looked better. Unbelievably, the fifty-year-old Johnson outboard that I’ve been trying to get running for years is now purring like a kitten. Best of all: the absence of the daily commute makes it possible to relish a road trip again. This month I enjoyed every minute of my research trip to Mustang Island on the Texas Gulf Coast (“(De)Touring Mustang Island,” page 41), which restored my faith in the old adage about life being a journey rather than a destination, and left me looking forward to getting back on the road in pursuit of the next story. As Country Roads gets ready to mark its fortieth anniversary in 2023, having time to relish road trips feels like a change worth making. Because even after all this time, there are so many more stories left to tell. —James Fox-Smith, publisher james@countryroadsmag.com

A special advertising feature from Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Road Tripping is for (Snack) Lovers

Tips from two Pennington Biomedical dietitians for how to stay on a nutritious track on the go.

amily road trips have grown in popularity over the past two years, driving by car being the only way for most of us to travel, or simply to find a little relief from a never-ending case of cabin fever. To keep the “Are we there yet?” inquiries at bay, a robust supply of snacks is essential for a smooth journey on long road trips. Ditch the drive-thru and stay clear of pricey gas station grub by stocking up on provisions that will satisfy the whole car mile after mile.

Catherine Carmichael is a registered dietitian at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, where she collaborates on a variety of research projects. For one such project called the Louisiana Festival of Flavors, Carmichael is working with the Louisiana Department of Education to help school nutrition programs develop new recipes. The goal of the initiative is to design meals with locally sourced ingredients that reflect the vibrant regional and cultural cuisine of the Bayou State. Catherine and her husband, Owen Carmichael, are experts when it comes to being on the road. Originally from California, the parents of three have embarked on more than a few road trips back to their home state since moving to Louisiana in 2014. The family often travels by car for vacations, packing up their minivan and driving to distant places such as Chicago or the Great Smoky Mountains. To get out of the house during Covid-19, Catherine and Owen hopped in the car with the kids for trips around the region—taking them canoeing at Lake Fausse State Park, hiking at Poverty Point, and diamond mining in Arkansas. “Traveling on the road, especially with kids, can be equal parts exciting and daunting,” Catherine Carmichael says. “The key to making eating on the road a breeze—and friendly for your wallet, too—is having a plan for each day before you hit the road.” Carmichael’s trip prep includes packing a small ice chest or cooler, a large tote for dry snacks, and other must-have items such as disposable dishware, foil, and paper towels, a trash bag for minimal mess, and even a can opener. The cooler comes in handy for storing healthy snacks such as string cheese, sliced bell peppers, baby carrots and single-serving hummus, and juice boxes, along with ingredients to make turkey or PB&J sandwiches on the go. One of their favorite ways to eat while en route, Carmichael says, is to find a rest stop or recreation area and have a picnic. The family can stretch their legs and get some fresh air, and it’s still a quicker, healthier, and more affordable alternative to the drive thru. Carmichael also recommends packing plenty of fruits, such as apples and mandarin oranges, granola or protein bars, and water flavoring packets to make staying hydrated all the easier. Dr. Jacob Mey, a registered dietitian and assistant professor at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, separates road trip snacks into two categories—drives where you plan to stop for normal meals throughout the day, and those where you’re driving straight through to your destination. When you’re just munching in between meals, Mey recommends low-calorie, nutrient-dense foods; fruits and vegetables like apples, bananas, pears, clementine oranges, cherry tomatoes, as well as whole grain crackers or pretzels. To fuel up for a longer ride with fewer stops, however, you’ll want filling, protein-dense foods with healthy fats, such as beef jerky, nuts, or ready-to-eat yogurt cups. “For those times when you do want to make a pit stop and indulge in a special treat, plot your stops out ahead of time so there’s something to look forward to on the way. To incorporate a sense of adventure and fun into your drive, seek out something new or local to the area,” Catherine Carmichael says. Attractions such as blueberry picking farms, local farmers’ markets—or in the case of South Louisiana, a roadside stand for boudin and meat pies—add a local element to your journey. “Find a restaurant that showcases the local flavor, such as a signature dish for that community or something you can’t get where you live,” Carmichael advises. “That experience then becomes part of your vacation, the excitement of trying something new together.”

For free nutrition resources, tasty recipes, or to learn more, visit pbrc.edu.

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Noteworthy

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N E W S , T I M E LY T I D B I T S , A N D O T H E R

Possibilities Under the Pass

THE INITIATIVE FOR AN URBAN TRAIL IN BATON ROUGE’S PERKINS UNDERPASS MERCHANTS DISTRICT

he Perkins Road Underpass Merchants District—with its funky collective of locally-owned restaurants, small businesses, and nightlife—thrives as a rare example of a neighborhood that has developed directly around the presence of the interstate. Beneath the concrete goliath of I-10 and its decidedly un-classical columns, these businesses have—for decades—fostered a wildly popular counter-culture entertainment hub in Baton Rouge. On Saturday nights, the district’s pot-holed and unmarked parking spots beneath the overpass are some of the most hotly contested in town. On March 15, a group of business owners from the Underpass neighborhood publicly presented plans for the much-anticipated Perkins Underpass Revitalization Project—a proposal that envisions an elevated ADA-accessible urban trail running from Reymond Avenue eventually to the Acadian Thruway, with

phase one ending at Christian Street. The concept has been in the works for over two years now, explained Misti Broussard, who owns BLDG 5 with her husband, Brumby. The Broussards are leaders in the initiative, along with owner of Varsity Sports Jenni Peters, Al Moreau of Moreau Physical Therapy, and Chad Hughes of Ivar’s Sports Bar & Grill and the forthcoming Unleaded BBQ. Misti noted that of the four businesses involved, hers is the only one directly on the proposed path. “I think that speaks volumes to why we’re all interested in this,” she said. “We want this path as residents. We think this is something our city deserves.” After raising $40,000 to fund surveys of the area and the development of a conceptual Master Plan created by CARBO Landscape Architecture, the group is now turning to the Metro Council to give the project, projected to cost $2.5 million, the green light. According to the Master Plan, the

CURIOSITIES

LO O K C LO S E R

multi-use path would include features like designated bike trails, native plantings, lighting installations, and improved parking conditions—all integrated with local art that interacts directly with the overpass instead of despite it. “This is a quality of life project,” said Shannon Blakeman of CARBO. “There is no problem of trying to get people here. How can we create better connectivity? How can we make a safer place for bicycles and pedestrians?” Jeffrey Carbo of CARBO also emphasized the opportunity for this project to serve as a springboard for innovations in stormwater management. “It’s not only that we want to create a path,” he said. “We want to be good stewards.” The next step towards council approval and initial funding, explained City-Parish Transportation and Drainage Director Fred Raiford, is securing cooperation with the railroad—which the path would need to interact with. Though that process could take months, he said that he has already begun working with the railroad and has been in conversation with the Mayor about the proposal. “We are

committed to this project,” he said. “It meets all the aspects of what we’re trying to accomplish in our community.” Though the overall impacts of DOTD’s I-10 Widening Project on the Underpass community are yet to determined, pushing this initiative is a demonstration of the neighborhood’s value to Baton Rouge as a whole and raises the stakes for its ultimate preservation and development. “We’ve been talking about this for a long time,” said Misti. “We’ve never seen so much excitement. People literally walk in our door here [at BLDG 5] and say, ‘I’ve heard about this … here’s $20. How can I help?” She said that the group has also been approached by corporations and donors interested in sponsoring the developments, but first “we need the city to take ownership. This is something the city should be taking responsibility for, and getting the green light, and getting it started.” —Jordan LaHaye Fontenot See the plans, and updates on developments, at underpassproject.org.

vagabondance is a newly-established dance company taking up residence in Baton Rouge at the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center as the first participants in its new Arts Incubation Program. Photo courtesy of vagabondance.

vagabondance

THE NEW CONTEMPORARY DANCE COMPANY FINDS A HOME AT THE CARY SAURAGE COMMUNITY ARTS CENTER

he newly-established contemporary dance company vagabondance has leapt onto the scene in Baton Rouge as the first residents of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge’s new Arts Incubation Program. The company is helmed by Artistic Director Scarlett Wynne and Executive Director Erik Sampson, who previously operated a dance company in Santa Fe, New Mexico for three years. During the course of their residency at the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center, vagabondance hopes to engage the Baton Rouge community through performances, classes, and open rehearsals. “vagabondance sort of came to be as this idea that we’re always growing and changing and evolving. And I believe that dance should do the same thing,” said Wynne. “But not just dance, but also the structure and approach of a dance com8

pany has a lot to do with adaptability, seeing the needs of the community and the people around us and sort of creating art in response to that. We want to be highly accessible to the community.” Providing artists like Wynne and Sampson with a launch point from which they can connect with the Baton Rouge community and realize their missions is why the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge established the Arts Incubation Program. “Creating a meaningful space that draws artists to the Capital Region and expands the growth of local access to high quality art-making are major goals of the Cary Saurage Community Arts Center,” said Renée Chatelain, President and CEO of the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge. “We are thrilled to see artists of the caliber of vagabondance moving into our city because of this access.” Wynne and Sampson are hoping to

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incorporate vagabondance events into the Ebb & Flow festival, to introduce the burgeoning company to the Baton Rouge community and jumpstart its residency at the Saurage Center. Sampson, who spent formative years in Baton Rouge for a nonprofit job shortly out of high school, thinks that Baton Rouge and the Saurage Center will be a perfect home for vagabondance to live out its mission. “We’ve been trying to pioneer some new ideas about how a company can be structured in a way that makes it more accessible to the broader community,”

Sampson said. “Really the next step for us as a company is to expand that model. And because of the relationships we have in Baton Rouge, and the connections that we’ve built there, we feel that Baton Rouge is the perfect place to start a new entity with a focus on exploring further what that would look like. Just highly accessible, and represents a redefined version of what dance can mean for the community as far as performative art form.” —Alexandra Kennon vagabondance.org

On the Highest Stage

LOUISIANA MUSICIANS RAKE IN NOMINATIONS FOR THE 64TH GRAMMY AWARDS

ouisiana’s distinct musical contributions resound around the world—and will be strongly represented yet again at the sixty-fourth annual Grammy Awards with over twenty nominations for Louisiana artists. “I’m a true believer, and I see with my own eyes all the time that Louisiana is where all of American music really came from,” said New Orleans-based guitarist and vocalist Reid Wick, who has served as The Recording Academy’s membership and industry relations representative for the Gulf Coast region for more than fifteen years, and has been a voting member of the Recording Academy for longer. While Louisiana is most often associated with New Orleans jazz and the Cajun and Zydeco of Acadiana, its influence also stretches well into other genres. “Louisiana contributes every style of music to the world. And it’s reflected in our nominees…It covers the gamut from classical, to of course some of the regional roots, but gospel, and r&b, and hip-hop.” NOCCA and St. Augustine alumni Jon Batiste raked in more nominations than any other musician with eleven, including a nomination for the highly sought-after Album of the Year award for his collaboratively-jam-packed WE ARE (which garnered eight nominations alone), and Record of the Year and Music Video of the Year for his single “Freedom”. Batiste also took nominations in multiple categories for his work on the score and soundtrack for the Disney/Pixar film Soul, as well as for Best R&B Album, Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Best American Roots Song, and more. One of the most exciting categories for Louisiana music is Best Regional Roots Music Album. Of five total nominees, four are from Louisiana: Live in New Orleans! by Sean Ardoin and Kreole Rock And Soul; Bloodstains & Teardrops by Big Chief Monk Boudreaux; My People by Cha Wa; and Corey Ledet Zydeco’s self-titled album. This marks two acts representing Zydeco and Creole cultures, and two representing New Orleans’ Mardi Gras/Black Masking Indian culture on one of the grandest national stages for music. Another category swept by Louisiana artists is Best Improvised Jazz Solo, with locals claiming three of five nominations. Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah’s emotionally-charged trumpet solo

on the track “Sackadougou” on Weedie Braimah’s album Hands of Time is one. Terance Blanchard also garnered a nomination in this category for his solo on the song “Absence” on his own album of the same title with The E Collective And The Turtle Island Quartet. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, Batiste had the third for his ethereal piano solo on the song “Bigger than Us” from the Soul soundtrack. Louisiana’s nominations roll in despite substantial changes that were made to the nomination process for this year’s awards, primarily the abolishing of nominations reviews committees. The Grammys are the only national peer award for music, meaning that to qualify as a voting member of the Recording Academy one must have a certain number of recording credits and actively engage in that creative process as a performer, producer, songwriter, or engineer. “It changes every year,” explained Wick. “We’ve had to adapt to things like streaming services and the way that we qualify our members—it used to be oldschool where you’d have vinyl records out. As technology has changed the industry, we have to find ways to change with it to make sure that we stay relevant in the whole process, because the Grammy really is the highest award in music.” Previously, a smaller group of fifteen to thirty highly-qualified music professionals would review and vote to determine the final nominees for categories related to their particular genre of expertise. Now, the entire Recording Academy voting body will determine the nominees and winners. To back up the change, the Recording Academy ensured that a minimum of ninety percent of its voting body had gone through the requalification process to ensure that they were still actively engaged in creating music by the end of 2021. “It’s really heartwarming to see that our music continues to be extremely relevant and important and of the highest quality and that we get so many nominations out of Louisiana every year,” said Wick. “I believe in the sixty-four years of Grammys, there have only been two out of the sixty-four years that we haven’t had at least one Louisiana artist nominated in the entire life of the Grammys. So those are all things that as Louisianians we can certainly be proud of.” —Alexandra Kennon To see which Louisiana nominees will take home awards, tune into the 64th Annual Grammy Awards on April 3 at 7 pm. // A P R 2 2

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Events

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For the second year, the Pointe-Marie neighborhood of Baton Rouge will be bedecked with floral arrangements for The Flower Fest the first weekend in April. Floral artists, food trucks, workshops, and more complete this spring festival, all to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. See listing on page 17. Photo by LeeKay Photography as part of the series "Out of this World" to promote The Flower Fest, courtesy of Clover Creative Agency.

UNTIL

APR 9th

CREATIVE COMPETITIONS ART FLOW 2022 Baton Rouge, Louisiana

In conjunction with the Ebb & Flow Festival Season this spring, the Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge presents Art Flow 2022, the return of Louisiana’s Premier Artist Showcase Competition. For this year’s show, more than 170 works of art were submitted by Louisiana artists. Of these submissions, fifty-four works (painting, drawing, ceramics, photography, sculpture, and printmaking) were accepted by acclaimed artists Charles Bibbs and Beth Welch, who juried the submissions. The public is encouraged to visit the Shell Gallery, Capitol Park Museum, and the Manship Theatre, and vote on the People’s Choice Award. Winners of the juried and public prizes will be announced at the Ebb & Flow Festival in downtown Baton Rouge April 9–10. ebbandflowbr.org. k

UNTIL

APR 17th

ARTFUL EXPERIENCES MICHELANGELO: A DIFFERENT VIEW Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Step inside Michelangelo’s world and artwork at this groundbreaking immersive exhibition. Utilizing state-of-the-art technology, visitors can appreciate works like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel closer than ever before possible. Monday–Saturday 10 am–5 pm, Sunday noon–5 pm. $17.50. raisingcanesrivercenter.com. k

UNTIL

APR 22nd

ART EXHIBITIONS GEORGE DUNBAR: RETROSPECTIVE Slidell, Louisiana

The Slidell Cultural Center at City Hall is hosting a retrospective exhibition by Slidell artist George Dunbar. Throughout his groundbreaking, seven-decade long career,

Dunbar has continually reinvented his style by exploring unconventional techniques and approaches to materials. In so doing, he has recontextualized his aesthetic vocabulary and ideas that have intrigued him since the early stages of his artistic career. A common thread among these diverse practices is his unique deployment of alluvion, or clay. His compositions often begin with multiple layers of fine German clays, meticulously applied to the picture plane; which Dunbar builds up, gilds, distresses, and excavates, imparting dramatically topographical effects that imbue the paintings with sculptural qualities. Across his broad spectrum of periods, processes, and materials, Dunbar balances perfectionist technique with an appreciation for the inspired and random, turning the elements of the earth—clay, pigment, metal, and the human hand that shapes them—into objects of unparalleled sophistication, complexity, and beauty. myslidell.com. k

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Events

Beginning April 1

UNTIL

MAY 12

ART EXHIBITIONS INTERPRET THIS PHOTO Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Visit Independence Park Theatre to see a special selection of works created by members of the Louisiana Art Guild. See how different members interpret the same photograph of a scene at Houmas House, and vote for your favorite for the People’s Choice Award. A reception will be held on April 15 announcing the winner. 10 am–5 pm. Free. artguildlouisiana.org. k

UNTIL

MAY 28

ART EXHIBITIONS AU NATUREL: THE ART OF THE FEMALE FORM New Orleans, Louisiana

MS Rau’s most recent exhibition celebrates the timelessly-intriguing subject of the female form by displaying fine art spanning across four centuries, all exploring the elusive image of the female nude. MS Rau is open Monday–Saturday from 9 am–5:15 pm. rauantiques.com. k

UNTIL

JUN 18th

ARCHITECTURE EXHIBITS THE SMITH & WISZNIA COLLECTION Alexandria, Louisiana

Point your car CenLa-ward to see the Alexandria Museum of Art’s newest acquisition for yourself. The Smith & Wisznia collection was donated to the museum by architect and developer Marcel Wisznia and originally curated by artist and publisher Terrance SandersSmith in 2010 for display in the Maritime Building on Common Street in New Orleans. The exhibit features sixty-nine works from thirty artists who lived, worked, or exhibited in Louisiana during the post-Katrina renaissance period of “renewal, rebirth, and rebuilding”. smithandwiszniacollection.com or themuseum.org. k

UNTIL

JUN 19th

TRAVELING EXHIBITS STATE OF THE ART: RECORD Baton Rouge, Louisiana

This exhibition, curated by the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville,

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Arkansas, comments on the ways that we as a society record and preserve information. The artwork is divided into three parts: historical record (preserving and reconstructing history), seeking the intangible, and finding order. lsumoa.org. Read more about State of the Art: Record in our new editorial review section “Out & About” on page 18. k

UNTIL

JUL 3rd

LOCAL LITERARY HISTORY BACKSTAGE AT “A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE” New Orleans, Louisiana

To celebrate 2022 marking the seventyfifth anniversary of the premiere of Tennessee Williams’ seminal classic A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, The Historic New Orleans Collection is hosting an exhibition to document the play, film, and Williams’ life and work in New Orleans. The exhibit features rarely-displayed items from the HNOC’s Williams holdings, plus loans from other institutions including Director Elia Kazan’s stage notes, Thomas Hart Benton’s painting “Poker Night,”and Vivien Leigh’s Oscar statue she received for her performance as Blanche Dubois in the 1951 film. Displayed in the first floor of the HNOC’s Exhibition Center. Free. Advance reservations suggested at at my.hnoc.org. k

APR

1st - APR 2nd

FOOD FESTS HOGS FOR THE CAUSE New Orleans, Louisiana

Hogs is an annual finger-lickin’ fundraising festival where eighty-plus teams of barbecue competitors, comprised of a mix of some of the region’s top chefs, professional barbecue teams, and backyard cooking fanatics, will compete for the “High on the Hog” Grand Champion Title. The event also features a stellar line-up of regional musicians like Shakey Graves, Galactic, and many more, all to provide aid and relief to families whose children are being treated for pediatric brain cancer. $50 for Friday, $60 for Saturday; $99 for a two-day pass. hogsforthecause.org. k

APR

1st - APR 2nd

LOCAL HISTORY JOHN JAMES AUDUBON INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM Saint Francisville, Louisiana

Two hundred years ago, a young businessman, artist, and ornithologist came to a tiny town in Louisiana as a tutor. Upon arrival, he wrote in his journal: “The rich magnolias covered with fragrant blossoms, the holly, the beech, the tall yellow poplar, the hilly ground and even the red clay, all excited my admiration.” John James Audubon was not in St. Francisville for long, but the

hilly, bluffed countryside and its wildlife helped to define his legacy. Thirty-two of his famous birds from his Birds of America portfolio were painted in the Felicianas. Honoring the bicentennial anniversary of Audubon’s work in the area, the West Feliciana Tourist Commission is presenting the first-annual John James Audubon International Symposium. Friday, guests will immerse themselves in Audubon’s world, taking part in special birding tours led by ornithologists, as well as tours of historic sites like Oakley House—where Audubon lived during his time here. Saturday will feature the Speaker Symposium, bringing respected experts on Audubon’s life and work including Danny Heitman, Ben Forkner, Randy Harrelson, John Miles, and Daniel Patterson. Saturday evening, Oakley Plantation will host “Audubon Under the Oaks,” an elegant evening of Louisiana cuisine and refreshments under the property’s century-old oaks. $50 for entry into Friday’s tours; $60 for Saturday Symposium; $75 for Audubon Under the Oaks; $160 for weekend pass at bontempstix.com. auduboncountry.com. k

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- APR

OPERA PUCCINI’S LA BOHÈME New Orleans, Louisiana

Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème will grace

the stage at The Mahalia Jackson Theater as the 2021-2022 production season for the New Orleans Opera Association comes to a close. After eight years, La Bohème will be in New Orleans for only two days, marking Metropolitan Opera conductor Joseph Colaneri’s first opera in New Orleans. Performances at 7:30 pm Friday and 2:30 pm Sunday. There will be a pre-show lecture, Nuts and Bolts, one hour before the performance. Tickets range from $16–$227, student tickets available. neworleansopera.org. k

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3rd

LITERARY FESTS BOOKS ALONG THE TECHE LITERARY FESTIVAL New Iberia, Louisiana

The world-famous literary detective Dave Robicheaux, created by author James Lee Burke, is coming home to Iberia Parish with his very own festival. The official Books Along The Teche Literary Festival returns for its sixth year, offering plenty of opportunities for exploration in the realms of literary history, culture, and cuisine—all in the beautiful historic district of New Iberia. The weekend kicks off with the Jazz it Up Opening Reception in the gardens of Shadows-on-the-Teche, featuring music from the Bunk Johnson Brazz Band and delicacies provided by Cajun

Aces Chefs Cody and Samantha Carroll. Saturday events include storytelling, Children’s word and picture workshops, a symposium with the author of Best of Enemies: Race and Redemption in the New South Osha Gray Davidson, live music by Andy Smith, a James Lee Burke Symposium, a Dave Robicheaux walking tour, a 5K run, and much more. And don’t miss the Louisiana Seafood Great Southern Chefs Food Demo featuring Chefs Cody and Samantha Carroll. Tickets are available for the Jazz it Up Opening Reception ($50) and the Louisiana Seafood Great Southern Chefs Food Demo ($25) at bontempstix.com. booksalongthetecheliteraryfestival.com. k

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3rd

CREATIVE CLASSES SONGWRITING WORKSHOP WITH VERLON THOMPSON Saint Francisville, Louisiana

Acclaimed singer, songwriter, and guitarist Verlon Thompson is coming to Birdman Coffee, Art & Music for a three-day, Arts for All event in St. Francisville. For the eighth year in a row, Thompson will be hosting his songwriting workshop for musicians. On Friday, Thompson will work individually on a song of the participant’s choosing. $250 for the workshop, $325 for all three days. 9 am–4 pm Saturday and Sunday. For more

information and how to sign up, email Lynn at birdmancoffeeshop@gmail.com. facebook.com/birdmancoffeeshop. k

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1st - APR 8th

OUTDOOR MUSIC BEAUVOIR PARK LIVE CONCERT SERIES Baton Rouge, Louisiana

In the cozy, twinkling corner that is Beauvoir Park, live music finds a charming, exhilarating home. The Park’s open-air live music series features local favorites from all over the state. Lawn chairs, quilts, and blankets encouraged—as well as your own booze. Find upcoming shows here: April 1: Funk Monkey ft. Arsene DeLay. 7 pm–9:30 pm. April 2: Boukou Groove. 7 pm–10 pm. $20. April 8: Sam Price and The True Believers. 7 pm–10 pm. $20 at bontempstix.com. Details at Beauvoir Park’s Facebook Page. k

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1st - APR 10th

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Events Beginning April 1

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1st - APR 28th

ART EXHIBITIONS FLUER-ESSENCE Hammond, Louisiana

As part of the inaugural Northshore Arts in Bloom Festival, the Hammond Regional Arts Center will host a juried showcase of works by members of the New Orleans Art Association, titled Fluer-Essence. This year’s judge will be artist Marcia Holmes, a master pastelist and a member of the Pastel Society of America. hammondarts.org. k

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OUTDOOR MUSIC MANDEVILLE LIVE! Mandeville, Louisiana

Mandeville has planned another stimulating spring season for its live music series, Mandeville Live! As usual, these concerts at the Mandeville Trailhead are free. Gates open at 6 pm for 6:30 pm performances. Food and beverages will be available for purchase, so please leave all outside sustenance at home. Coming up: April 1: Sugar Shakers April 8: Witness April 22: The Mystics

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ART EXHIBITIONS PROS & CONS

31st

Bossier City, Louisiana

The Bossier Arts Council is elevating the concept of decision making in its newest exhibition, asking for work that explores risks evaluation, weighing the pros and the cons. bossier-arts-council.square.site. k

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ANTIQUES TALKS PETITE ANTIQUES FORUM Baton Rouge, Louisiana

All right, all you antiquarians, this one’s for you. Guests will meet at the Louisiana State Archives building with Southern antiques legend Patrick Dunne as featured speaker. Dunne will present a lecture titled “Some Archaeology of Your Table: Exploring if Louis XVI would be cozy at an impromptu supper with you this evening.” Guests will continue with lunch at the Baton Rouge Country Club after the presentation, and the day will conclude with a tour of Lakeside Plantation in Batchelor, Louisiana—which was originally built in the early 1860s, was once owned by the Marquis de La Fayette, and is currently owned by acclaimed New York artist Hunt Slonem. Tickets are $125 which includes lunch and a chartered bus ride to Lakeside Plantation (though directions will also be provided for those who would rather drive). Registration and refreshments at the Louisiana State Archives building begins at 9:15 am, lunch at the Country Club begins at 11:30 am, and the forum will head to Lakeside immediately after lunch. To register, purchase tickets at friendsofmagnoliamound.org. k

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cityofmandeville.com. k

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HISTORY SOIRÉES AUDUBON UNDER THE OAKS GALA

- April 2

Theatre. Biddings ends at 7 pm April 10. one.bidpal.net/brbtspring. k

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LIVE MUSIC VERLON THOMPSON AND THE PENDLEYS Saint Francisville, Louisiana

A lucky audience at the acousticallyastounding Temple Sinai will experience the magic with this special performance by Verlon Thompson following his annual songwriting workshop. Opening the show will be Trey and Lexi Pendley, who met as participants in his class a few years ago. Presented by Birdman Coffee & Books. 7 pm–9 pm. $35. bontempstix.com. k

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2nd

THROW ME SOMETHIN’ IRISH, ITALIAN, ISLEÑOS PARADE

Saint Francisville, Louisiana

Chalmette, Louisiana

The celebration of the bicentennial of Audubon’s arrival to the Felicianas continues from the first-annual symposium into this elegant evening of local cuisine and refreshments on the grounds of Oakley House, where Audubon painted thirtytwo of his Birds of America. James Linden Hogg, a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter of American and Celtic Folk music, along with his father Jim, will perform vintage music strolling among the guests. Delicious Louisiana cuisine, prepared by area chefs and talented local cooks, will be served. Attendees, who are encouraged to dress in Jane Austen-period costumes, will be able to view rooms in Oakley House, including the room in which John James Audubon resided in 1821. John Flippen, dressed in Audubon attire, will share information about this great artist and ornithologist. 4 pm–7 pm. $75 at bontempstix.com. k

Nowhere are the colorful results of the melding of many cultures more in evidence than in St. Bernard Parish during the annual alliterative Irish, Italian, Isleños Parade. Marchers gather along Judge Perez Drive beginning at 11 am, with the parade to follow at noon flinging a vegetable medley of cabbage, carrots, lemons, onions, and potatoes to those gathered to view the festivities. Best bring enough bags: this parade boasts over fifty-three floats, thirty-five marching bands, and 350,000 pounds of produce. stpatricksdayneworleans.com/islenos.html. k

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2nd

CHEERS ZAPP’S INTERNATIONAL BEERFEST XVII Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The cups runneth over during the LSU Rural Life Museum’s best-lubricated annual event, which definitely calls for designating a driver. The annual Zapp’s International Beer Festival brings tastings of more than two hundred domestic and international beers and ales to the grounds of the museum plus more than a few home brews, which always end up being a festival highlight. Non-alcoholic beverages will be available for those (heroic) designated drivers. Bottoms up because all proceeds benefit the Rural Life Museum. Don’t forget your I.D.—participants must be twenty-one, for obvious reasons. 3:30 pm–6 pm general admission. $45; $20 designated drivers; $100 early admission at bontempstix.com. k

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2nd

FUN FUNDRAISERS SING & SWING Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Better start that tea-and-honey gargling ritual now, because this month sees Opéra Louisiane’s fan-favorite fundraiser, Sing & Swing, ready to ignite some friendly competition. Vote for your favorite local celebrity as they sing and dance it out on stage, enjoy live band karaoke, slide onto a huge dance floor, snap pictures at the photo-op area, and bid on dozens of items at the silent auction. Enjoy performances by Kevin Kelly, Eric and Kim Thomas, Abby Leigh, and Tina and Peter Holland—all accompanied by Ned Fasullo and His Big Band. 7 pm–10 pm. Tickets start at $100 per person and include hors d’oeuvres and a drink ticket at bontempstix.com. operalouisiane.com. k

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2nd

BOAT RACES TOP OF THE TECHE Leonville, Louisiana

Tour du Teche—a non-profit organization organized to restore outdoor recreation along the Bayou Teche Corridor through St. Landry, St. Martin, Iberia, and St. Mary

PRESENTS

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SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2022

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TUESDAY, MAY 17, 2022

SATURDAY, MAY 21, 2022

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Events Beginning April 2

Orleans Spring Fiesta is a series of walking tours over two weekends to visit private homes, gardens, and courtyards in the French Quarter, Garden District, and Uptown. springfiestanola.com. k

parishes—calls all paddlers to tackle the Top of the Teche, a 7.7-mile paddle race from Leonville to Arnaudville. Open to all sorts of paddle-driven watercraft, for paddlers ages ten and up. Registration is open until the day before the race; boat checks begin at 7 am at the Leonville Boat Launch. $40. tourduteche.com. k

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2nd

PUPPET SHOWS AN AFTERNOON WITH AESOP Luling, Louisiana

For one day only, Porta-Puppet Players and the Lafon Performing Arts have teamed up to present two showings of An Afternoon with Aesop. New Orleans actor Vatican Lokey will narrate, and puppeteers Mike Brooks, Kathleen Eason, and Camille Griffin will bring the world of the ancient Greek fableist alive. Some of the classic tales that will be told are “The Fox & the Grapes,” “The Country Mouse & the City Mouse,” “The Grasshopper & the Ant,” and “The Mouse & the Lion”. Shows at 10 am and 1 pm. $15. lafonartscenter.org. k

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EGG-TIVITIES NINETEENTH CENTURY EASTER EGG HUNT AT ROSEDOWN Saint Francisville, Louisiana

During this family-friendly event, children will roam the lawns and sinuous paths that wind through Rosedown Plantation’s twenty-eight acres of gardens for an old-fashioned Easter egg hunt. Special prizes will be given to children who discover the “Rosedown” eggs. Nineteenth-century games round out the day’s events. Children are encouraged to bring their own Easter baskets. Hunt begins at 2 pm. (225) 635-3110. k

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2nd

HISTORICAL HOMES SPRING FIESTA WALKING TOURS

3rd

New Orleans, Louisiana

For lovers of history, architecture, and the decorative arts, this is about as much fun as you can have in New Orleans on foot. The annual New

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MonmouthHistoricInn.com 601-442-5852

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FARM PARTIES AGMAGIC

3rd

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Though much more visible in today’s “eat-local” culture, experiences with agriculture outside of popular farmers’ market venues is relatively scarce among urbanites. From timber to crawfish, cattle ranching to soy and rice cultivation, our collective dependence on agriculture should not be underestimated. So what’s the best form of education campaign, sure to bring out the young and old alike? A big ol’ party. Visitors can tour seven portals that explore various facets of agriculture, from agronomic crops and insects to farm animals and good nutrition. Kids will have a chance to make rubbings of insects and leaf stamps, dig for worms and sweet potatoes, and make wildlife tracks in the sand. And don’t forget to grab some fresh ice cream from the Dairy Store. Free. lsuagCenter.com/agmagic. k

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3rd

ART PARTIES STUDIO 9170 TEN YEAR ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Studio 9170 is celebrating a full decade of being open and sharing art with Baton Rouge by throwing a two-day art party, show, and sale. Artwork will be displayed and available for purchase, and there will be opportunities to win a variety of door prizes. Saturday 10 am to 4 pm, Sunday from 1:30-4:30 pm. janechapmanart.com. k

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ART FESTS ART IN THE PASS

3rd

Pass Christian, Mississippi

Art in the Pass has been going strong for over two decades now as a twoday fine-arts festival that overlooks the scenic beaches of Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. And now, after a two-year hiatus, it makes its return. Over one hundred artists from ten states will display and sell their work this weekend at War Memorial Park. There will also be children’s activities, tasty treats, the Celebrate the Gulf Marine Education Festival just nearby on Saturday, and live entertainment. Free. 10 am–5 pm each day. artinthepass.com. k

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2nd & APR 16th

LIVE MUSIC THE DEW DROP JAZZ HALL SPRING CONCERTS Mandeville, Louisiana

The historic Dew Drop Jazz & Social Hall, the venerable century-plus-old rural jazz venue, will host special Saturday concerts throughout the spring. It’s a genial, casual, lakeside night out. 6:30 pm–9 pm; all on the 400 block of Lamarque Street. $10. Schedule below: April 2: Camile Baudoin & Friends (with Reggie Scanlan, Frank Bua, and John Fohl) April 16: Gregg Stanford & His Jazz Hounds Tour du Teche invites paddlers to hop in the water for Top of the Teche, a 7.7 mile canoe or kayak race from Leonville to Arnaudville. See listing on page 14. Image courtesy of St. Landry Parish Tourist Comission.

2nd - APR 3rd

ARRRGH! PIRATES OF THE PONTCHARTRAIN

family merriment, and swashbucklingly raucous concerts. Camping will also be available. 10 am–6 pm. $15 per day, kids younger than six are free.

Hammond, Louisiana

lapop.net. k

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The Louisiana Renaissance Festival is bringing a very nautical new festival to Hammond. Each fall the Ren Fest converts a chunk of Hammond into the English Village of Albright, and this spring, Albright will be transformed into a sea-faring town embracing the Golden Age of Piracy on the Caribbean. Expect pirate shows, games,

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SPRING FESTIVALS THE FLOWER FEST

3rd

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Nestled off of the Mississippi River, the tiny community of Pointe-Marie in Baton Rouge will spend the first

weekend of April decked out in a wildly colorful collaboration between human artistry and nature’s impeccable touch. For the second annual Flower Fest, groups of f loral professionals will compete to showcase their abilities, vision, and execution. All in the name of f lora, local chefs, musicians, artisans, and locals will come together to indulge in a lush vision of creative community, and to celebrate the arrival of spring. Day tickets are $20; Saturday’s gala ticket is $100. Details at thef lowerfest.com. k

dewdropjazzhall.com. k

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2nd & APR 16th

OUTDOOR MUSIC JAZZ’N THE VINES CONCERTS Bush, Louisiana

Jazz’n the Vines is ramping up the live music at Pontchartrain Vineyards as it enters its twenty-second year in action. 6:30 pm–9 pm at 81250 Highway 1082. Gates open at 5 pm. Bring a picnic blanket, lawn chairs, and bug spray. Wine from Pontchartrain Vineyards and foods will be available from local vendors. $12 admission; $28 for two tickets and a discounted bottle

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Out & About

FIRST-HAND INSIGHTS ON THIS MONTH’S EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS

State of the Art: Record On display now at the LSU Museum of Art

n abstract painter Kellie Romany’s performative work “Can I Get a Witness,” paint pours, drips, tumbles, and stretches its way from one vessel to another. In various viscosities and shades of human flesh, the paint is weighted by gravity, swayed by a breath, ever drying. For the opening reception of the LSU Museum of Art’s high profile exhibition State of the Art: Record in March, Romany read from an original poem, asking:

Felix von Luschan’s chromatic scale of skin color, which was used to determine an individual’s race up until the 1950s. Presenting the vessels as metaphors for bodies, Romany encourages viewers

I encourage you to think of it as a metaphor for the body, and how it leads people to interact with each other’s bodies, changing each other.” I spent some time with the installation,

Paul Stephen Benjamin’s 2018 video installation “Summer Breeze,” on display now as part of the exhibition State of the Art: Record at the LSU Museum of Art. Photo by Trai Thomas, courtesy of the LSU MOA.

“Can I get a witness? To stand still Take note Connect . . . ” The work will remain on display at the LSU Museum of Art throughout the run of the exhibition, which features works by twenty American artists, organized around the concept of “record”. Used as a connective thread to tie together contemporary explorations of the current moment—in mediums ranging from a computer game to video installation to sculpture—the theme invites a wealth of interpretations as viewers wander through the exhibition’s three sections: “Preserving History,” “(Re)Constructing History,” and “Finding Order”. “Can I Get a Witness” is one of Romany’s two works in the exhibition, both of which feature cell-like ceramic catchalls containing oil paint in shades borrowed from nineteenth century ethnographer

to contemplate human connection on a cellular level. “Can I Get a Witness” presents a real-time metaphor for the transmission that connection fosters while her other work, an interactive installation titled “In an Effort to be Held,” invites the viewer to touch, feel, and move the catchalls around a tabletop. “What does it look like that you are invited to touch this piece?” asked Romany at the opening. “To hold it?

examining the ways the paint has dried over time—with its diverse wrinkles and smudges—and shifting the vessels around, piling them atop each other, making my mark in the work’s ever-shifting legacy. Behind me Paul Stephen Benjamin’s video installation “Summer Breeze” filled the room with the sounds of Jill Scott and Billie Holiday singing “Strange Fruit,” a song written in 1937 in protest of the lynching

See listing on page 12.

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of Black Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century. “It’s a very powerful song,” said Romany. “I love that these two pieces get to interact with each other, these two pieces about trauma and bodies.” State of the Art: Record, which was funded by Bank of America and Art Bridges, is an ancillary traveling exhibition organized by the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas—which originally hosted the State of the Art exhibition featuring sixty-one artists in early 2020. In addition to Romany and Benjamin’s works, I was especially drawn to Carla Edwards’ “Bonfire”—a quilted work made up of strips of American flags, Marcel Pardo Ariza’s “Julie & Lu,” which combines historical and contemporary photographs of queer people’s arms, legs, hands, and feet—connecting them across time; and Kate Budd’s “collection” of artifacts—which include a “Tiny Bound Egg,” a “Bronze Sucker,” and a “Puckered Coin,”—created as the remnants of an imagined matriarchal Scottish society. Grand in scale, State of the Art is one of the most compelling exhibitions to visit Baton Rouge in some time. Be sure to set aside an hour or two (you won’t want to rush this one) to visit while it is here through June 19, and to keep an eye out for exciting associated artist visits and other programming throughout its run. —Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

“Nack-A-Tish”

On the banks of the Cane River Lake, explore the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase. Follow the trails in Kisatchie National Forest and through the Cane River National Heritage Area to find centuries of history, culture, and natural landscapes, ready to be explored by foot, car, or boat.

Saturday 9AM - 5PM Sunday 10AM - 4PM Rain date April 30 + May 1

Purchase Tickets

ADULTS $5.00 CHILDREN 6-12 $2.00 GUIDED HOUSE TOURS $5 (tickets sold separately)

Children must be accompanied by an adult No pets inside gate entrance

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5/21 2022

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Events

Beginning April 2nd- April 3rd Continued from page 17... of wine at bontempstix.com. In April:

April 30: Differences in the Brain with Dr. Ryoichi Teruyama, 10 am–11:30 am.

April 2: Amanda Shaw & the Cute Guys April 16: Flow Tribe

lsu.edu/mns. k

pontchartrainvineyards.com. k

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& APR

OUTDOOR MUSIC CONCERTS AT LANDRY VINEYARDS West Monroe, Louisiana

Breathe that humid and heady Louisiana grape air in deep. On certain Saturdays of each month, Landry Vineyards opens its gates to the picnickers and the lawnchair lazies, all to enjoy special live music performances by local artists. This isn’t the West Coast though—along with the obligatory cheese trays, four types of boudin and home-style jambalaya will also be on offer to round out the experience. Or bring your own favorite dishes along, just no alcoholic beverages. There will be plenty of wine to go around! See the schedule below: April 2: Code Blue & the Flatliners April 16: Buddy Terzia and Friends $10; $5 ages thirteen to eighteen; free for children younger than twelve. landryvineyards.com. k

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ART EXHIBITIONS ARIODANTE GALLERY APRIL EXHIBITION New Orleans, Louisiana

A new slate of artworks will be on display this month at Ariodante Art Gallery on Julia Street in New Orleans. Works include those by featured artist Krista Roche, David Lumpkin, jewelry by Dashka Roth, and crafts by Craig McMillin. ariodantegallery.com. k

APR

2nd - APR 30th

EXPERIENCE SCIENCE SPECIAL SATURDAYS AT THE LSU MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCES Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Introduce your young ones (and yourself) to the world of natural sciences with the LSU Museum of Natural Science’s Special Saturday programming. Each week, a different member of the LSU research community will present a short, engaging talk to accompany a hands-on activity. The programming is as follows: April 2: LSU Campus Mounds with Dr. Brooks Ellwood, 10 am–11:30 am. April 16: Antarctica Expeditions with Katherine McNulty, 10 am–11:30 am. 20

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2nd - APR 30th

ART EXHIBITIONS THE WORLD WITHOUT US New Orleans, Louisiana

Stephanie Reed will bring her oil paintings to Gallery 600 Julia, showcasing life along the Mississippi River bank. From batture houses to the way the sunlight shines on the water, her exhibition will be something you don’t want to miss. The exhibit is open Monday–Friday, 10 am–3:30 pm. Free. gallery600julia.com. k

APR

2nd - MAY 7th

LIVE MUSIC ONLINE HENRY TURNER, JR. & FLAVOR VIRTUAL CONCERT SERIES Online

Join Henry Turner, Jr. & Flavor for a special six-week virtual concert series, which will feature fan favorites like “Look My Way,” “Love Me or Leave Me,” and selections from their most recent release, Now. Every Saturday from 2 pm–3 pm. Free. Join on Facebook Live via the “Henry Turner Jr’s Listening Room Museum Foundation 501C3 Nonprofit” group. k

APR

3rd

MUSIC FESTS ABITA SPRINGS BUSKER FESTIVAL Abita Springs, Louisiana

If you brake for buskers, don’t miss the Abita Springs Busker Festival at the Abita Springs Trailhead. This festival showcases the talents of young musicians honing their craft on Louisiana’s street corners—this year, six sets of local talent will perform, including the Slick Skillet Serenadors, the Sister Street Aces, Ferd, Sunny Side Jazz Band, James McKlaskey & His Rhythm Band, and Tuba Skinny. The Busker Festival is presented by the Abita Springs Opry and the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. 11 am– 7 pm. Free. louisiananorthshore.com. k

APR

3rd

SPRING FESTIVALS OLDE TOWNE CRAWFISH MUSIC FESTIVAL Slidell, Louisiana

Olde Towne comes alive with live music from Geno Delafose and the French Rockin’ Boogie, the Beau King Band, Backf low, and Supercharger. As if that weren't enough? Boiled crawfish, too. 11 am. Free. facebook.com/oldtowneslidell. k

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3rd

HISTORY ALIVE BARN DEMONSTRATION DAY AND DANCE Port Allen, Louisiana

Tinkering, hammering, spinning, churning, sparks flying—brace yourself for Barn Demonstration Day at the West Baton Rouge Museum. Guests will mosey down to the barn to witness rural ingenuity in action. From noon until 1 pm take in a talk from New Orleans Master Crafts Guild Director John Hawkins. From 1 pm–5 pm, explore demonstrations and discussions on farm tools, woodworking, blacksmithing, weaving, and even see an original Model A car. The finale is a lively old fashioned barn dance with the Cane Grinders from 5 pm–7 pm. Starts at noon. Free. westbatonrougemuseum.com. k

APR

3rd

LITERARY LAUGHS EDIBLE BOOK FESTIVAL Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Join literature lovers of good humor around the world in celebrating books, food, and terrible puns. What is an edible book, you ask? An edible creation inspired by a book cover, character, theme, etc. Beginning at 2:30 pm at the Main Branch Library at Goodwood, peruse the bizarre creations and vote on categories from “wittiest” to “least-appetizing”. Bring your edible homage to great literature at 2 pm to enter, winners announced and prizes awarded at 4 pm. mylpl.info. k

APR

3rd

EGG-TIVITIES CONGÉ Grand Coteau, Louisiana

Celebrate Easter on the magnificent grounds of the Academy of the Sacred Heart and Berchmans Academy in Grand Coteau—where festivities will be centered on spring’s springing. In addition to the grand Congé Easter Egg hunt, which begins at 9:30 am, guests can toss confetti eggs, play carnival games, and try out the rock wall. There will also be delicious food, a silent auction, a raffle, and live music by performers: Berchmans Mardi Gras Band with Amelie, Cecile & Camille; Monday Allstars with Ray Boudreaux; Mid City Maven with Sarah Russo; Balfa Toujours; and Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie. 10 am–4 pm. Free. sshgrandcoteau.org. k

APR

3rd

GOOD EATS FARM TO TABLE AT THE COVINGTON TRAILHEAD Covington, Louisiana

Immerse yourself in local culture and enjoy a night under the stars with the

Covington Heritage Foundation, chefs Jarett & Rachel Eymard, and local farmers. This true farm-to-table event will not disappoint. You will hear from the chefs how each of the four courses is prepared, the local ingredients used, and even the history of the farms behind the ingredients. Hosted by Covington Cultural Arts & Events, this will surely be a night to remember. 4:30 pm–8 pm. $20 at bontempstix.com. k

APR

3rd

OUTDOOR MUSIC SYMPHONY SUNDAY IN THE PARK New Iberia, Louisiana

The Acadiana Symphony Orchestra will set up in New Iberia City Park this afternoon for its annual outdoor spring concert, featuring local choirs and musicians. Bring blankets and chairs and your picnic basket. In case of rain, the concert will be held in the Louisiana Sugar Cane Festival building. 3 pm– 4:30 pm at New Iberia City Park. Free. booksalongthetecheliteraryfestival.com. k

APR

3rd

LIVE MUSIC BATON ROUGE CONCERT BAND SPRING CONCERT Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Join the Baton Rouge Concert Band for their Spring 2022 concert, “Legends and Heroes”, as they acknowledge some of those close to the Baton Rouge Concert Band. During the performance the band will pay tribute to their founder, to a long-time LSU band director, to great Americans, and the band members’ mothers. They will also play musical nods to Irish folk legends and hobbits. The concert will be at the East Baton Rouge Parish Library main branch located at 7711 Goodwood Blvd at 5 pm. Free. brcb.org. k

APR

3rd - APR 30th

LIVE MUSIC TIPITINA’S CONCERT SCHEDULE New Orleans, Louisiana

The famous Tchoupitoulas venue continues to bring a wide variety of New Orleans’ favorite musical acts to Professor Longhair’s legendary stage. Happening this month: April 3: Fais Do Do With Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band. Doors 4:45 pm, show 5:15 pm. April 12: Fruit Bats + Johanna Samuels. 8 pm. April 13: Loyola’s Uptown Threauxdown. 7 pm. April 23: Circle Jerks with 7 Seconds & Negative Approach. 8 pm. April 27: Patty Griffin. 9 pm. April 28: Anders Osborne. Show 9 pm. April 29: Galactic Featuring Anjelika “Jelly” Joseph. 9 pm. // A P R 2 2

Events

Beginning April 5th- April 8th April 30 (Late Show Friday Night/Saturday Morning): The California Honeydrops. 2 am. tipitinas.com. k

APR

5th

ART TALKS COLLECTIONS RESPONSE & LECTURE BY VINCENT DARRÉ Baton Rouge, Louisiana

French interior and fashion designer Vincent Darré is known internationally for creating vibrant, whimsical spaces and works of art that are extravagantly creative. The H. Parrott Bacot Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series at the LSUMOA has invited him to study decorative art works from the museum’s permanent collection and use them as inspiration for three response pieces, which will also become part of the permanent collection. During this lecture, the three artworks of Darré’s will be revealed and discussed. 5 pm on the third floor of the Shaw Center for the Arts. Free. lsumoa.org. k

APR

5th - APR 14th

BROADWAY ON TOUR ANASTASIA New Orleans, Louisiana

From the Tony Award-winning creators of the Broadway classic Ragtime, this dazzling show transports its audience from the twilight of the Russian Empire to the euphoria of Paris in the 1920s, as a brave young woman sets out to discover the mystery of her past. Presented as part of the Broadway in New Orleans series at the Saenger Theatre. Performances at 7:30 pm on weeknights, 8 pm Friday and Saturday, with additional 2 pm performance on Saturday. Sunday performances (which include an ASL interpreter) are 1 pm and 6:30 pm. Tickets start at $59 at saengernola.com. k

APR

5th - APR 28th

LIVE MUSIC APRIL AT THE RED DRAGON Baton Rouge, Louisiana

In its modest digs on Florida Boulevard, the Red Dragon Listening Room pulls in artists who are anything but in terms of their abilities. Well-known and emerging songwriters take the stage here several times each month, and with the venue’s non-profit status all money raised at the door goes directly to the artists. Join the eager audience for one, or all, of these concerts: April 5: Cody Canada & the Departed. $50. April 8: Ellis Paul. $25–$35. 22

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April 15 & 16: Pandemic Palooza II Fundraiser. Open donations. April 20: Keith Burns. $30–$40. April 22: Andrew Duhon Trio at the Manship. $29–$49. April 27: Rod Picott. $25–$35. April 28: Trout Fishing in America. $30–$40. Shows usually start at 8 pm. (225) 9397783. Tickets at paypal.me/reddragonlr; mention the artist in the message line. Manship show at manshiptheatre.org. k

APR

6th

CULTURE CELEBRATIONS TARTAN DAY AT ROSEDOWN Saint Francisville, Louisiana

Didn’t know there was a National Tartan Day? Hoots, mon, where’ve ye been? Today, Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site will be honoring Scottish culture as it remembers Daniel Turnbull, the original owner of Rosedown Plantation, who was of Scottish descent through his father, John Turnbull of Dumfriesshire, Scotland. For National Tartan Day, Rosedown will f ly the Turnbull Clan f lag and decorate the house with the Turnbull tartan. 10 am–4 pm. 12501 Highway 10. (225) 635-3110. k

APR

6th

OUTDOOR MUSIC DOWNTOWN LIVE Donaldsonville, Louisiana

Come out, lawn-chair in hand, for Donaldsonville’s Downtown Live series at Crescent Park, held the first Saturday of the month March–June from 6 pm–8 pm, weather permitting. This month, see The Avenue Cruisers. For more information, contact lee@visitdonaldsonville.org. k

APR

6th

GOOD EATS DOWNTOWN LAFAYETTE ROOFTOP CRAWFISH BOIL Baton Rouge, Louisiana

It’s the downtown fundraiser of the year in Lafayette, back on top of the Vermilion Parking Garage Rooftop, with downtown displayed in all its glory below. Drinks will be flowing, crawfish will be boiling, and local musicians will be performing for an evening to remember. Tickets include five pounds of crawfish, potatoes, corn, dip, and all-you-can-drink beverages (water, soda, wine, and beer). 6 pm. $75; VIP options available. downtownlafayette.org. k

APR

7th

CONCERTS BLACK MARKET TRUST AT MORGAN CITY LIVE Morgan City, Louisiana

Morgan City Live returns with a virtuosic, romantic, and unforgettable performance by Black Market Trust, a group known for its intricate harmonies, crowd interaction, and Rat Pack-style comedy. 7 pm at the Morgan City Auditorium. $25. $5 for students. morgancitylive.com. k

APR

LIVE MUSIC THE LONG RUN EAGLES TRIBUTE Natchez, Mississippi

Don’t miss this blast from the past, hosted by the remarkable tribute band The Long Run—who reincarnates the distinct sound of rock ‘n’ roll royalty, the Eagles. At Locust Alley in Downtown Natchez. 8 pm–10 pm. Tickets start at $10 at bontempstix.com. k

APR

7th - APR 21st

OUTDOOR MUSIC RHYTHMS ON THE RIVER Lafayette, Louisiana

The Vermilion River, that is. River Ranch’s Thursday evening concert series is a good excuse to make a trip across the basin. In

the spring, the picture-perfect traditional neighborhood development hosts concerts by Acadiana-based bands in its town square. 5:30 pm–8:30 pm, with beverage and food vendors on-site. April 7: Jet Seven April 14: Rockin’ Dopsie, Jr. April 21: GTO Free. riverranchdev.com. k

APR

7th - OCT 2nd

ART EXHIBITIONS THE CREATIVE ACT Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Artist Eugene James Martin is known for his concept of “Heterochromatic Collages,” wherein he addresses the concept of time in his multi-sourced collages that transcend genre and style. His unique abstracts will be on display at the LSU Museum of Art in the museum’s first exhibition of his works. The exhibit will also include an interactive component, wherein participants can make their own Martin-inspired collage. A gallery talk will take place on April 8 from 6 pm– 8 pm. lsumoa.org. k

APR

8th

FUN FUNDRAISERS BLACK & GOLD GALA New Orleans, Louisiana

Don your favorite black and gold finery

for this black tie-optional gala to support the Jefferson Chamber of Commerce. The evening will include an open bar, heavy hors d’oeuvres, casino games, a silent auction, and live musical entertainment. Must be twenty-one or older. 7:30 pm– 11 pm. Tickets start at $125 ($100 prior to March 8). jefferson.chambermaster.com. k

APR

8th - APR 9th

GREEN THUMBS POINTE COUPÉE MASTER GARDENER PLANT SALE New Roads, Louisiana

Spruce up your garden for spring with the help of the Master Gardeners of Pointe Coupée, who will have a variety of garden, container, and bedding plants for sale at the Miles J. Brashier Greenhouse. 8 am–2 pm. (225) 638-5533. k

APR

- APR

AVIAN ACTION MINI BIRDFEST

Mandeville, Louisiana

Every year, bird watchers—novices and experts alike—travel from all over to attend the premier birding event sponsored by Northlake Nature Center, the Great Louisiana Birdfest. Spring migration, when numerous migrant bird species pass through South Louisiana on their way from Mexico and South

America, makes for ideal birdwatching conditions. $25. To register for any of the events, contact rue@northlakenature.org or (985) 626-1238. northlakenature.org/ birdfest. k

APR

8th

- APR

9th

SEW FUN BIENNIAL QUILT SHOW Slidell, Louisiana

The Gulf States Quilting Association returns to Slidell’s Harbor Center for its biennial quilt showcase, where visitors can explore hundreds of handmade quilts, and engage with lectures and demonstrations. 10 am–5 pm each day. $10 per day; $15 for a weekend pass; $5 for children younger than twelve. gulfstatesquilting.org. k

APR

8th - APR 10th

SHOPPING SPREES MARKET AT THE MILL New Roads, Louisiana

The City of New Roads will once again present its twice-annual three-day spring shopping extravaganza, Market at the Mill, at the historic cotton mill located three blocks north of Main Street, off Community Street. Complement your shopping with antiques, food and beverages, crafts, and more. 11 am–5 pm Friday, 10 am–5 pm Saturday; 11 am–4 pm

Generations of care

We’re here for you and your family through the stages of life, with the strength of the cross, the protection of the shield. The Right Card. The Right Care.

01MK7677 02/22

// A P R 2 2

Events

Beginning April 8 - April 9 th

Sunday. Admission is $5–$20, depending on day and time of entry at bontempstix.com. marketathemillnewroads.com. k

APR

8th - APR 10th

SHOPPING SPREES OLD SCHOOLHOUSE ANTIQUE FAIR & YARD SALE Washington, Louisiana

The Washington Old Schoolhouse is at the epicenter of this semi-annual celebration of all things vintage and collectible. More than two hundred antiques dealers from all over the United States come to join the dozens of vendors already ensconced in the old-school building, and those who set up all over the yard. Expect huge varieties of antique furniture, china, glassware, primitives, architectural antiques, vintage clothing, artwork, estate jewelry, and plants. 9 am– 5 pm. oldschoolhouseantiquemall.com. k

APR

8th - APR 10th

CULTURE FESTS EL FESTIVAL ESPAÑOL DE NUEVA IBERIA New Iberia, Louisiana

The ninth annual celebration of New Iberia’s Spanish roots returns, offering three days

of events and activities all centered around the town’s central Bouligny Plaza under the theme, “Taste of Spain on the Teche,” celebrating Nueva Iberia with food, music, and culture. The festivities start Friday with a new Boat Parade event on Bayou Teche. On Saturday, the festival will provide many activities throughout the day such as Running of the Bull’s Dog-Friendly 5K/1 Mile Fun Run, parade, re-enactment of Spanish arrival, arts and crafts show, paella, tapas, jambalaya and Spanish desserts cook-off, genealogy displays, visiting royalty, paella eating contest, and a children’s tent and fun zone with face painting, fun jump, and a petting zoo. On Sunday, the public is invited to attended a mass of Thanksgiving at St. Peter’s Catholic Church (108 East St. Peter St.), in honor of New Iberia’s founding families (Gary, Lopez, Migues, Prados, Romero, Segura, and Viator). newiberiaspanishfestival.com. k

APR

- APR

SPRING FESTIVALS PONCHATOULA STRAWBERRY FESTIVAL Ponchatoula, Louisiana

Celebrate the season with a strawberry-

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stained grin at the annual Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival. From humble beginnings, the event has ripened into a Louisiana celebration to which thousands travel. Come take part in the rides, games, music, food, and of course, the finest Louisiana strawberries. A dizzying array of events includes the Strawberry Parade, Strawberry Auction, and Strawberry Strut as well as carnival rides, food booths, games like the strawberry-eating contest (picture it!), sack races, nonstop musical entertainment, pageantry, and kids’ activities, all in Ponchatoula Memorial Park. Free. lastrawberryfestival.com. k

APR

8th - APR 29th

OUTDOOR MUSIC LIVE AFTER FIVE ON THE ATCHAFALAYA RIVER Berwick, Louisiana

At 5:01, the Atchafalaya calls. Head out to the riverside in Berwick for this exciting new concert series, featuring local artists performing each Friday in April. See the lineup here: April 8: Shorts in December April 15: Deja Vu April 22: Soulshine April 29: Cliff Hillebran and the Anytime Band Free. Details on the town of Berwick Facebook page. k

APR

8th

- MAY

1st

ART EXHIBITIONS WEST BATON ROUGE TALENTED STUDENT ART SHOWCASE Port Allen, Louisiana

Celebrate and admire the budding talents of West Baton Rouge’s public school talented art students at this exhibition hanging at the West Baton Rouge Museum. There will also be a reception and viewing in conjunction with Historical Happy Hour on April 8 from 5 pm–8 pm. Free. westbatonrougemuseum.com. k

APR

9th

ART EXHIBITIONS LAFAYETTE STUDENT ARTS EXPO Lafayette, Louisiana

The annual Student Art Expo in Lafayette, hosted by the Acadiana Center for the Arts and the Lafayette Parish School System, is back celebrating the talent of student artists across ages and throughout the parish. The event pairs schools and businesses to host visual arts exhibits, performances, activities, and more throughout the day. 10 am–6 pm all over town. Free. acadianacenterforthearts.org. k

April 12, 1922. To celebrate the centennial of Gonzales’ founding, the Ascension Parish Library in Gonzales is presenting a talk with a panel of local historians and community members, who will reflect on the rich history of the area. 10 am. Free. myapl.org . k

APR

9th

EGG-TIVITIES NOMA EGG HUNT AND FAMILY FESTIVAL New Orleans, Louisiana

Bike off all the jambalaya you’ll inevitably eat during “the best party on a byclicle,” Cycle Zydeco in Acadiana. See listing on page 29. Image courtesy of St. Landry Parish Tourist Comission.

APR

COMEDY & HISTORY HOWARD DUHON AS THE CAJUN EXISTENTIALIST Lafayette, Louisiana

Catch Howard Duhon’s distinctly regional comedy act at Cité des Arts this month, in which he promises to enlighten his audience on their local history, and to perhaps get a laugh out of you. “This is a comedy for a sophisticated audience,” he says. “You probably won’t like it.” Among the topics on the table are the difference between fishing

and sinning, the origins of Boudreaux and Thibodeaux jokes, and the role of amygdalas in romance and depression. Most importantly, as Duhon says: “and the beer is free, cher!” 6 pm. $20. citedesarts.org. k

APR

9th

LOCAL HISTORY EXPLORE YOUR HERITAGE: ASCENSION PARISH, ITS HISTORY AND ITS FUTURE

For many NOLA kids, The Egg Hunt and Family Festival is their first introduction to NOMA and the Besthoff Sculpture Garden. It’s a fun and festive event for families featuring arts & crafts, games, face painting, snacks, drinks, music, and more. The Egg Hunt and Family Festival is a rain or shine event. In the event of inclement weather or any unforeseen conditions, your ticket purchase or sponsorship will be considered a 100% tax-deductible donation to NOMA. Tickets are nonrefundable. 10 am–1 pm. $18 day of event. noma.org. k

APR

9th

BOOK TALKS POPPY TOOKER AUTHOR VISIT

Gonzales, Louisiana

Denham Springs, Louisiana

Gonzales was officially incorporated on

Beloved culinary personality and

Louisiana Eats! host Poppy Tooker is heading to the Denham Springs-Walker Branch of the Livingston Parish Library for the first time for a visit and book signing. 9 am. Free, registration is required. mylpl.info. k

APR

9th

ART & COMMUNITY SPRING FOR ART Covington, Louisiana

Celebrate the arrival of spring as well as local art and artists at Spring for Art: a celebratory event in downtown Covington featuring live music, art, performance, food, and much more. 6 pm–9 pm. Free. sttammany.art/spring-for-art. k

APR

9th

TOURING SHOWS SHEN YUN Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Once upon a time, China was a land of heroes and sages, dragons and phoenixes, emperors and immortals. Shen Yun brings the profound spirit of the lost civilization of China to life on stage at the River Center with unrivaled artistic mastery. Banned in communist China today, the non-profit Shen Yun is dedicated to reviving five thousand years of divinely-inspired civilization through dance and vivid color. 2 pm and 7 pm. $80–$150. shenyun.com. k

Adventures Around Every Bend

LEARN MORE AT VISITIBERVILLE.COM // A P R 2 2

Events Beginning April 9 - April 15 th

APR

9th

PACK RATS ST. TAMMANY COLLECTORS CONVENTON Mandeville, Louisiana

If you have an epic collection, are working on one, or aspire to have one: this convention is for you. Over one hundred tables and booths packed with action figures, comics, toys, video games, local art, and so much more will fill the Castine Center for your perusal. Also catch a costume/ cosplay contest, photo opportunities, and charity events. 10:30 am–5 pm. $5. sttammanycollectorscon.com. k

APR

SHOPPING SPREES SOUTHDOWN MARKETPLACE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL Houma, Louisiana

It happens for one day, twice a year in spring and fall—the outdoor arts & crafts show that brings more than three hundred local and national vendors and their unique handmade products to the grounds of Southdown Plantation House and Museum in Houma. They arrive bearing jewelry, clothing, woodcrafts, furniture, pottery, paintings, photography, toys, dolls, metalwork, florals, candles, and more. There are usually books by local authors, home-grown plants, antiques and collectibles, and children’s hands-on craft projects. Alongside, food vendors bring a huge sampling of Cajun food favorites. Tours of the house, too. $5 adults; free for children twelve and younger. 8 am–4 pm. southdownmuseum.org. k

APR

- APR

COLD-BLOODED REPTICON

Gonzales, Louisiana

If you have a budding herpetologist at

Slidell, Louisiana

home who’s kidnapping frogs to live in the bathtub, perhaps his or her obsession can be assuaged by a trip to Repticon this weekend. Held at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, this event is a see-and-shop opportunity, where local and regional breeders will be showing and selling different breeds of reptiles, amphibians, and other exotic animals—warts and all. Also presentations, Q&A sessions, and a VIP experience that lets visitors in early on Saturday. 9 am–4 pm both days. $10 per day for adults (or $15 for two-day advance pass); $5 ages five–twelve; under four free. repticon.com. k

- APR

GREEN THUMBS SPRING FLING PLANT SALE Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Your garden’s winter blues (well, browns) don’t stand a chance against Hilltop Arboretum and its group of “plant literati,” all on hand to help stock your garden for the season at this year’s Spring Fling Plant Sale. Extra attention is placed on local and native plants, from grasses to trees and everything in between. 9 am–4 pm. Free. lsu.edu/hilltop. k

APR

9th& APR 23rd

OUTDOOR MUSIC BAYOU JAM CONCERTS

APR

9th

APR

- APR

SPRING FESTIVALS EBB & FLOW FESTIVAL

The City of Slidell’s Bayou Jam concert series is bringing the bands and the crowds back to Heritage Park. So tuck your folding chairs into the trunk and join the crowd. This month, catch these upcoming shows: April 9: Soul Revival April 23: Witness 5 pm–7 pm. Free. myslidell.com. k

APR

WELLNESS & CUTENESS GOAT YOGA New Orleans, Louisiana

Adorable goats and yoga in the lush garden block of Central City that is Paradigm Gardens? Sounds very serene (also, cute). Learn from master yoga teacher Jimena Urritia among the f lowers, plants, and of course Cameroonian pygmy goats—namely five brand-new baby kids. $50 includes a ninety-minute goat yoga session, Paradigm Gardens hat, windowsill garden kit, food from EmpaNOLA, and fresh-squeezed strawberry-mint lemonade. paradigmgardensnola.com. k

APR

10th

EGG-TIVITIES EASTER EGGSTRAVAGANZA

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Port Allen, Louisiana

The Arts Council of Greater Baton Rouge is pointing a spotlight towards the city’s many vital arts organizations for the sixthannual Ebb & Flow Festival. Produced in conjunction with the City of Baton Rouge/ Parish of East Baton Rouge and multiple community partners, the festival will include special events, performances, an arts market, interactive art experiences, exhibitions, and concerts. This year’s headliner is R&B sensation Con Funk Shun (formerly known as Project Soul). ebbandflowbr.org. k

The West Baton Rouge Parish Library and the West Baton Rouge Museum team up to host an old-fashioned Easter Egg Hunt for all ages. There will be games, crafts, face painting, critters from Barnyard Belle’s & Beaux’s Petting Zoo, and a special visit from the Easter Bunny himself on the beautiful grounds of the West Baton Rouge Museum. Bring your own Easter basket. 2 pm–3:30 pm. wbrmuseum.org. k

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APR

10th

MUSIC HISTORY “DES CRIS DE JOIE”: ROOTS OF MUSIC ON THE ATCHAFALAYA Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Though distinct to one region, the music of the Atchafalaya is broad and varied in its sounds. Explore them all with Dr. Stuart Tully at a discussion on the music’s international roots across genres at the Main Branch Library at Goodwood. 3 pm. Free. ebrpl.com . k

APR

13th

LOVE LITERATURE JUST LISTEN TO YOURSELF: THE LOUISIANA POET LAUREATE PRESENTS LOUISIANA POETS Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The Louisiana Center for the Book is celebrating National Poetry Month by hosting its twelfth annual Just Listen to Yourself: Louisiana’s Poet Laureate Presents Louisiana Poets, moderated by state poet laureate Mona Lisa Saloy. The in-person program is scheduled at the State Library of Louisiana in downtown Baton Rouge at noon. Free. Find The Louisiana Book Festival on Facebook. k

APR

14th - MAY 14th

MUSIC EXHIBITIONS WOMEN OF THE BLUES Port Allen, Louisiana

The West Baton Rouge Museum is hosting an exhibit about the contributions of local women to blues music in conjunction with the Baton Rouge Blues Festival. Blues greats like Nikki Hill, Lilli Lewis, Sandra Hall, Carolyn Wonderland, Mamie Porter, Mavis Staples, and more will be represented. westbatonrougemuseum.org. k

APR

15th

CULTURAL CELEBRATIONS LAO NEW YEAR CELEBRATION Coteau, Louisiana

Iberia Parish’s not inconsiderable Laotian community holds its New Year celebration,

SOAK it up

LET YOUR HAIR DOWN. Explore, discover and … exhale.

VisitLakeCharles.org

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Events

Beginning April 15th- April 20th known as Songkran, every Easter weekend, and thousands from near and far will be there to honor a tradition that preserves Laotian culture here in Louisiana. The friendly folks of Lanexang Village and the temple there, Wat Thammarattanaram, offer parades, authentic cuisine and clothing, jewelry, sand castle building, live music and dancing, pageantry, and children’s activities. All are welcome. (337) 658-3229 or visit the event’s Facebook Page. k

APR

15th - MAY 1st

MUSICALS MAMMA MIA! Slidell, Louisiana

The record-breaking musical built around the songs of ABBA is coming to the Little Slidell Theatre. Mamma Mia! tells the story of a young bride preparing for her wedding on a sunny Greek island. She’s invited three of her free-spirited mother’s former lovers, hoping to determine which of them will have the honor of walking her down the aisle. 8 pm Fridays and Saturdays; 2 pm Sundays. $28; $22 for students and seniors. slidelllittletheatre.org. k

APR

AMERICAN BALLET THEATRE -DON QUIXOTE

SAT | MAY 14 | 7:30 PM SUN | MAY 15 | 2 PM MAHALIA JACKSON THEATER

FUN FUNDRAISERS SAVE THE HALL BALL Natchez, Mississippi

Pull out the black-tie attire for Stanton Hall’s Save the Hall Ball, a perennially popular event that welcomes individuals from within and beyond the Natchez community for a luxurious evening of fine dining and dancing in the mansion and grounds, which date back to 1857. Tickets usually start at $100 and all proceeds benefit the preservation of Stanton Hall and Longwood. 8 pm. visitnatchez.org. k

APR

Returning to NOLA FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS! NEARLY

16th

EGG-TIVITIES ANGELS GROVE RANCH EASTER EGG HUNT

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

“A veritable feast of classical dancing”

d by

anie omp • Acc

the •

A ISIAN C LOU ARMONI A H PHIL CHESTR R O

-Financial Times

Explore the majestic ground of Angels Grove Ranch and Horse Rescue for its annual Easter Celebration and Egg Hunt. Let the kids roam, enjoying the petting zoo, horse and pony rides, a hayride, games, and other family fun. 11 am–2 pm. $10 admission includes the egg hunt; additional fees for pony rides, egg painting, and other activities. angelsgrove.org. k

Sponsored by

(504) 522-0996 www.nobadance.com Presented in cooperation with

APR

16th

PADDLE PARTY CANOEING ON CASTINE BAYOU Mandeville, Louisiana

Enjoy a three-hour paddling outing in a 28

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canoe for two. Guide Byron Almquist, a long-time paddling guide and Louisiana Master Naturalist, will discuss and describe the habitats and history of the bayou and provide paddling instructions, if desired. Bayou Castine is a Louisiana natural and scenic stream which flows past the Northlake Nature Center, through forested high ground, transitions to a mixed cypress swamp and then past marshes and marinas before emptying into Lake Pontchartrain. Weight limit 240 pounds, masks to be worn at launch site. 9 am–2 pm. $40 for one paddler; $70 for two adults; no charge for a maximum of two children (eleven or younger) for members; additional $5 per person rate for non-members. To register, (985) 626-1238 or rue@northlakenature.org. k

APR

16th

ART MARKETS NEW IBERIA SPRING VENDOR AND CRAFT FESTIVAL New Iberia, Louisiana

Sensing a spring in your step? Make the most of the season at the New Iberia Spring Vendor and Craft Festival, held in the New Iberia City Park Community Center this Saturday. The Easter Bunny will be in attendance, as well as countless craft vendors, sweet-makers, and more. 10 am–3 pm. Free. facebook.com/newiberiavendorevent. k

APR

16th

CONCERTS ABITA SPRINGS OPRY Abita Springs, Louisiana

The Abita Springs Opry is devoted to preserving Louisiana’s indigenous music in all its guises. Arrive early and join the folks who’ve made a ritual of enjoying gumbo, hot dogs, and homemade pastries, not to mention the pre-show sound checks and front porch concerts. It all adds up to the good ol’ family atmosphere that the Opry strives for. The lineup for April includes performances by Three Rivers Cooperative, Mid-City Aces, Gina Leslie, and The Bad Sandys. 7 pm–9 pm. $20. abitaopry.org. k

APR

16th

EGG-TIVITIES EGG ROLLIN’ AT THE TRAILHEAD Covington, Louisiana

Take the kids out for a morning of Easter fun, just for them, with a Covington Easter tradition. Egg Rollin’ at the Trailhead allows children twelve and younger to “race” their boiled, decorated egg from home against other eggs in a test of speed. The “fastest” eggs in Covington will win prizes and

recognition. Plus a petting zoo, wellness fair, crafts and games, and more. Free. 10 am– noon. covla.com. k

APR

17th

HISTORY & MUSIC SERENADE IN THE CEMETERY Natchez, Mississippi

Natchez was desperate for a new cemetery when the city fathers purchased a ten-acre tract of land on the outskirts of the city in the 1820s. The existing downtown cemetery, established by the Spanish, was cramped and in very poor condition. The “new” cemetery today is not unlike a landscaped park, having expanded over time from the original ten acres to more than one hundred acres. The Natchez City Cemetery Association ensures that the graves of those who lie there are not only preserved but promoted through events like this one. Certain characters in Natchez, living and dead, invite all to take a Sunday afternoon stroll through the cemetery. Visitors wandering the cemetery can take in the history represented there with live music and character portrayals of those slumbering under foot. Complimentary refreshments, too. This year’s event will also include the grand opening of the new Bluff Addition, with a ribbon cutting at 3 pm. 2 pm–4 pm. Free. natchezcitycemetery.com. k

APR

19th - AUG 6th

MUSIC EXHIBITS ME GOT FIYO: THE PROFESSOR LONGHAIR CENTENNIAL Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Henry Roeland Byrd was born in Bogalusa in late December of 1918, but would come to be known as the legendary New Orleans pianist Professor Longhair, also known as Fess. His many contributions to New Orleans music, including the famed Tchopitoulas Street venue Tipitina’s which was built for him to perform, are immeasurable. Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser and the Capitol Park Museum are hosting an exhibition honoring Byrd’s life and musical legacy. It traces Professor Longhair’s childhood and youth including the releases of his early hits like “Tipitina” and “Mardi Gras in New Orleans”, then depicts his grand 1970s return, his unexpected death, and the continuation of his legacy. There will be a sneak preview and opening reception sponsored by Friends of the Capitol Park on April 14 from 5 pm–7 pm which is free for members, $10 for nonmembers. The museum will host a variety of programs in conjunction with the exhibition, including a “Women in the Blues” panel discussion on April 21 from 5:30 pm–7 pm, sponsored by the Baton Rouge Blues Foundation. Museum admission is $7 for adults; $6 for students, senior citizens, and military. School groups

with reservations and children six and under are admitted free. Located at 660 North Fourth Street in Baton Rouge, the Museum resides directly across from the State Capitol. louisianastatemuseum.org. k

APR

20th

FUN FUNDRAISERS A NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM— PARTY LIKE YOU USED TO— WELCOME BACK! New Iberia, Louisiana

The folks at the Bayou Teche Museum are celebrating being back together again by bringing their annual fundraising gala back, better than ever. This year, a fabulous live

auction will include items like dinner for eight with NBA star Shaquille O’Neal, a New Orleans package, striking artwork, a chartered fishing trip, a trip to historic Avery Island, Squire Creek golfing, and much more—all presented by auctioneer Senator Fred Mills. Local restaurants will be serving some of their most-beloved dishes, with plenty of wine and beer flowing. Attendees will get a sneak peek at the future Donald “Doc” Voorhies Wing, and the museum’s first exhibit honoring Governor Kathleen Babineaux. 6:30 pm. Tickets are $75 and include dinner from local restaurants and access to an open bar with wine and beer. bayoutechemuseum.org. k

APR

20th - APR 24th

BIKE FESTS CYCLE ZYDECO

City of Lafayette, Louisiana

Louisiana’s Cajun & Creole cycling festival rolls through Cajun Country, letting riders experience the heart of Acadiana. During five days of cycling that cover almost two hundred miles, participants will follow a route that visits several cultural spots that prove the tag line “The Best Party on a Bicycle.” And there’ll be no need to hold back from any of the fantastic food available, since there will be ample opportunities to ride or dance the calories off again. Tickets and schedule at cyclezydeco.org. k

Enjoy an oasis in the heart of the city. Stroll through the beautiful gardens and walk the many trails of the LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens and Windrush Gardens. Step back in time to 19th century rural Louisiana at the open-air LSU Rural Life Museum.

Upcoming Events StoryTime in the Garden April 2 and May 14 . 9 a.m.-noon LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens Zapp’s International Beerfest April 2 . 3:30-6 p.m. LSU Rural Life Museum Birding at Burden April 23 and May 21 . 7-9 a.m. LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens An Old-fashioned Easter Celebration April 10 . 2:30-5 p.m. LSU Rural Life Museum Go Public Gardens Days Check our website for event dates and times in May LSU AgCenter Botanic Gardens

Botanic Gardens For details about these and other events, visit our website or call 225-763-3990. Admission may be charged for some events. Burden Museum & Gardens . 4560 Essen Lane . 225-763-3990 . DiscoverBurden.com . Baton Rouge . Open 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily // A P R 2 2

Events

Beginning April 20th- April 23rd APR

20th - MAY 7th

ART EXHIBITIONS LIFE AFTER WAR New Iberia, Louisiana

Friday, April 8, 2022

12:00 FESTIVAL OPENS 12:00 Rides, Food & Game Booths Open 5:00-7:00 Clay Cormier - South Stage 5:15 Royalty Introductions - North Stage 5:30-7:30 Chase Tyler - North Stage 7:45-9:45 Souled Out - South Stage 8:15-10:15 Category 6 - North Stage 10:30 FESTIVAL CLOSES

Saturday, April 9, 2022

9:00 FESTIVAL OPENS 9:00 Rides, Food, & Games Booths Open 9:30 Parade Starts Downtown 11 11:00 Royalty Introductions - Both Stages 11:30-11:45 Egg Toss - North Stage 11:45-1:45 Fergs Hwy. - North Stage 12:30-2:30 Lindsey Cardinale - South Stage 1:45 Parade Winner Announced - North Stage 1:45-2:15 Strawberry Eating Contest - North Stage 2:15-4:15 Nashville South - North Stage 3:00-5:00 Waylon Thibodeaux’ - South Stage 5:45-7:15 Peyton Falgoust Band - South Stage 5:30-8:00 The Dominos - North Stage 8:00-10:00 Parish County Line - South Stage 8:30-10:30 Louisiana Spice - North Stage 11:00 FESTIVAL CLOSES

Sunday, April 10, 2022

6:30 Strawberry Strut Registration 7:30 Strawberry Strut 9:00 Church Service - North Stage 10:00 FESTIVAL OPENS 10:00 Rides, Food & Games Booths Open 10:30 Strawberry Strut Awards - North Stage 11:00-11:15 Egg Toss - North Stage 11:00-1:00 Katie Kenney - South Stage 11:30-12:45 Will Vance 11 - North Stage 12:45-1:30 Strawberry Eating Contest - North Stage 1:00-3:00 Ryan Foret - South Stage 1:30-3:30 Amanda Shaw - North Stage 3:30-5:30 Tyler Kinchen - South Stage 4:00-6:00 Phunkey Monkeys - North Stage 6:00 FESTIVAL CLOSES *Schedule times and events are subject to change.

A&E Gallery presents the debut exhibition from guest artist Emily Burns. A New Iberia native, Burns will graduate from ULL with a BFA in Printmaking in May, and will present a series of stone lithography works titled Life After War, which explores her father’s PTSD as a result of his military service, as well as her own anxiety that developed as a result. An opening reception will be held on April 23 from 4 pm–7 pm. The gallery is open to the public from Wednesday–Friday 10 am–5 pm. For details, contact Emily at emilyburns. artx@gmail.com or gallery owner Paul Schexnayder at paul@schez.com. k

APR

21st

BOOK TALKS AUTHOR VISIT: KELLY HARRIS-DEBERRY Gonzales, Louisiana

Poet Kelly Harris-DeBerry is heading to the Gonzales Library to perform a reading of her poem Freedom Knows My Name, about her journey to seek personal and collective freedom as a Black woman. Free. 6 pm. (225) 622-3339 to register. k

APR

21st - APR 24th

SPRING FESTIVALS FRENCH QUARTER FESTIVAL New Orleans, Louisiana

2022 Strawberry Festival Royalty

Blossom - Willie Cumming Chairman - Jeff Wright Queen - Avery Meyer King - Carl Wells Grand Marshal - Margaret Joiner

The fabulous French Quarter Festival, the largest free music festival in the South, is back at the most beautiful time of year to spread four days of musical performances throughout the French Quarter. Music beckons stages around the Quarter with over four hundred hours of free music from some 1,700 musicians scheduled across twentythree stages. Every genre is represented here, from traditional and contemporary jazz, to rhythm and blues, New Orleans funk, zydeco, brass bands, folk, opera, and gospel. Fireworks, too. fqfi.org. k

APR

22nd

SHOPPING SPREES ANTIQUES AND UNIQUES FESTIVAL Covington, Louisiana

For festival information visit: www.lastrawberryfestival.com or call 1-800-917-7045 30

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Two days of pure, unabashed eclecticism await. Antique furnishings, period collectibles, random knickknacks and adorable hats. The Covington Heritage Foundation’s Antiques & Uniques Festival is back again, featuring the St. Tammany Association’s Art Market, which will display locally-made fine art, jewelry, photography,

paintings, woodwork, fiber art, pottery, and more. 10 am–5 pm Saturday and Sunday at the Covington Trailhead. Free. covingtonheritagefoundation.com. k

APR

22nd - APR 23rd

GREEN THUMBS NORTHSHORE GARDEN & PLANT SALE Covington, Louisiana

Lots to see, do, and learn at the Northshore Garden & Plant Sale, held at the St. Tammany Parish Fairgrounds. Organized by the LSU AgCenter and Master Gardeners of St. Tammany Parish, exhibitors and experts will be on hand to address all those gardening woes and inquiries, including topics of pruning, vegetable garden diseases, and Louisiana super plants. There’ll also be children’s activities, food vendors, a plant health clinic, and demos, as well as plant material and garden supplies for sale. 9 am–4 pm both days. $5 adults; younger than eighteen free; police, fire, and EMT free. (985) 875-2635. stmastergardener.org. k

APR

22nd - APR 23rd

VROOM VROOM EURO FEST Natchez, Mississippi

One hundred and fifty Ferraris, Maseratis, Rolls Royces, Bentleys, Ducatis, and other glittering, rare, and elegant creations from Europe’s storied automotive marques will be whispering and snorting their way onto Broadway Street for Natchez’s Euro Fest—a classic auto and motorcycle show featuring vehicles built in 1995 or earlier. The hot rods will be coming from the 2022 Euro Fest Road Rally on Friday, which included four legs of drives from Jackson, New Orleans, Natchez, and Baton Rouge to St. Francisville—where owners will have enjoyed a luncheon and display with Mayor Robert Leak and friends. Saturday, it all takes place in Natchez—where owners will be available to show off their steeds, and food and drinks will be available for purchase. All against a backdrop of bagpipers, Southern belles, and the beauty of the bluffs. 10 am–5 pm. euro-fest.net/natchez/index.php. Read more about Euro Fest in Publisher James Fox-Smith’s story on page 52. k

APR

22nd - APR 23rd

CHEERS BOOT BREW FEST Eunice, Louisiana

Introducing the Boot Brew Fest—a hearty gathering of homebrewers from across the region at Lakeview Park and Beach.

Featuring education opportunities for burgeoning brewers, plus plenty of samples from seasoned experts, the event ends very properly with a Cajun barn dance and awards ceremony. $10; $40 for full festival access, including beer samples and a bowl of jambalaya. Must be twenty-one or older. bootbrewfest.com. k

APR

22nd - APR 23rd

SPRING FESTIVALS LOUISIANA FOREST FESTIVAL Winnfield, Louisiana

At the annual Louisiana Forest Festival in Winnfield, aspiring lumberjacks will find their heaven. With chopping and chainsawing galore, this almost fifty-year-old festival salutes the Louisiana timber industry with verve. Attendees can learn more about this history through equipment displays and exhibits, as well as enjoy excellent food and entertainment throughout the day. laforestfestival.com. k

APR

22nd - APR 24th

COMMUNTY FESTIVAL GONZALES CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION Gonzales, Louisiana

Join the Ascension community to celebrate Gonzales’ one-hundredth birthday. Live music, jambalaya cooking contests, arts & crafts, a 5k and 1-mile Fun Run, fireworks, and more will round out the Jambalaya Capital’s Centennial Celebration. Free. gonzalesla100.com. k

APR

22nd - APR 24th

CULTURAL FESTIVALS THE ITALIAN FESTIVAL Tickfaw, Louisiana

Combine the Louisiana parade tradition with the Italian pasta tradition, add in some classic small-town festival fare and a Saturday parade, and you’ve got The Italian Festival in Tickfaw. With live music from Mike Broussard and Night Train, Tyler Kinchen and the Right Pieces, Ryan Foret and Foret Tradition, and more. The parade rolls at 10 am on April 23. theitalianfestivalorg.com. k

APR

22nd - APR 24th

FOOD FESTS SCOTT BOUDIN FESTIVAL Scott, Louisiana

It’s the annual event that celebrates the best little rice-and-meat-stuffed concoction on any side of the Mississippi—and arguably, no place does it better than Scott. Don’t miss three days of live music and the chance to eat boudin, both competitively and casually. This year’s lineup includes performances by Lil Nate, Wayne Toups, Chris Ardon, Geno Delafose, Rusty Metoyer, and many more. scottboudinfestival.com. k

APR

23rd

GOOD EATS ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT CRAWFISH COOK-OFF Slidell, Louisiana

Historically, this 40,000 pound crawfish feast hosted by the Hospice Foundation of the South was considered the largest one-day event on the Northshore. Over fifty teams will be boiling away in Fritchie Park in Slidell, and guests will have access to as much as they can eat. Look forward to entertainment by 21 Front Street Band, The Phunky Monkeys, and Dwayne Dopsie and The Zydeco Hellraisers. 11 am–6 pm. Admission for ages thirteen and older is $30 in advance; $35 at the gate (younger children are free) and includes all you can eat crawfish. crawfishtickets.com. k

APR

DISCOVER A WILD TIME IN JEFFERSON PARISH!

23rd

AVIAN ACTION AUDUBON DAY AT LSU LIBRARIES Baton Rouge, Louisiana

You know what they say about “birds of a feather,” so flock together with other birdlovers at LSU’s Hill Memorial Library for Audubon Day, which will include a viewing of John James Audubon’s Birds of America folios, live birds from the LSU raptor rescue program, an exhibit of the McIlhenny Natural History Collection, behind the scenes tours of the bird collection at the LSU Museum of Natural Science, and more. Free, but registration is required for one-hour time slots between 10 am and 2 pm at lib.lsu.edu/ special/audubon. k

APR

23rd

FOOD FESTS SOUTH LOUISIANA CRAWFISH FESTIVAL Gonzales, Louisiana

The Louisiana Family Festival is reimagined with more focus on crawfish to continue the tradition of a South Louisiana good time for all ages with crawfish boiling and eating contests, a classic car show, a jambalaya cook-off, and much, much more at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center. Free entry, individual events require specific admission fees. visitlasweetspot.com. k

APR

Enjoy a wild time in Jefferson Parish! A New Orleans neighbor where you can stroll the boardwalks and nature trails, explore the wetlands aboard an airboat, camp under the Louisiana sky or relax while fishing the waters of the Barataria. Your wild adventure awaits!

23rd

FUN FUNDRAISERS BRSO SPORTING CLAY TOURNAMENT Port Allen, Louisiana

Take aim, sports men and women of Louisiana: the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra is bringing back its skeet shoot to benefit the symphony. Shooters will be responsible for bringing their own shotgun and shells, as well as eye and ear protection. $150 per person to enter, $600 for a team of four. 8 am–2 pm. brso.org. k

COMMITTED TO YOUR HEALTH & SAFETY V I S I TJ E F F E R S O N PA R I S H . C O M 5 0 4 . 7 3 1 . 7 0 8 3 | 1 . 8 7 7. 5 7 2 . 7 4 7 4

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Events

Awaken the Sleeper,” and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 conducted by Nicholas Hersh. 7:30 pm. $37; $10 for students and children. lpomusic.com. k

Beginning April 23 APR

FUN FUNDRAISERS FÊTE DE LA NATURE: BIOBLITZ AND CRAWFISH BENEFIT Arnaudville, Louisiana

Celebrate the natural beauty of Acadiana at the Atelier de la Nature reserve in Arnaudville with the quintessential Cajun al fresco meal: boiled crawfish. Throughout the day, scientists will head an official BioBlitz—encouraging guests to search the property for as many species of birds, reptiles, insects, plants, fungus, and more that they can find. The Culinary Institute of Baton Rouge will be offering edible insect tasting workshops and cooking demos; and live music will be provided by the Lost Bayou Ramblers and saxophonist Dickie Landry. Crawfish and music from 11 am–2 pm; Bioblitz events lasting from 6 am–11:30 pm. Admission is free, but proceeds from crawfish purchases ($20 for 3lbs) will benefit youth educational programs at Atelier de la Nature. Register at eventbrite.com. atelierdelanature.org. k

APR

MUSIC FESTIVALS JUKE JOINT FESTIVAL Clarksdale, Mississippi

Clarksdale, Mississippi holds claim as the “birthplace of the blues.” For the nineteenth year in a row, “the world’s biggest little blues festival” holds court, filling the tiny Delta town with a huge variety of music acts, racing pigs, monkeys riding dogs, workshops, history bus tours, and more. A host of pre-festival celebrations will take place throughout the month, but the main event is Saturday—which will center blues music on twenty two stages all throughout the city and long into the night. jukejointfestival.com. k

APR

23rd

CONCERTS LPO PRESENTS NORTHSHORE CLASSICS Covington, Louisiana

Don’t miss the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra’s special finale concert from its Northshore Classics Series: performances of “D’un matin de printemps,” “To

APR

LIVE MUSIC ABITA SPRINGS SONGWRITERS’ SHOWCASE Abita Springs, Louisiana

The musical maestros of the Abita Springs Songwriters’ Circle are presenting a showcase of their original tunes at the Abita Springs Town Hall, featuring eight local songwriters from the Circle. Doors open at 6 pm, performances begin at 7 pm. $10. Check out the Abita Springs Songwriters’ Circle on Facebook for more information. k

APR

FOOD FESTS CRAWFEST New Orleans, Louisiana

Did you go to a college where they dumped eighteen thousand pounds of crawfish in the quad each spring? No? Then be on campus when Tulane University hosts its annual Crawfest celebration of mudbugs and music. New Orleans’ venerable seat of learning lets down its gown for a day, presenting boiled crawfish by the ton served up alongside a lineup of live music. Plenty of food vendors and local artists displaying, too. 11 am–7 pm on Tulane’s Uptown campus. Free for Tulane students or children twelve or younger; $15 otherwise. crawfest.tulane.edu. k

APR

VROOM VROOM CRUISIN’ THE CASTINE Mandeville, Louisiana

A fleet’s worth of classic, antique, and muscle cars, trucks, motorcycles, Jeeps, side-by-sides, and more will be on display at the Castine Center in Pelican Park. Public viewing noon–2 pm. Also look forward to food trucks, craft vendors, and fireworks. Free to attend; $30 to register online; $35 day of. tracyroskens@ castinecenter.com. (985) 626-7997. k

23rd

BIKE PARTIES LOUISIANA BICYCLE FESTIVAL Abita Springs, Louisiana

“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.” Encouraging words from H.G. Wells, who would no doubt endorse the Louisiana Bicycle Festival. Each year, bike enthusiasts take over the tiny town of Abita Springs to see and show antique and creative custom bikes, and even catch a parade. There’s a bike flea market, Tammany Trace cruise, and plenty of

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A P R 2 2 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

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contests and prizes for two-wheeled tricks. Live music and festival food, too. The festival cycles town-wide, but look for cyclists gathering at the Trailhead from 9 am –6 pm. Free. louisiananorthshore.com. k

APR

23rd - APR 24th

SPRING FESTIVALS MELROSE ARTS & CRAFTS FESTIVAL Natchitoches, Louisiana

Baton Rouge contemporary dance company Of Moving Colors presents Clock Tower at the Manship Theatre, inspired by one of the oldest clocks in the world in Prague. See listing on page 34. Image courtesy of Of Moving Colors.

Every spring, Melrose Plantation hosts an Arts & Crafts Festival, the longestrunning of its kind in the state. This twoday event, sponsored by the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches, attracts more than two thousand visitors each year from throughout the nation and world. The festival presents local artists, handmade items for your home and yard, gorgeous works of art, flowers, local food, and live music. Melrose’s festival focuses on presenting artisans who demonstrate their crafts at the festival itself so that festival-goers can get a first-hand look at the artistic process in action. Jewelry, paintings, wooden furniture, and other items will take shape, and examples will be available to purchase directly from the artists. Saturday 9 am–5 pm; Sunday 10 am–4 pm. Admission $5, $2 children six to twelve, free for kids five and younger. melroseplantation.org. k

APR

23rd - MAY 15th

THEATRE CRIMES OF THE HEART Mandeville, Louisiana

Tackling sibling rivalry, growing old, and coming home again, 30 by Ninety Theatre will stage Crimes of the Heart this spring. Set in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, Crimes follows the Magrath sisters, who have gathered to sort out their grave (yet somehow hilarious) troubles. Their grandfather is living his last few hours in the hospital just in time for the youngest sister, Babe, to get out of jail on bail after having shot her husband. Meg, the middle sister, has returned home for the first time in years after a failed singing career on the West Coast to help her sisters and face her own issues from the past. Just about to celebrate her birthday, the eldest sister, Lenny, finds herself busy caring for everyone else. Despite grim circumstances facing the characters, Beth Henley’s play is a heartwarming taste of the South. 8 pm Friday and Saturdays; 2:30 pm Sundays. $19; $17 for seniors; $14 for students; $11 for children twelve and younger. 30byninety.com. k

APR

23rd - MAY 28th

ART EXHIBITS LEMIEUX GALLERIES APRIL EXHIBITS New Orleans, Louisiana

LeMieux Galleries presents Billy Hassell’s

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Events

Beginning April 24 - April 30 th

Homing and Marcy Lally’s Hands of Time. 10 am–5 pm, Monday–Saturday. lemieuxgalleries.com. k

APR

24th

SPORTING GOOD TIME HARVEST CUP POLO CLASSIC Folsom, Louisiana

How about a spot of polo, old chap? The Junior League of Greater Covington brings the Northshore’s premiere equestrian event back to Summergrove Farms in Folsom. Besides the excitement of the polo matches, the fundraiser promises food and drinks from several regional restaurants, specialty cocktails, live entertainment, a silent auction, and more. 11 am–6 pm. $150. louisiananorthshore.com. k

APR

25th

LIVE MUSIC NEW ORLEANS FRIENDS OF MUSIC CHAMBER CONCERTS New Orleans, Louisiana

The New Orleans Friends of Music 20212022 season continues with a performance by the American Brass Quintet. 7:30 pm at Tulane University’s Dixon Hall. $35. friendsofmusic.org. k

APR

25th - APR 28th

ENVIRONMENT GULF OF MEXICO CONFERENCE Baton Rouge, Louisiana

For the first time ever, the Gulf of Mexico Alliance is holding an in-person conference (GoMCon), bringing together top coastal scientists, professionals from federal and state agencies, nonprofits, fishing industry leaders, and more to the River Center to network and discuss research about the coast along the Gulf of Mexico. gulfofmexicoalliance.org/gomcon. k

APR

27th - MAY 1st

SPRING FESTIVALS FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL DE LOUISIANE Lafayette, Louisiana

Anyone looking for a reason to feel proud to a Louisianian need only make plans to be in downtown Lafayette when this beloved five-day festival returns in full-force to Acadiana, bringing artists primarily from the French diaspora but also from countries the world over to Lafayette. Music, visual arts, theatre, dance, and cuisine combine into a melting pot that celebrates the common threads that bind their cultures and Louisiana’s own artistic expressions together. Festival, as it is simply called by the locals, transforms downtown Lafayette into an entertainment complex with many 34

music stages presenting local, international, and emerging musicians; food court areas, street musicians and animators; arts & crafts boutiques; art galleries; cultural workshops; and a world music store. As usual, scores of bands this year are coming from all corners of the globe, and plenty of Louisiana greats are there to make things complete. Free. festivalinternational.org. k

APR

27th - MAY 8th

ARRRGH! LOUISIANA PIRATE FESTIVAL Lake Charles, Louisiana

The legend of the pirate Jean Lafitte and his widespread illicit activities gives the city of Lake Charles something intriguing to celebrate during the annual Contraband Days Festival ... or, at least it has in an official capacity, for the past sixty-odd years. Local folklore has it that Lafitte buried his trove of treasure somewhere along the sandy shores of Lake Charles; so long as his haul continues to elude fossickers with metal detectors, the festival’s future seems assured. A highlight is the arrival of the pirates, who sail into Lake Charles on Friday to take over the city and make the mayor walk the plank. Spectators line the seawall to see this event. The pirates’ reign imposes two weeks of frivolity that runs to multiple entertainment stages with live music by a broad range of performers. What follows are walking buccaneer parades, live sharks, carnival rides, food booths, and cook-offs. There will be many events to participate in, including a boat parade, a butterfly encounter, and concerts, and the Louisiana Pirate Festival Costume Ball. Also, don’t miss the grand fireworks display that closes the festivities. louisianapiratefestival.com. k

APR

28th

STEPPIN’ OUT CLOCK TOWER Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Of Moving Colors returns to the Manship stage with a short work inspired by one of the oldest astronomical clocks in the world, located in Prague. In a visual masterpiece of contemporary dance featuring solos, duets, and trios, this one night production gives dancers the chance to respond to abstract symbols and to true beauty, all found within the detailed structures of the clock. $17–$38. 7 pm. ofmovingcolors.org. k

APR

28th

GREEN THUMBS MASTER GARDENER TALKS Baton Rouge, Louisiana

The East Baton Rouge Master Gardeners Association presents a two-part talk at the

A P R 2 2 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

Fairwood Regional Library: First is “Soil Basics” with Kerry Hawkins, followed by “Hydroponics” with Kathy Conerly. 5:30 pm–7:30 pm. Free. ebrmg.wildapricot.org. k

APR

NATURE COMPETITIONS CITY NATURE CHALLENGE 2022 Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Get ready to help put Louisiana on the map during the four-day international nature competition—which involves identifying trees, shrubs, birds, and other flora and fauna. For four days, participants need only seek out the wildlife in their area—birds, insects, or plants—and snap a picture. Upload your observations to inaturalist. org or with the iNaturalist mobile app to be added to the competition, representing competing cities: Baton Rouge, Southwest Louisiana, and New Orleans. By playing, participants are also gathering open-source data that helps local agencies and research scientists. citynaturechallenge.org. k

APR

29th - MAY 1st

FOOD FESTS ARNAUDVILLE ÉTOUFFÉE FESTIVAL Arnaudville, Louisiana

Over thirty years young, this annual affair at the St. John Francis Regis Church occasions the creation (and consumption) of all sorts of étouffée, then adds in friendly rivalry, live music, children’s activities, the Mayor’s Cook-Off, and an antique car and truck show. Music lineup includes: Jamie Bergeron & the Kickin’ Cajuns, The Nik’l Beer Band, Kaleb Olivier Band, The Has Beens, and more. Free admission. (337) 754-5912. arnaudvillecatholic.org/etouffee-festival k

APR

29th - MAY 1st

SPRING FESTIVALS NEW ORLEANS JAZZ & HERITAGE FESTIVAL New Orleans, Louisiana

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is the city’s hallmark international festival, famous for immersing the country’s most powerful entertainers in the city of New Orleans’ incomparable musical legacy. In addition to the music, happening simultaneously on multiple stages, the Heritage Fair offers its lip-smacking array of food (more than one hundred varieties available), as well as contemporary and folk crafts. Numerous areas highlight Louisiana’s diverse influences, including the Congo Square African Marketplace, the Contemporary Crafts area, and Louisiana Marketplace. Festival parades, starring brass bands and marching clubs, begin and end in Heritage Square. Everything happens at the New Orleans Fairgrounds. Single day advance Tickets $80; Weekend packages $225 for Weekend 1 and $275 for weekend two, VIP available. nojazzfest.com. k

APR

29th - MAY 1st

ART EXHIBITS EN PLEIN AIR

Abita Springs, Louisiana

Abita Springs architect and collector Ron Blitch presents a special exhibition of recent plein air paintings created by local artists including: JoAnn Adams, Ben Bensen III, Al Champagne, and more. All on display and for sale at the Abita Springs Trailhead Museum, which will benefit from a portion of each sale. The opening reception will be held from 6 pm–9 pm Friday, exhibition open from 10 am–3 pm Saturday and Sunday. Free. trailheadmuseum.org. k

APR

29th - JUL 4th

ART EXHIBITIONS LOUISIANA COLORS AND TEXTURES Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Works by local artist Dennis Hargroder inspired by the colors and textures of Louisiana’s natural scenery will be on display at the Manship Gallery in the Shaw Center for the Arts. shawcenter.org. k

APR

30th

GENEOLOGY 1950 CENSUS FAMILY FUN DAY Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Celebrate the long-awaited release of the census data from 1950 with the Genealogy Department at the Main Branch Library at Goodwood with a vintage car show, music, food, and more. 11 am–2 pm. Free. ebrpl.com. k

APR

30th

SPRING FLINGS A GARDEN SOIRÉE AT MAGNOLIA COTTAGE Natchez, Mississippi

Take in live music while sipping a glass of wine or lemonade and sample delicious treats at this Garden Soirée. Take a leisurely walk in the rose gardens and back courtyard while hearing the history of Magnolia Cottage B&B, Circa 1831, including exploring the remains of the old dairy barn and a hidden staircase. Dress for warm weather with flat shoes, and wear your favorite sun hat (the best hat will even win a gift certificate from a local business). 10 am–11:30 am. $30 at eventbrite.com. k

For all events, including those we couldn’t fit into print, point your phone camera here.

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A GUIDE

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TO THE HIKING

BEST OF BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA RED

B L U F F, M I S S I S S I P P I

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TAKING

ROAD TRIPPIN’ THE

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ISLAND,

E VA C U AT I O N H AV E N S

When God Sends You to Alabama . . . FRENCH BISTROS, LOCAL BREWS, AND BOTANICAL GARDENS IN BIRMINGHAM By Chris Turner-Neal

an plans; God laughs. This past summer He got some particularly good giggles out of my attempts to make travel plans: my boyfriend and I arranged to go to the Netherlands, canceled the reservations because of the Delta variant, planned to go on a North Alabama road trip as a consolation prize, canceled the Alabama road trip when my boyfriend needed his tonsils out, evacuated New Orleans for Hurricane Ida two days after Frankie’s surgery, and wound up in an AirBnB in Birmingham anyway. But even if our plans make the Almighty laugh, it’s not always at our expense: we had so much fun in North Alabama we priced apartments. The pretty steel city in the hills where the Appalachians peter out was a perfect home away from home and made the evacuation almost restful. We stayed in the Five Points South neighborhood near the University of Alabama at Birmingham and had plenty to do; late in the trip, we went to eat and drink in Avondale, where we might have been able to occupy another week—a good excuse to return.

Beet Salad at Ocean in Birmingham, courtesy of the restaurant.

Eat

The French Bistro, Chez Fonfon draws on Parisian charm, serving dishes like country paté, escargots, and a Basque cake. Photo courtesy of the Birmingham CVB. 36

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Birmingham deserves a reputation as a food city. The worst meal I had here was merely good, and the best restaurants we tried could easily go head-to-head with their counterparts in New Orleans. I took Frankie for an early birthday at Ocean, an upscale seafood spot in the Five Points district. The catch of the day is displayed fresh on ice next to the expansive raw bar, whetting your appetite as soon as you enter. We started with a house cocktail called the Ocean Martini—we thought we were ordering a joke drink (in our defense, it had blue curacao in it), but were put in our place by a balanced drink that matched the seafood well. We ordered a flight of East Coast oysters: smaller and lighter than their Gulf sisters, they were varied enough to inspire conversation (and fantasies about a trip to Nova Scotia). After a round of exquisite oysters Bienville, our mains arrived: halibut over ricotta dumplings with chanterelles and peas for him; grouper over a fennel and quinoa salad for me—perfectly-cooked fish in both

dishes, with accompaniments good enough to compete but not overpower. Dessert was a lemon-lavender pound cake with fresh strawberries and baklava ice cream: baked Alaska’s Levantine cousin, with ice cream wrapped in phyllo, flash-fried and drizzled with honey. We fought to lick the plates. A friend had recommended Chez Fonfon, a French bistro a block from Ocean. The name is the only funny thing about this flawless restaurant. We ordered small plates: a summery and glorious heirloom tomato salad, a country paté with an unusually light and herbal seasoning profile, the best chicken-liver mousse of my organ-meat-tasting career, and a half-dozen sumptuous escargots. Dessert was a summer berry trifle fat with fruit and a Basque cake, in effect a fancy pound cake served with vanilla crème anglaise and figs. The excellent coffee was a respite after a week of K-cups. During ordinary time, start the day at The Original Pancake House, which offers a vast diner menu of breakfast specialties—if you have the time, it’s

worth waiting for a made-to-order Dutch baby, a custardy pastry rich with butter and powdered sugar, brightened with lemon. Next door, Filter Coffee Parlor offers excellent quick eats (homemade cinnamon rolls!) and creative drinks like a hibiscus rose-espresso concoction I delighted in. Have lunch at Golden Temple, a vegetarian café attached to a New Age store that’s been around since 1973. Generous portions and rich flavors mean you won’t miss the meat—we had the lasagna special and froze our leftovers for the pleasure of looking forward to them. For an adventurous dinner, give Yummefy a whirl. The Nepalese restaurant, decorated with Christmas lights and bold prints of Himalayan scenes, offers dishes familiar from the famous cuisines of Nepal’s neighbors India and China as well as a slate of Nepalese specialties—expect richly-flavored, spicy meat and noodles that would keep you warm and cozy in the Himalayas. Saw’s Soul Kitchen, in the Avondale neighborhood, is billed as a soul food restaurant and should be considered a pilgrimage site for anyone devoted to Southern food. The boiled peanuts are made in pot liquor, and the fried green tomatoes deserve another book. Tea-brined fried chicken, pitch-perfect pulled pork, and turnip greens fit for Olympians (either the athletes or the gods) ensure you’ll be reaching across the table to steal bites even as you defend your own plate. Like any city with a young, hip contingent—a demographic I’m relieved to be aging out of—Birmingham and its environs host a number of small breweries. Many of these offer the familiar on-site taprooms and beer gardens, but unlike certain nearby states, Alabama seems to make it relatively easy for breweries to sell their products off-site, which meant we could also do a lot of sampling from the wonderfully stocked bodega near our rented apartment. We especially enjoyed brews by Avondale Brewing Co., Cahaba Brewing Co., and TrimTab Brewing Co., but the profusion is such that we didn’t get to try all we wanted.

k n i r D

The Dutch Baby at The Original Pancake House. Courtesy of The Original Pancake House.

Enjoy Some Fabulous Events in Fredericksburg, Texas

6-8 MAY

A New Festival

Marktplatz ON D OW N TOW N F R E D E R I C K S B U R G T E X A S

2022

RALLY IS HELD IN LUCKENBACH TEXAS

Not just your plain ol’ Motorcycle Rally

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Festival 10:30-8:00 Downtown on Marktplatz Texas craft beer - Stein hoist Food concessions - Food & Beer pairing demonstrations Great musical entertainment (And, yes, there will also be some wine available for nonbeer drinkers.)

Festival Details: www.fbgcraftbeerfestival.com The Rotary Club of Fredericksburg is creating an event that will bring visitors, highlight the town’s brewing past and help the club fund its charitable giving. // A P R 2 2

The most distinctive aspect of the Birmingham skyline is the cast-iron statue (supposedly the world’s largest) of the metalworking god Vulcan, staged in gratitude for the steel industry crucial to the city’s development. Head up to the statue for a walk in the adjacent park, with gorgeous views of the city and kudzu-strewn hillsides. $6 gets you admission to the small but well-executed local history museum and permission to go up to the viewing tower at the top of the statue’s pedestal, with even more impressive views, including the oft-photographed gigantic cast-iron fanny Vulcan presents to points south. The Birmingham Botanical Gardens are the best I’ve ever seen, jam-packed with flowers even in September and with a wide assortment of sub-gardens within it, offering a Japanese garden, formal rose garden, and bog habitat (complete with reticent copperhead). There is a cactus greenhouse and beds of local favorites azaleas and camellias, among many others. The gardens are next to Birmingham Zoo, which in addition to a red panda (apex of the animal kingdom) offers wide collections of animals, with a particularly generous collection of lovely and unusual birds. (I happened to go with a friend who’d recently completed a doctorate in bird anatomy, which was a mixed blessing.) Birmingham is a short drive from other attractions in North Alabama. DeSoto Caverns offers a small theme park, with an uncomfortable Hernando de Soto-heavy design: it’s taken the American zeal for advertising to draw a zany, fun-loving conquistador. Nevertheless, we had fun in the mazes: one a standard find-the-goal maze and one a squirt gun maze of cover spots from which to drench you friends. Unlike many caves open to the public, DeSoto Cavern has seen heavy human activity: it was a sacred site to the Coosa people and, in its further reaches, the resting place of many of their ancestors. The cave later hosted a Confederate gunpowder works and a bootlegger’s saloon called “The Bloody Bucket”. As a result, the formations bear a certain amount of scar and char, but the stories make up for it; the laser light show that concludes the tour is surprisingly effective. The attraction in general is overpriced, but the workers are unfailingly pleasant and it’s a fun afternoon.

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CALENDAR OF EVENTS APRIL 2022 Pockin’ on the Bayou Town of Cottonport April 16, 2022 318.876.3485 Knocking on the Square Avoyelles Parish Courthouse Apri 17, 2022 (9:00am Registration) April 318.305.8088 Nelly Paragon Casino Resort April 23, 2022 Paragoncasinoresort.com Evergreen’s 150th Celebration Town of Evergreen April 30, 2022 Town of Evergreen

Noccalula Falls offers more bang for the buck. The falls are named after a legendary Native American woman who flung herself from the falls rather than marry the man her father had chosen. (A statue of the bride pre-leap stands at the head of the falls.) Sensible people can access the falls via a mostly-paved trail; we misread the map and went on a strenuous (for us) two-hour hike the long way around through the beautiful wooded land around the falls. The park around the falls also offers gardens, animals (you can feed the alpaca), and for an additional $2, miniature golf. Cheaha State Park hosts Mount Cheaha, the highest point in Alabama. The peak is crowned with a stone tower (bring quarters for the telescopes); next door is the building from which free educational television was beamed to Alabama children during the New Deal. The park also offers camping, a small hotel, a restaurant with a small menu but stunning views (and an antler chandelier), and the tiny but very full Walt Farr Native American Museum, funded by the Lurleen Wallace administration. The drive up is beautiful and easy to make dovetail with other day-trip destinations. I knew I’d have fun in Birmingham—I love a road trip, and like the rest of the country I had a lot of pent-up wanderlust. I was surprised by how much fun I had and what a respite the outing proved to be. It sounds eccentric, almost perverse to say you were refreshed by an evacuation, but that’s a testament to the topsy-turviness of the past few years—and the many charms of Birmingham. h visitbirmingham.com Photo captions: Top left—The Birmingham Zoo invites visitors to interact with a wide collection of animals (including the Red Panda!). Photo by Jeff Greenberg, courtesy of the Birmingham CVB. Top right: The Birmingham Botanical Gardens are the best this writer has ever seen. Photo courtesy of the Birmingham CVB. Bottom left: Noccalula Falls are a beautiful natural feature with a mythical history. Photo by Andy Montgomery on Flickr. Bottom right: The Vulcan statue is a key facet of the Birmingham skyline, and worth the visit. Photo courtesy of the Birmingham CVB.

Da Parish Crawwsh Boil St. Joseph’s Catholic Church -Marksville April 30, 2022 St. Joseph ACTS Cajun Crossroads Festival Hessmer Sports Complex May 6-7, 2022 Cajun Crossroads Festival

8592 Hwy 1, Mansura, LA 800.833.4195 travelavoyelles.com // A P R 2 2

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A P R 2 2 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M

THE SCENIC ROUTE

On Thin Islands

WHEN THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED ISN’T ACTUALLY A ROAD ... BUT A BEACH Story and photos by James Fox-Smith A particularly delightful feature of the Gulf ’s barrier island beaches is the invitation to drive your vehicle right onto the sand.

erious ink has been spilled extolling the virtues of the road less traveled. It’s a romantic notion: why not quit the superhighway in favor of the back road, the country lane—secure in the knowledge that even if we arrive at our destination a little later, we stand to be enriched by the diversion? In reality though, when departing for that long-anticipated getaway, how many of us overscheduled, time-poor individuals actually end up opting for the slow road? Not many. Instead, brainwashed by a lifetime’s propaganda singing the praises of speed and efficiency, we feel compelled to zero in on our destination, forgetting that by definition, the process of “getting away” really begins the moment we turn out of the driveway. “Life is a journey, not a destination,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson—words memorable enough to be reproduced on everything from tattoos to tea towels, to that souvenir travel mug you’re in danger of buying at one of the hundreds of Buc-ee’s or Pilot Travel Centers that line America’s interstate network … if you don’t heed Ralph’s advice by getting off the main drag and going in search of more interesting souvenirs. With this in mind, one February morning I set out from St. Francisville in pre-dawn darkness—determined to trade the juggernaut efficiency of I-10 for a slower, more scenic route to my destination: Mustang Island on the Texas Gulf Coast. You don’t hear much about Mustang Island, but that’s okay with the few thousand people who call it home. Eighteen miles long and not much more than a mile wide, Mustang tends to be overshadowed by its larger, flashier neighbor to the south, Padre Island—which

at 113 miles in length, stretches almost to the Mexico border and boasts the status of one of the most popular (and wild) spring break destinations in the country. Mustang Island offers a quieter, less commercialized Texas Gulf Coast beach experience—one renowned for the birdwatching, fishing, swimming, surfing, and wide-open beaches that attract folks from across Texas and surrounding states.

Getting There

From St. Francisville to Mustang Island takes about eight-and-a-half hours by the fastest route, but since I was determined to see as little of I-10 as possible, I crossed the Mississippi River at the Audubon Bridge, winding my way through Maringouin and Rosedale, along sinuous roads like LA 414 and 413 that shadow the bayous, through cypress trees and cane fields and past crumbling Catholic cemeteries wreathed in early morning mist, towards Grosse Tete and the unavoidable stretch of I-10 beyond. As the sun rose, I was somewhere in Cameron Parish, sailing between rice paddies where snowy egrets stalked crawfish. By 7 am I was through Lake Charles, its chemical flares adding who-knowswhat to a rose-colored sunrise. If you measure a road trip by the number of sights that depart from day-to-day experience, it’s when I turned off of I-10 at Winnie onto TX-124 that things started to get interesting. Right away the national brands were replaced by places with names like Tony’s BBQ & Steakhouse, and the Sea Pony Bait & Tackle Shack. Then those faded away too, and all around was coastal plain—dotted with pumpjacks and longhorn

cattle, the sun low in the sky, on a two-lane road following a line of utility poles towards the still-invisible Gulf. At 257 miles from home I passed the Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge. At mile 263 a tall bridge rewarded with a birds-eye view of pushboats chugging west to east along the Intracoastal Waterway, and took me over the wetlands southward for a first glimpse of the shining Gulf beyond. Then came a little coastal chenier town named High Island, and it was a hard right onto TX Hwy-87 and the Bolivar Peninsula towards Galveston. If you haven’t done it, driving along the Bolivar Peninsula offers a little slice of the old Texas coast worth an hour of your valuable time. For twenty miles you skim along a two-lane strip of blacktop separated from glittering Gulf waves by a slender strip of shell-strewn beach. Everything is built on stilts, painted in pastels, with a cheerful, independent, make-do vibe that doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously. Driving past bait shacks, stilt houses leaning out over the water, scrubby coastal live oaks festooned with egrets, and a rusty Highway 87 sign with a brown pelican perched on top makes you appreciate the strange beauty of this network of peninsulas and barrier islands strung like a necklace along the Louisiana/Mississippi/Texas coasts. Sure, they’re scruffy and beat up and kind of out-of-the-way. But as a unique, land-that-time-forgot environment and a first line of defense against the increasingly-powerful storms that roll in from the Gulf, they’re a treasure that we would do well to respect and understand. And preserve, because we’ll miss them when they’re gone. At the end of Bolivar, Tx-87 dead-ends into the boarding lanes for the Port Bolivar-Galveston Ferry. // A P R 2 2

Operated by the Texas Department of Transportation, the free crossing takes about fifteen minutes. If your timing is lucky you might drive right on. But if not, don’t worry; multiple boats run all day, departing each time one gets full. We’re in no hurry, after all. Once you cross into Galveston and roll along Broadway Avenue, past all the stupefyingly-grand mansions dating from the city’s heyday, it’s about four more hours to Mustang Island. Or five, if you meander around as much as I did. Use Google or Apple maps to chart your course, and the algorithm will go to great lengths to send you back to the fastest route. Instead, I broke my route into segments strung between the most interesting-sounding coastal towns, which made for a scenic and entertaining way to cover ground. Driving from, say, Galveston Island to Freeport. Then Freeport to Palacios. Then Palacios to Seadrift—with stops at each to sample excellent Mexican food from roadside stalls—added about an hour to my total travel time. But what I gained instead, in terms of views, perspective, and flavor, more than compensated. Finally, after passing Holiday Beach and crossing over Copano Bay, it was time to line up for one more ferry, crossing Aransas Pass to land in Port Aransas, and onto Mustang Island itself.

Birding

The first thing you notice on Mustang Island is the birds. Consisting largely of dunes interlaced with meandering inlets and freshwater ponds and lakes, the Island is mecca for migrating birds (over four hundred species have been identified here), and a popular stop on the Texas Birding Trail, particularly in winter and early spring. Between Mustang Island State Park, which occupies the southern third of the island, the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center, the Port Aransas Nature Preserve, and the Padre Island National Seashore, which encompasses the northernmost 130,000 acres of Padre Island to the south, migrating birdwatchers will find a host of areas from which to watch them, too. tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/mustang-island cityofportaransas.org/departments/parks-and-recreation/nature-preserve/birding-center/

The Beaches

But it’s the beach that brings most visitors to Mustang Island. And what a beach it is! Broad, flat, and clean, during the warmer months (which is to say, most of them), the Gulf-side teems with fisherman, birdwatchers, paddlers, campers, surfers, and sandcastle-builders. On the western shoreline, the shallow waters of Laguna Madre and Corpus Christi Bay offer a paradise for canoeists and kayakers, presenting a series of designated paddling trails that pass through some of the best shallow water fishing areas in Texas. An added “only-in-Texas” kind of benefit is the fact that on Mustang and North Padre islands, it’s perfectly legal to take your car onto the beach and drive along the coast until you find a spot that suits you. All you need is a valid beach parking permit, which costs $12 per year. Visit ccparkandrec.com for a list of places to buy one.

Eating in Port A

Away from the beach, most of the action on Mustang Island is in Port Aransas, the jaunty beach town that occupies the northernmost tip of the island and looks out over Aransas Pass. Home to about 3,400 year-round residents, “Port A,” as it is affectionately known by the locals, is painted in bright pastels, and amply supplied with fresh seafood shacks, souvenir shops, golf cart rental places, and casual, lively bars with names like Blue Water Cowboy and The Salty Dog Saloon. There are plenty of restaurants—the pizzerias, fish shacks, and a Polynesian hot plate place looked to be 42

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north end of Laguna Madre and serves as the dividing line between Mustang and North Padre islands. On a good day, you might catch trout, redfish, whiting, pompano, black drum, or sheepshead from these. Then there’s Laguna Madre itself—the huge system of shallow bays and flats that lies between Mustang and Padre islands and the mainland. At any time of year, wadeor kayak-fishing these shallow seagrass flats can produce limit catches of redfish and flounder, croaker, drum, and pompano. Speaking of flounder, the shallow flats make the back side of Mustang Island a fantastic location to try the uniquely Texas experience of flounder gigging—which is to say, wading the shallows at night with a spotlight and a gig spear. In summer, be sure to shuffle your feet on the bottom; there’s nothing like stepping on a stingray to spoil your vacation. If you prefer to leave it to the experts, or go offshore after species like red snapper, tuna, and billfish, a wide variety of fishing charters base out of Port A. Visit portaransas.org/things-to-do/fishing to get started. Mustang Island is a birdwatcher’s haven, but a keen traveler will find a feathery friend on the journey there, too. The Port-Bolivar-Galveston ferry is known as a hub for seagulls.

doing a healthy trade on the mid-week afternoon I was in town. Lots of seafood places of course, enough of which offer a “you-catch-we’ll-cook” service to lend credibility to Mustang Island’s reputation as an outstanding saltwater fishing destination. Since we’re in South Texas and at the gateway to “El Valle,” I settled on a colorful Mexican restaurant named La Playa Mexican Grille, and was plied with guacamole made fresh tableside, three kinds of ceviche, and a superb fresh fish special of broiled snapper topped with salsa and lime. laplayamexicangrille.com.

Fishing

If fishing’s your thing, Mustang Island provides a ton of ways to go after the “Texas big three,” (a.k.a. redfish, trout, and flounder). On the Gulf side you can just drive up the beach, settle on a spot, and cast into the surf for red and black drum, pompano, and more. If you’d rather keep your feet dry, try the Horace Caldwell Pier in Port Aransas; or set up on one of the stone jetties like Fish Pass Jetty in Mustang Island State Park, or the one at the mouth of the Packery Channel—which delivers fresh water into the

is BACK!

Texas Sandfest

For families, non-fishermen, and frustrated architect-types, in spring Port Aransas is also ground zero for the Texas Sandfest, the largest native sand sculpture competition in the country, which draws renowned sand sculptors to make the most of Port A’s wide Gulf-side beach each spring. Tens of thousands of visitors come to watch hundreds of elaborate, ephemeral sculptures take shape. Rain or shine, this year’s Sandfest will take place April 8–10. texassandfest.org.

Where to Stay

When it comes to places to lay one’s head, Mustang Island offers a little bit of everything—from beach camping and RV parks, motels, and chain hotels to short-term vacation rentals and luxury resorts. Drive up Highway 361 from south to north and long before you arrive at the outskirts of Port Aransas, a parade of fancifully-named vacation rental complexes rises like a mirage. The names are a vacation unto themselves: La Concha Estates, The Mayan Princess, Lost Colony Villas, SeaGull Condos, Sandpiper Resort, Porto Villageo, and Port Royale Ocean Resort. Mustang Towers (optimistically named since there was only one tower), Mariner’s Watch, and Cinnamon Shore are all here, their colors as bright as the names. There has been heavy investment in palm trees. Judging by the amount of construction along this strip, there might be more by the time you go. My destination, though, is Lively Beach—a newly-built eco resort nestled in the

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Fishing opportunities—of virtually every sort—abound on Mustang Island.

Lively Beach is a newly-built, luxurious eco-resort nestled in the dunes at the southern tip of Mustang Island.

dunes at the southern tip of Mustang Island, buffered from other developments by Mustang Island State Park to the north and the Packery Channel to the south. If a secluded, luxuriously-appointed short-term vacation rental with a gorgeous pool, easy beach access, and a host of amenities sounds like your cup of tea, Lively Beach might be the place for you. Designed and built in a contemporary style that maximizes the sense of seclusion, the resort offers accommodations across several three-story structures, each with five or six self-contained units comfortably equipped with sleek, beachy furnishings, kitchen facilities, and rooftop deck access primed for enjoying the fabulous sunsets in this part of the world. Out of doors, guests have access to barbecue grills, a fire pit, and various gathering spots around the property. Beach access is via a magic kingdom-style wooden walkway that vaults over the dunes to J.P. Luby Beach, an active beach popular with swimmers, kiteboarders, fishermen and—when the wind is from the north and the swell comes out of the south or east—the site of one of the better surf breaks on the Texas coast. An added attraction is the birdlife: since the resort stands amid a large area of natural dune and grassland bordering Mustang Island State Park, this place is close to nature. One evening as I stood on the rooftop deck at dusk, snowy egrets poked around in the marsh ponds, and a pair of red-tailed hawks swooped and dipped over the surrounding grassland looking for dinner. A great blue heron cranked across the darkening sky and settled with a flourish on a railing not fifteen feet from where I stood. It fixed me with a big, yellow eye that seemed to say, “What are you doing here?” Especially in spring, Mustang Island makes a rewarding escape for all sorts of reasons— from its easygoing vibe and wide variety of on- and off-water activities, to the abundant birdlife, easy access to vast state and national parks, varied accommodation options, and excellent seafood and Mexican cuisine. But, again, not to be overlooked when considering a destination like Mustang Island is the opportunity it presents to get away from the interstate and rediscover a picturesque slice of the old Gulf coast that, increasingly, we need to go out of our way to appreciate. So, if you go, take the slow roads. You’ll be glad you did. h livelybeach.com portaransas.org Disclaimer: This trip was hosted and partially funded by Lively Beach, though the opinions of the writer are entirely his own and formed independently of this fact.

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WHEN ANCIENT MOSS-DRAPED OAKS LEAD TO COMPELLING STORIES WAITING TO BE TOLD, YOU’LL KNOW YOU’VE REACHED..... ASCENSION PARISH, LA

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Ascension Parish is a rare gem located right between Baton Rouge and New Orleans and lies on both sides of the mighty Mississippi. Rich in history, it’s the ideal spot for those interested in the perfect mix of Louisiana’s history and culture.

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S O R R E N TO

| DONALDSONVILLE // A P R 2 2

WHERE HWY 587 ENDS

The Grand Canyon of Mississippi DESCENDING INTO A GAMBOGE DREAMSCAPE Story and photos by Chris Turner-Neal

he state of Mississippi keeps having to move Highway 587 because a section of it, near Morgantown, keeps falling into Red Bluff. The beautiful and gradually-expanding ravine has gobbled at least two iterations of the road, resulting in GPS directions that instruct drivers to turn off 587 onto 587, and then turn once more onto 587, which terminates in a Thelma and Louise-like road to eternity. (Some responsible party has poured lumps of asphalt to keep drivers from blithely soaring into the void.) For these efforts, you’ll be handsomely rewarded. The views from the top of the valley will knock your socks off, but a short (if strenuous) hike to the valley floor will grant you a close-up look at a truly magnificent natural wonder. The general consensus, culled from Wikipedia and various hiking websites, is that Red Bluff is on private property, but no one seems to care if you go. I saw nothing posted about trespassing, and a thin but steady stream of people also passed through the day I went: a couple of families, clusters of teenagers on a day out, four people on a double date critically evaluating the grade, and two very optimistic women walking a husky. The upshot is that there’s no curation at all: no guardrails, no signs, no high school students doing public service hours packing out trash bags of empty hard seltzer cans. (You’ll read elsewhere that the site is heavily littered: when I went, there was certainly some, but it was by no means a trash-hole.) “Trail” is an extraordinarily generous term for the route I ultimately found to the canyon bottom, aided by a cluster of teenage boys whose comparatively mountain-goat-like progress I was able to follow from a distance. It had rained the day before, and so the canyon sides were not muddy, but damp. When my foot slid, it slid into the sandy silt, cradling my descent—I didn’t fall, though I did occasionally have to sit down quickly. The good news is that it’s not all that far down in absolute terms, and even moving cautiously it doesn’t take long to reach the canyon floor. Among the unavoidable human debris that I saw on my way down were clots of asphalt and occasional guardrail fragments: relics of the Highway 587 of days past, and an occasionally helpful surface offering traction. I’m barely old enough to be part of the generation that ruined the word “awesome,” and now I wish we hadn’t wasted the word on limited-edition sodas and Simpsons merchandise. Red Bluff was the most amazing natural sight I’ve laid eyes on since the few minutes I spent in the eye of Hurricane Zeta. Colors are important to me in a way I’ve never articulated well: they’re the first aspect I notice of a view or a space, and beautiful colors cheer me the way others perk up at music. When I die, I will atone for my sins in a taupe purgatory. And since I write, a special treat of mine is the particular words for specific colors: seeing a vivid red just one click of the dial towards orange is the dish and naming it coquelicot is the sauce. So, when I tell you Red Bluff has the prettiest dirt I’ve ever seen, believe me. I’ve borne witness to the rich, fertile black earth farmers covet, as well as the dusty-rust desaturated reds of the drive to my grandparents’ house in West Texas. But this canyon had another vocabulary entirely. Iron-rich reds layered and striped: the colors of Mars beamed back to us, hinting at our own metallic blood. Yellow upon yellow upon yellow: ochre and turmeric and butterscotch and gamboge. The most surprising treat lay in small clumps at the bottom of the canyon: dense knobs of genuinely lavender clay, a gentle lilac soft as a spring cloud. Once you get to the bottom of the canyon and adjust to being in God’s paintbox, there’s not much to do but amble. If I understand the topography right, Red Bluff is effectively a gully that feeds into the Pearl River when it rains. It may take on water when the river is high but isn’t a creek bed itself. The teenagers I had followed down immediately began galumphing their way up the other side of the ravine, climbing the yellow slope that so awed me. With the grownup’s reticence to embarrass myself in front of the young (we can’t let them know adulthood is all a façade, not yet), I stayed back to

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explore the crenelated footprint of the gully. A handful of short fingers of terrain to explore on one end; on the other, the water from yesterday’s rain gently flowed out, and the marvelous colors of the bluff gave way to the normal greens and browns of docile woods. With boots and a friend to share balancing duties over the wet rocks, an intrepid day-tripper could have gone further: I later learned that this way leads to wreckage from a 1901 train crash, so ghost hunters and age-of-steam aficionados take note. My re-ascent was not remotely dignified. Congenitally short legs and bone-deep klutziness have made me incapable of grace except, I flatter myself, on the page. Combine that with two years’ worth of pandemic ballast, the above-mentioned sandy silt, and a fifty-ish degree angle—and there was a lot of panting, scrabbling, and one section of open all-fours struggling that probably reminded any observers of a plump dog that has almost made it onto a sofa. Again, though, it’s a short trip up or down, and even with humblingly frequent stops to catch up on breath, I was back up within twenty minutes. I’d driven out to Red Bluff in a funk, the early days of the invasion of Ukraine forming the newest layer of the COVID–ugly politics–family deaths pearl of discontent I’ve been carrying around for some time. I won’t pretend this day trip fixed my mood, but I left lighter than I’ve felt for a while. A short, tough hike and remembering the word “gamboge” weren’t panaceas, but they were medicines. It can be a mean world, but it’s also a glorious one, and I’m happier for having been reminded. h

If you go: • “Red Bluff Trail” took me right there on Apple Maps—you’ll be off the beaten path in terms of common tourist destinations, but you’re not far from civilization, and the part of the road that hasn’t fallen into the gully is in reasonably good repair. A parking area has formed on the shoulder near the road’s end, with plenty of room. I was at the Sonic in Columbia, Mississippi, half an hour after I left. • Bring a friend and a picnic. There’s not a great area to sit, but you can find a perch. I wanted to stay longer, but even as delighted as I was with the views, without an activity or someone to talk with I found myself looking around saying, “Yep, that’s grandeur all right!” • Don’t make any particularly ambitious plans for your quadriceps the following day. • Really, it’s steep. Wear good shoes, go as slow as you need to, and think critically about kids and dogs—the youngest kids I saw out there were about eight and having a whale of a time cantering up the sides of the valley, but I wouldn’t take younger ones. • Red dirt can stain—the iron in the soil acts as a mordant and binds to the fabric. Wear grubbing-around clothes. • Photos do not do it justice. If you are remotely a camera person, bring it and try, but give yourself time to look outside the viewfinder and soak it in.

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Meet

Kelly Finan, MD, MSPH, FACS, FASCR S Helping people has always come naturally for Kelly Finan, MD, MSPH, FACS, FASCRS, colon and rectal surgeon at Our Lady of the Lake Physician Group Colorectal Surgery in Baton Rouge and Covington. Growing up in Ohio, Dr. Finan’s affinity for caring for others and love of science and math—and watching her mother’s career as a nurse—steered her toward medicine, but becoming a surgeon wasn’t necessarily on her radar when she entered medical school at the University of Cincinnati. “I didn’t have any preconceived notions of what I would do,” Dr. Finan says. “As a woman going to medical school when I did, many people assumed I would go into primary care, but I loved surgery. It allowed me to tackle a problem and fix things.” Dr. Finan completed an internship, general surgery residency and a year of clinical research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She discovered she liked complex abdominal surgery, which led her to complete a Fellowship in colorectal surgery at Barnes Jewish Hospital at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Finan treats a wide range of gastrointestinal conditions, but her passion is treating colorectal cancer, which she says is overlooked compared with other forms of cancer. “Colorectal cancer has a long lead time,” Dr. Finan says. “Cancer can develop from a polyp over the course of 10 years, but we can remove a polyp with a colonoscope before it becomes cancerous. There’s an ability to have a profound impact with this disease. We can save people’s lives if we can prevent it or catch it early.”

Operational Edge

Robotic surgery, which Dr. Finan first encountered during residency, makes performing colorectal surgeries easier for the surgeon— controlling robotic arms from a console means no more contorting the body into awkward positions—and is less burdensome for patients. She says she embraced the da Vinci Surgical System in large part because of its ability to move to multiple quadrants of the abdomen. That’s key because colorectal surgery doesn’t always take place in one spot.

patients don’t have a lot of pain from removing the colon and rectum. It’s the trauma to the muscles and nerves of the abdominal wall that contributes most to postoperative pain. Without a big, open incision, patients experience less pain, less risk of infection or a hernia, less internal scar tissue, and a lower risk of future complications.” Dr. Finan praises Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center for ensuring she and her colleagues have the leading-edge technology they need to provide top-notch care. She doesn’t take that support— or the relationships she has with her colleagues—for granted. “We’re a big work family,” Dr. Finan says. “We’re always there for each other, helping out with surgery and taking care of each other’s patients when we’re on call. Not everyone has the luxury of such great partners.”

Life on the Move

A one-time cheerleader and track runner, Dr. Finan always seems to be on the move. She loves to exercise, and she combines her passions for running and colorectal cancer awareness by participating in the Colon Cancer Coalition’s annual Get Your Rear in Gear 5K run/walk in Baton Rouge. She also chaired the event during its first five years. “My husband and I are prolific cooks, and we love entertaining,” Dr. Finan says. “We greatly enjoy traveling, and our two boys love outdoor activities. We love going to the mountains every summer and never miss Jazz Fest in New Orleans.” Dr. Finan has a lot going on in her life, but she never loses sight of her long-held mission to help others. “I’m extremely lucky to have such a rewarding career,” she says. “My goal is to help my patients improve their quality of life, no matter what they’re facing. It’s fulfilling to go on the journey with them and help along the way.” Learn more about our surgeons and the Our Lady of the Lake Robotic Surgery Institute at ololrmc.com/robotics

“The robot’s wristed instruments give me more ability to get into the pelvis and abdomen with smaller incisions and less disruption of tissue,” Dr. Finan says. “Less trauma to the abdominal wall is what translates most significantly to decreased postoperative pain because

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Cuisine

F R O M G R E E C E TO K R OTZ S P R I N G S —T H E J O U R N E YS W I T H I N

MAP IT OUT

DETOURS

THE JOURNEY W

Photo by Suzanne Emily O’Connor

Road Eats

SIX ROADSIDE RESTAURANTS TO DROP A PIN ON

here are good restaurants. And there are restaurants so good they’re worth the drive. But how good does a restaurant have to be, to be worth stopping for? This particular genre of food, which we’ll dub “Road Eats,” comes in many forms: Mom and Pop dives, grease-stained gas stations, fine dining establishments. There are few actual qualifications for a proper Road Trip Eat, only that it be integrated into some larger adventure, and that it rise to the occasion as part of the memory you’ll take home. We reached out to some of our most reliable foodie correspondents to share some worthy roadside institutions. Take notes—some of these are worth planning a trip around.

The Bright Star

Bessemer, Alabama

Some folks can drive fourteen hours in one day. Not me. I can go about six hundred miles, but I’ll go the extra hour if there’s a restaurant like The Bright Star at the end of the haul. Longevity is the underlying theme of The Bright Star. The restaurant began its life in 1907 as a twenty-five-seat café owned and operated by Tom Bonduris, a Greek immigrant from Peleta. Business was good and Bonduris had to relocate three times before The Bright Star found its permanent home in Bessemer’s downtown on 19th Street, where it has remained since 1914. Bonduris partnered with Bill and Pete Koikos (also of Peleta) in 1923 and Koikos descendants have owned and managed it since 1966. The 330-seat dining area is adorned with Crimson Tide memorabilia, but don’t hold that against it because the space is something out of Boardwalk Empire … 1930s-era murals, banquettes, tiled floors, ceiling fans, and marbled and mirrored walls. But it’s the food at The Bright Star that has earned its landmark status. The specialty is Greek-style snapper and steaks … try the snapper throats, but be sure to get a cup of their seafood gumbo … it’s good, honest! —Sam Irwin

Danny’s Fried Chicken Franklin, Louisiana

When I was a child, to get to my grandma’s house, we would drive Highway 182 through downtown Franklin, where we’d often stop at Danny’s Fried Chicken to pick up a box of crispy goodness to share—it would always make her smile. My grandma is long gone but Danny’s is still there, with its iconic sign of a boy with a bowl haircut chomping on a piece of chicken. My cousin and I recently stopped in for lunch. Entering the dining room, with its vintage colonial-themed wallpaper and 70’s-era stained-glass chicken light fixtures, we were transported back in time. Behind the counter, husband and wife Dean and Janet Broussard were busy frying hand-battered chicken while a young woman took our order. The menu features all things fried with typical side offerings like coleslaw, red beans, and fried okra. You will find rice dressing also humbly offered as a “side,” but it deserves main dish attention, boasting a perfect rice-to-meat ratio so as to be a meal unto itself. Dean, whose family has owned and operated this franchise for forty-nine years, explained that the dressing is made with a never-to-be-shared recipe from an old lady in Ville Platte. I asked him if he could tell me a little about the secret to its goodness. He kindly responded, “Gizzards,” then turned back to his fry basket. My cousin frowned, and I finished her serving with a smile. —Catherine Schoeffler Comeaux 50

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Billy’s Boudin & Cracklins Krotz Springs, Louisiana

Once a year, I drive from Colorado to Louisiana. Road trips are a distinct pleasure of mine (read more on page 56) but by the time hour eighteen rolls around, my body is enraged with Red Bull and I’m dodging junk falling off peoples’ trailers on I-49, wondering why I keep doing this to myself. My weary eyes squint, scanning the horizon for the blessed Opelousas exit. Opelousas will take me to U.S. 190, and eventually to Krotz Springs, where I find my salvation. Billy’s Boudin & Cracklins is the jewel of my drive. I buy more boudin than I need—you can earn a mountain of goodwill from your friends by giving away ten bucks of Billy’s boudin. It’s hard not to overdo it back in the car, though, gorging on a whole link at a time. When my dad last rode down from Colorado with me, he cut each link in half with his pocket knife, which we shared with saltines, like reasonable people who pace themselves. Boudin is not, however, a perfect road trip food. It comes in its own distinctly unreliable wrapper, for one. It leaves your hands greased with enough pork fat to problematically lubricate the steering wheel, and with enough spice to burn your travel-worn eyes each time you rub them. There’s a certain quality to eating boudin while driving that makes you feel like a cheetah tearing at a fresh kill while running away from the scene. But never mind that; road boudin serves other purposes. Last summer, my friend Annie drove cross-country to move back to Louisiana from Oregon. I led the caravan from her pit-stop in Colorado. Her move home was twice as long as my drive; a long-awaited homecoming following a period of stress. We pulled into Billy’s right as the sun was setting in Krotz Springs. When you’ve been away for awhile, as Annie had—and you really start to miss Louisiana—the taste of boudin at sunset on U.S. 190 is an almost overwhelming welcome home. —Christie Matherne

Lea’s Lunchroom

Glenda’s Creole Kitchen

Lecompte, Louisiana

“I don’t want to have lunch in Natchitoches.” “Well, fine, stay in the car,” I almost said, but it turns out that there’s an even better option if you’re crossing Louisiana on the bias. Just a bit south of Alexandria in the little town of Lecompte, barely far enough off I-49 to count as a detour, the almost-century-old Lea’s Lunchroom served me one of the best sandwiches of my lunch-eating career. Ham is the queen of meats, as we all know, and the real genius of Lea’s is presenting two varieties of ham on a single sandwich (ground and sliced). You can also get a meat-andthree: each day there are two choices of meat, and one of them is always ham. In addition to the multiplicity of ham formats, Lea’s offers a glorious chorus line of nine pies daily: choose among coconut meringue, lemon meringue, chocolate meringue, banana meringue, apple, peach, cherry, bumbleberry, and pecan. The pies, based on family recipes which founder Lea Johnson’s wife Georgia brought into the business as a sweet and flaky dowry, have come close to overshadowing their meaty menu-mate: in 2001, Lecompte was named the Pie Capital of Louisiana. I haven’t made it back to Lea’s since that first trip in the fall of 2019, but every time a drive Shreveport-ward is mentioned, I remember that perfect roadside bite. In 2008, a grandson opened a satellite location in Monroe—sweeting any itinerary including Vicksburg, Poverty Point, or the general northeast corner of the state. —Chris Turner-Neal

TICKFAW RIVER REGATTA FOR TARC — April 23

Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

I live in New Orleans, but when I head west for anything at all I always sketch in time for a detour to Glenda’s Creole Kitchen in Breaux Bridge as much for the gracious hospitality as for the amazing grub. The magic Glenda Broussard and the women in her family pull from Glenda’s towering collection of Magnalite pots has kept her Breaux Bridge parking lot jammed for breakfast and lunch for twenty-two years. A line of cars snakes around the building, waiting to get up to the bustling takeout window. Inside the small space, five or so communal tables are covered in brightly-patterned oilcloth. First place trophies from the Gumbo Cook-off and the Sweet Dough Pie Festival are displayed behind the counter. Guests are obliged to stand in line for the daily specials that are set up in steam trays. Broussard is big on stuffing and smothering, so the day might bring stuffed turkey wings, smothered pork chops, smothered okra with shrimp and crabmeat, stuffed fried chicken, stuffed brisket, turkey roll, smothered ribs, or something like that. At the end of the short, cafeteria-style line you will be offered a slice of either white or honey wheat bread and your choice will be plucked straight from a plastic sleeve. You will be given a plastic cup and you serve your own beverage. If you splurge on a slice of cake or a small sweet, your meal might set you back $12 and will easily feed three people. If you go for a half portion and skip the dessert, you’ll get one piece of meat with two sides. This will cost you $7. This will be money well spent. This is blue-collar food, prepared with love and skill. —Jyl Benson

The White House Warrior, Alabama

I had a presidential factbook in the 1990s—before the phrase was so fraught—and it won me over with the trivia that George Bush was the first president to publicly refuse broccoli. It’s a fact I’ve witnessed myself, at a lunch spot in Warrior, Alabama. Here H.W. merely sniffs at a steam tray of cheddar-smothered broccoli, abstains from the chicken fried steak, and remains unmoved by the silky mashed potatoes that became my toddler’s second skin. He’s not alone: across the political aisle and sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, forty-five presidents say “No thanks,” to the down-home cuisine populating the buffet line each day at The White House Restaurant. Confined to their portraits, they watch the crowds come and go. We found The White House (red brick, actually) on the way home from a week in Nashville. I wanted somewhere hip in downtown Birmingham, my husband Andy wanted something healthy and quick. Like most compromises, our carb-laden cafeteria trays in the northern nowhere of Alabama checked none of these boxes. But they posed a strong case for re-election. —Lucie Monk Carter

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In June, 1956 in Brescia, Italy, a special, competition-built Ferrari 250GT "Boano" coupe finished the famed Mille Miglia race in thirty-third place out of more than four hundred contenders. Today, this incredibly rare "piece of automotive art" is owned by Baton Rouge neurosurgeon Dr. Eric Oberlander.

D E PA R T M E N T O F D R E A M D R I V E S

Confessions of a Car Fanatic

A 1956 FERRARI 250 GT "BOANO" COUPE RETURNS TO ITS ORIGINS, AFTER IT MAKES A HOME IN BATON ROUGE Story by James Fox-Smith • Photos by Kimberly Meadowlark

t was June—high summer—and hot the day the vintage sports cars participating in the 2021 Mille Miglia swept into the Italian city of Modena. Inside Dr. Eric Oberlander’s 1956 Ferrari 250GT “Boano” Coupe it was even hotter. After three days and more than seven hundred miles behind the wheel, the heat of the V-12 Colombo engine flooding through the firewall into the un-airconditioned cockpit seemed on the verge of setting the Baton Rouge neurosurgeon’s feet on fire. Despite the discomfort, Oberlander was thrilled. Here he was, thousands of miles from home, fulfilling his child52

hood dream by driving a rare and gorgeous classic along serpentine Italian roads—a participant in the world’s most famous car rally. Of the 450 pre-1957 cars entered in the 2021 Mille Miglia, just three were Ferraris, and throughout the race so far, wherever the Boano coupe went, a roar of appreciation followed as the jubilant crowd lining the roadsides recognized one of their own. Then, as Oberlander’s flame-red Ferrari entered Modena, he and his co-driver Scott Laroque found themselves surrounded by Italian motorcycle police, riding four in front and two behind, lights flashing, in perfect formation. For

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several miles as the escort wound its way through the Modena streets, cheering fans gave Oberlander and his car a welcome befitting the return of a favorite son. Why? Because Modena is the birthplace of Enzo Ferrari. Oberlander told me this story while we sat in his Ferrari 250GT in the driveway of his Baton Rouge home. We’d just been around the block, the glorious roar of that sixty-five-year-old V12 turning the heads of afternoon dog walkers as it snorted and burbled through the neighborhood. Against the tick of cooling metal, Oberlander described how lifelong passions for cars and col-

lecting led a kid from the Washington, D.C. suburbs on a fifteen-year quest to own a vehicle worthy of the fabled Mille Miglia. “I’ve always been a car nut. And I’ve always been the type to collect things: coins, stamps, football cards … a few weeks ago I went out and bought a bunch of Joe Burrow rookie cards,” he admitted with a grin. When Oberlander was young, his parents divorced—his mother moving to suburban Virginia with a man who was mad for all things Volkswagen. When Oberlander would visit his mom on weekends, he would spend time turning wrenches on the collec-

tion of VW Things and Transporters in his stepdad’s yard. Fascinated by all things mechanical, Oberlander saved his allowance, and at the age of fourteen bought a clapped-out Porsche 914 for $600. When it turned out to be too far gone to be salvaged, he dismantled it, sold the parts, and made enough to buy a working 914 this time. He was hooked. By the time he was in college he was driving a 1971 Porsche 911T. But collecting cars is an expensive hobby, so until his career really got going, Oberlander had to find another way. For years Oberlander indulged his twin passions by collecting vintage Ford Broncos, which until recently could be found pretty cheaply. Today he owns about twenty, including some of the earliest to roll off the Ford assembly line. “Collecting Broncos was me scratching the itch in an affordable way,” he said. “They’re getting more valuable now, so I guess I timed it right.” How does a lifelong Porsche fanatic with a thing for vintage Broncos come to own an impossibly-rare Ferrari? That’s where the Mille Miglia comes in. An open road endurance race covering a thousand miles of sinuous Italian roadway between Brescia and Rome and back again, the Mille Miglia originally ran from 1927 to 1957, when it was deemed too dangerous to continue due

to the number of fatal crashes as the cars became faster and more powerful. The race was then revived in 1987, and has taken place annually since then. During its early years, the race became a proving ground for up-and-coming carmakers, and it was success at the Mille Miglia that made Alfa Romeo, BMW, Maserati, Mercedes-Benz, and Porsche into household names—and their creations the stuff of teenage fanaticism. Amongst those early carmakers was a scrappy little company founded by a racing driver from Modena named Enzo Ferrari. By the Mille Miglia’s heyday in the 1950s, cars built by Ferrari were carrying their drivers to the winner’s podium often, their gorgeous designs and racing pedigree translating into consumer demand as the marque’s fame spread. But despite success on the racetrack, by the mid-fifties Ferrari was in financial trouble and needed to sell more cars. So, in 1955 the company revered for its tiny, sexy race cars set out to build something that a regular driver—a family man—might buy. That “something” was a low-slung, long-hooded grand tourer badged as the 250GT Coupe, designed by the famous designer Pina Farina. The car came to be known by the nickname “Boano,” for the coach builder Mario Boano, who assembled the cars in his facto-

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In 2018, Baton Rouge neurosurgeon Eric Oberlander's lifelong dream to own a car worthy of racing in the legendary Mille Miglia race came true when he purchased his 1956 Ferrari 250 GT “Boano” Coupe.

ry. Sure, it was bigger and came with a trunk, but it still had the magnificent 3.0 liter V12 “Colombo” engine that won races, and it was fast. In 1955 and ’56 the factory built seventy-four Boanos—a huge production run for a company that typically built just four to ten of any given model to take racing.

Knowing that the best way to ensure strong sales of his new car was for it to do well on the racetrack, Ferrari built three superlight, all-alloy bodied competition versions of the 250GT, then souped them up with bigger fuel tanks, carburetors, distributors, and other racing upgrades. In 1955 one of those alloy prototypes was sold, then returned to

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the Ferrari factory where it received still more racing upgrades, including larger carburetors, racing cam shafts, and a racing gearbox—making it truly a "oneoff" Ferrari. The work was finished in time for the car to be entered into the 1956 Mille Miglia. In June of that year, with the number 459 painted on the side and a twenty-eight-year-old driver

named Franco Marenghi at the wheel, it finished the thousand-mile race in thirty-third position out of more than four hundred entries. Enzo Ferrari had no trouble selling the other seventy-three Boanos. Sixty-five years later, car number 459 is to be found in a quiet Baton Rouge neighborhood, though it’s made the journey back to Italy no fewer than four times since first being sold to another U.S. buyer in 1966. Oberlander bought the Boano sight-unseen in 2018 after realizing that this vehicle might be the “Mille car” he’d been searching for. “I’d wanted an original participant car (i.e. an actual Mille Miglia-raced car); a car that I wanted to own, but that wasn’t too nice to drive and rack up mileage,” he noted. “And I wanted a car that would hold its value over time.” It will come as no surprise to learn that a vintage race car with a history of participating in the world’s most famous road race is not cheap. Oberlander, now an award-winning neurosurgeon with a specialty in spine surgery and one of the largest practices in the country, admitted that buying it was a heavy lift for him. “I had to justify it; I have a family. How and why was I going to make this investment?” he said. “But if you look at this from a straight business perspective, vintage Ferraris

In 2021, Dr. Eric Oberlander brought his Boano back to Italy to race in the Mille Miglia, the event for which the car was originally built.

have been a phenomenal performing asset. That’s how I was able to justify it. People invest in stocks, in real estate. No one would bat an eye at investing in the right kind of art. Well, a Ferrari like this is art. It’s like driving a piece of art around.” In the four years he’s owned the car, Oberlander believes that his investment has grown in value—not only because of the direction of prices in the vintage car market, but also because, while doing research into the provenance of the vehicle, he discovered some photographic evidence that could only increase its value. Thumbing through a book about the 1956 Mille Miglia, Oberlander came across a photograph of his actual Ferrari—car number 459—taken at the start of the 1956 race. Who should be standing at the back of the car speaking to a couple of drivers? A stately looking gentleman in hat and suit by the name of Enzo Ferrari. After finally taking possession of the Boano four years ago, Oberlander started making plans to bring it back to Italy to race the Mille Miglia again. His first attempt to enter was derailed

when his entry fee to join the 2019 race didn’t arrive in time. COVID-19 prevented him from making the trip to Italy in 2020. In 2021 he and the car were finally accepted, and they made the trip back to Brescia last June. For Oberlander, the experience was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. “I love the passion that Italians have for the race,” he said, speaking in a video about the event that was made last year. “Car 459 is like a spiritual animal. It was born and raised in Italy. And it’s a historic Ferrari that raced in the 1956 Mille. That’s where it belongs. I know that car has a soul, and that it wants to be there. Because racing in the Mille Miglia is what that car was born to do.” h

This month, meet Dr. Eric Oberlander and his 1955-56 Ferrari 250GT “Boano” in Natchez, Mississippi during the annual Euro Fest Classic Car Show on April 23—read more about it in our calendar on page 30. euro-fest.net/natchez // A P R 2 2

E S S AY

Just Get in the Car THE TRIALS AND JUBILATIONS OF THE ROAD TRIP By Christie Matherne

n December of 2005, I was twenty and had just completed my third semester at Louisiana State University when I jumped into my friend Josh’s car with four other people headed to Colorado Springs. The road trip was ill-advised, at best. It was the end of December, our destination was near the Rocky Mountains, only one of us had ever driven in snow, and the car had an oil leak that required constant topping-off. My life would’ve been made infinitely easier if I had stayed home to work more shifts at my restaurant job; and the day we left, I was running a fever of 101. Halfway to Texas, we learned that the car—which was owned by my friend’s mother—was not even insured. With zero good reasons to go, I went anyway, due to blissful, youthful inexperience. Like the Fool in a tarot deck, I was a clean slate, ready to leap off a cliff—because, why not? Blind to the dark cloud of inevitable risk, I saw only the possibility of adventure. What could possibly go wrong?

In the years to come, I would take many, many more road trips, learning a little more each time about everything that can go wrong by entrusting so many hours at once to a speeding hunk of metal. The biggest lesson I’ve learned in my almost-two decades of roadtripping is that the peace of mind awarded by a trustworthy mechanic and a current membership to a roadside assistance plan is worth every penny.

A Geyser on Pikes Peak

This theory was unfortunately put to the test on a recent drive to Pikes Peak. My parents had flown in from Baton Rouge with my eight-year-old nephew, Garret, to visit my now-husband Josh and me in Denver, where we lived. It was my nephew’s first time in Colorado, and I wanted to make sure he got wowed. The Pikes Peak Highway is not a road for people who are afraid of heights, or for drivers inexperienced with steep downslopes. The top of the highway is

over fourteen thousand feet above sea level, and the drive begins at around five thousand feet. That’s nearly ten thousand feet of ascent over less than twenty miles. There are brake-checking stations for tourists on the way down the mountain, where rangers check each vehicle’s brakes to make sure they aren’t melting. My parents possess a standard flat-lander’s fear of heights—the kind that makes you subconsciously grip the handles above the door, and let out a queasy “woo!” on the downslopes of a hilly road. But poor Garret was afraid of heights. During the two hours that we ascended from four thousand feet to thirteen thousand, Garret faced his fear in the backseat, talking himself through waves of anxiety. My mom was making a video with her phone from the backseat because we were near fourteen thousand feet, coming up on the final few switchbacks, and Garret was in the throes of awe. He had never seen anything like it. Suddenly, I realized I had the gas pedal all the way down and nothing was happening. The engine was not shifting, despite the high RPMs. Less oxygen up here, I thought, hoping we could eke just a little further to the top without incident. This happens on Vail Pass too, I reassured myself, and I always make it up that one, right? Vail Pass is less than eleven-thousand feet above sea level, and we

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were at nearly fourteen. Pikes Peak is a stress test for any engine, especially for my nearlytwenty-year-old TDI engine. Mom’s phone video caught the moment my coolant system blew apart due to a combination of heat, pressure, and a yet-undiscovered broken fan. A plume of steam and a fountain of very expensive and hard-to-find pink liquid exploded from the seams of the hood. I pulled the car over on the next switchback, which happened to be fifteen feet away. That short distance was the only mercy the roadtrip gods offered me that day. I called AAA through spotty reception as a ranger stopped to help us. When I told the agent where on earth I was, the ranger waved his hands at me. “If that’s AAA, make sure they send a tow company that actually takes calls up here!” he insisted. I relayed the message to the lady on the phone, but she seemed annoyed to hear it. “And make sure they put a rush on this job,” the ranger added, with a concerned glance upward at the suddenly-overcast sky. “Snow’s comin’.” Yes, in June. Garret, who was working through his fear of heights only minutes before, was in the backseat, digesting this new trauma. While the adults were running through potential scenarios in our heads, he had taken to saying them aloud: “What if we don’t ever get down from here? What if we fall off that cliff? What if bears eat us?” The terms of AAA state that the member has to be with the car when the tow truck arrives, so I sent my family down with the ranger to wait at base camp for a ride from my gracious husband, while I waited for the tow truck on the mountain. It had been about an hour since the car blew up, and it was no longer a blue-sky summer day. Clouds were rolling

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in—and at that elevation, the clouds looked close enough to touch. A single snowflake floated down, landing on my nose. “Shit,” I said to a mountain critter perched on the rock face next to me. The first company AAA called did not service the Pikes Peak Highway, nor did the second company they called—I didn’t blame them. All of this took several hours, and I had to call into the AAA system repeatedly for updates every half hour or so. The ranger had warned me. Since it was June, I hadn’t been anticipating getting trapped in a snowstorm. I didn’t have a winter jacket, nor could I turn the car on without permanently bricking the engine. The third company happened to have a driver who was new to the area and needed the money, so he took the call without knowing what he was getting into. When he arrived at my car, it was thirty minutes until he clocked out for the day, and no one told him I needed a tow back to Denver—another hourand-a-half away, after the two-hour drive down the mountain. I asked for his PayPal and tipped him substantially. At home, Josh replaced the hose and eventually found the right coolant after a search involving every Volkswagen dealership within fifty miles of our house. The hose blew apart twice more that week on various Denver interstates, with my family in the car, before we found the faulty fan. The car was fixed, but when it came time for my family to fly home, they Ubered to the airport.

Cross-Country Conversations with Dad

Up until the Pikes Peak fiasco, the car had well proved her worth as a road-tripper. My first venture out with her had been on a visit home to Baton Rouge—for which she performed beautifully, with one small caveat. “Everything’s looking great. The brakes, oil, and transmission are fine,” Josh had said, washing his hands with degreaser after spending a week tuning up the new-to-me station wagon in preparation for the trip. “But I’m not going to have time to install your stereo.” “Oh,” I said. “Well.” My dad had flown in a few days before to keep me company on the twoday commute. Having never spent quite that much time with my dad solo, much less inside a car, I had intended to play lots of classic rock (Dad’s favorite) and hopefully catch the radio broadcast of a big football game he wanted to watch. I had downloaded a cache of podcasts in case he was interested, or to fill potential awkward silences. None of that would be of any use without a stereo, especially in the long stretches of nonexistent reception in southern Colorado and northwest Texas. The best I could do was download entertainment on my phone and use a Bluetooth speaker to overcome the diesel roar of my 2003 TDI Volkswagen

engine, but I had a feeling Dad wouldn’t be open to fumbling with Bluetooth technology while I drove. On the first day, we made great time through Colorado and New Mexico, to my disbelief, without a second of silence. I listened as Dad opened his book; he told me about his upbringing, his return to songwriting in his retirement, and his first guitar (a tobacco sunburst Fender Jazzmaster). He spoke about losing friends to time and mortality, about his children and parenting, about the sacrifices he made to raise me and my sisters. How it was all well worth it to him. The scenery and temperature outside shifted from snow and frozen rear-view mountains to the hilly, windy expanses of rural West Texas. What had been frozen that morning had thawed by evening. We stopped for the night about an hour west of Dallas and enjoyed a whiskey drink over a nutritious meal of Whataburger. In the morning, we feasted on Texas-shaped waffles, got coffees to-go, and headed out. Day two’s drive began in the maze of Dallas-Fort Worth, where we dodged certain death by flying trailer hitch, and swore we’d go out of our way to avoid DFW in the future. Dad made friends with gas station clerks, spoke of prior years, and thoughtfully opened my drinks and candy bars for me. I soaked it up, fighting the usual second-day exhaustion, while the outside air warmed with each gas station stop. I tried to get Dad’s Sunday football game broadcast through an app on my phone. It didn’t work, so we kept talking. We safely made it to my parents’ house about eight hours later, Billy’s boudin in tow for Mom. As we sipped cold beers into the night, we relayed our adventures to her. And even then, somehow, he and I hadn’t run out of things to talk about. It’s been a few years since that two-day trip without the stereo, and still, we have never really stopped talking.

Odyssey of the 1984 Chevy Luv

Now that I live permanently on the other side of that two-day drive, in the shadow of Colorado’s wondrous mountain regions and at the edge of the American West—I often think about the road trip during which I fell in love with this place. It was in 2012, and Josh—my boyfriend at the time—and I had both quit our jobs in Baton Rouge. The goal was to get to Oregon, where Josh had lived for a few years, to collect his remaining possessions from a friend’s house. But so many treasures and friends lay between Baton Rouge and Oregon that we decided to mosey around the West for the entire month of June. We packed his rusted 1984 Chevy Luv Diesel with camping gear and hit the road. I was twenty-six years old, so that truck was older than I was.

On our first night out, we set up camp in Mississippi’s Windsor Ruins, then we drove a full day to stay with a friend in Oklahoma City.* From there, we puttered across the Midwest to Colorado, where we explored Bishop Castle—a castle made of iron, stone, and glass, built over many decades by a single man, the eccentric and determined Jim Bishop. After that, we landed in Pueblo, Colorado, where Josh’s dad tried to talk us out of crossing Monarch Pass in “that truck.” After we made it over Monarch Pass in that truck, we stayed with our childhood friend Brandon in Gunnison, near the Crested Butte ski resort, where Josh jumped into an ice-cold pristine mountain lake. We made quick friends with a house full of hippies and released sky lanterns late at night with them, our bellies full of cheap beer. We drove slowly—because of that truck—through the rest of the Rocky Mountains, and into the Grand Valley. My eyes were glued to the passing panorama outside, not knowing I’d live there one day, but hoping I would. From the Grand Valley, we trundled through the eastern Utah desert to Moab. A friend told us about a tree in town overflowing with ripe apricots that no one was bothering to harvest, so we went and picked our fill. They tasted like pure sunshine. We took a dunk in the local swimming creek and burned our

bare feet on a slanted red rock face before heading out again. Passing up Salt Lake City, we continued into the Nevada desert via the loneliest road in America: U.S. Highway 50. The truck’s lack of air conditioning in the desert summer forced us to ice down cans of Jumex—a delicious Mexican fruit beverage you can find anywhere out West—in a small ice chest between us, to maintain our electrolytes. On one stop, the truck refused to restart and nearly stranded us in the middle of the desert with no reception, but Josh rejoined the loose starter solenoid and we were not eaten by vultures. Suddenly, we found ourselves at Lake Tahoe beneath a pastel sunset. We smelled like days of campfires as we sipped wine out of dirty coffee mugs, lounging on a rock, facing west. A tourist stopped near us and gave us $20 to take his family’s picture. The next morning, our drive toward the coast suddenly turned to fog with a fifteen-degree temperature drop. We were in the Napa Valley. Despite our ragged appearance and unwashed clothes, the only winery open on Sunday evenings let us in, and we joined in on the tipsiness of the perfumed California housewives. In the midst of a violent nighttime storm, we made it to the coast, and drove until we couldn’t see anything through the rain. At that point, we pulled over into a campsite and *Camping in the Windsor Ruins is prohibited, don’t do this. slept in the truck. We woke up ** It is illegal to pump your own gas in the state of Oregon.

in a forest near the ocean with a note on the windshield saying we owed $30, and I took a luxurious coin-operated hot shower before we left the campground. I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time that day. As someone who grew up interacting with the Gulf Coast, the sight of washed up twelve-foot-long bull whip kelp made me wonder if I knew anything at all. Everything seemed so much bigger out there—the sky, the seaweed, the campground prices per night—and we hadn’t even made it to the Redwoods yet. I could write for months about the Redwoods, how their fallen trunks make endless pathways through the forest, how they creak in a windstorm like an old house. When we reached the coast, we had been driving for two-and-a-half weeks. Before that trip, months—maybe years—had floated by without my knowledge or reflection. But for that entire month, it was impossible to be anywhere but the present.

Just Get in the Car

That’s the thing about road trips. They force you to abandon the problems of yesterday and the anxieties of tomorrow, to step outside of the rhythms of everyday life, just for a little while. I once almost backed out of a road trip with friends, just a few days before departure, by allowing the weight of life and money and responsibilities to bog me down. Breaking my boring routine for a long

weekend of travel sounded, at the time, just too hard. They were heading to Oklahoma City for a Flaming Lips concert. I gave some half-reasons. I was broody, like a depressed hen. But one of my friends wouldn’t accept my bad excuses. “C’mon,” he said. “Just get in the car. It’s only a couple days. What do you have to lose?” The truth was, nothing. I had no good answer, so I went. The trip was a catalyst, plucking me right out of complacency. Oklahoma City was a whirlwind of focus and movement; a much-needed reminder that every minute is worth paying attention to. After an endless string of daily commutes over the same routes, unfamiliar roads give us something new and exciting to chew on. New places come with new landscapes, new people to meet, new gas station trinkets, new flavors. In Oregon, for example, you can experience an earthen roof and on-tap kombucha at a gas station, and commit a crime by pumping your own gas, all in one stop.** When you come home, the familiar looks different. Details that have grown fuzzy with routine are suddenly shiny enough to capture your attention again. The longer you’re gone, the more pronounced it is. And this effect alone is well worth the risks taken by going on a road trip—especially if you have a trustworthy mechanic and roadside assistance. h

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Smoking in the Privy

FROM ABANDONED WELLS AND OUTHOUSES, DOUGLAS DIEZ HAS AMASSED OVER 5,000 HISTORIC PIPES Story by R. Stephanie Bruno • Photos by Kimberly Meadowlark

hen he was fifteen years old, Douglas Diez would spend afternoons taking his grandmother’s car out to go bottle digging. After school, he could be found hip deep in area swamps, in old wells, and most often, in the buried outhouses of New Orleans past. It all began with a challenge from his grandmother, who promised him use of the car and five dollars each time he went digging for antique bottles. It didn’t take long for Diez to teach himself the archaeological technique of probing—similar to the practice used by gas line companies —to find privies, the ultimate source of bottles. Families in the 1800s would routinely toss unwanted household items in their privy, ; today amateur and professional archaeologists might find anything in them from crockery and shoes to turtle and oyster shells, combs, eyeglasses, and of course, bottles. During the rise of modern plumbing, privies were filled in with soil, effectively burying their contents. Infill dirt does not compact to the degree of untouched soil, so bottle diggers—searching on residential lots in small towns as well as urban neighborhoods—can use long

probes to find “disturbed soil” in the subsurface. To locate a privy or well, Diez would insert his probe into the ground to see how deep it would go before meeting resistance; if it only went a couple of feet before stopping, the soil was likely undisturbed, and there was no privy in that spot. Alternatively, when he would insert the probe, and it sank all the way up to the handle, he’d get out a shovel and start digging. One particular Friday afternoon, Diez took off after school and drove from his home in Gonzales to New Orleans, planning to scout out a privy or two. He landed on the corner of Magazine Street and Howard Avenue (now Andrew Higgins) and stopped at the site of a recent demolition. Out came the probe, and Diez got to work. “I found disturbances and started hitting bricks and granite and glass everywhere all in a little circle. I realized that I had found either an old outhouse or I’d found an old well,” he said. “I drove back home around six, seven o’clock. I put out my hard hat, work boots, my ropes, my buckets, all my tools, and the next morning at 4 am, I’m back at the corner of Magazine, alone, and I start digging.” Diez had found an old brick-lined

well about five feet in diameter. By daylight, he was three feet down in the well and already finding bottles. He kept digging, and by two that afternoon, he was fourteen feet down, his rope tied to the bumper of his car. When he hit the bottom, he found something he had never encountered on previous archaeological forays: a clay tobacco pipe. The bowl of the pipe was carved to resemble the head of a man, and the words “President Fillmore” were stamped on its stem. Diez went home and started researching his pipe, turning to books, newsletters, and the experiences of other diggers. He learned that nineteenth century political candidates would frequently distribute smoking pipes as a means of self-promotion, similar to the way they use campaign buttons today. “It was so clever because everybody smoked a pipe,” said Diez. “Even women smoked them, albeit smaller, daintier pipes.” Diez’s initial curiosity turned him into a lifelong collector of smoking pipes, though he has never been a smoker. Fifty years after finding his first pipe, Diez now owns a world-class, Smithsonian-recognized collection of historical tobacco pipes, including the entire series of presidential clay pipes, from George Washington all the way to Theodore Roosevelt, who the last president to use the method as cigarettes gained popularity in the early twentieth century. “I became an amateur archeologist,” he said. “I dug for weeks in Philadelphia when they built the Interstate, I dug in Baltimore when they built the Inner

Harbor, and I dug all throughout the state of New York. I’ve dug all over England, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, up and down the River Road—it’s where all the houses were in the late eighteenth century.” During college, Diez would spend months in England and France during the summers, learning everything he could from pipe makers and collectors. He kept digging until he was about thirty when his work as a real estate agent began to require more of his time. But his passion—which he confesses is a bit of an obsession—has never waned. Today instead of digging for them, he buys pipes and collections from other devotees. Unlike many other collectors, though, Diez is loath to part with any of the pipes he has acquired. He estimates that in fifty years of collecting pipes, he has only ever sold pipes when he has a duplicate. “I am a collector, not a trader,” he explained. Over time, storing the pipes has become a challenge for Diez. The walls of his home office were once lined floor to ceiling with glass fronted cabinets for displaying a tiny fraction of the five thousand pipes he estimates he owns. So, when Houmas House and founder of the Great River Road Museum Kevin Kelly asked him if he would be interested in donating the collection to the museum, Diez quickly agreed. “The Smithsonian had talked to me about donating my collection to them, but I have decided to donate it instead to the Great River Road Museum here in Louisiana,” he said. “Kevin Kelly has promised to display all the pipes, whereas

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Over fifty years, Gonzales native Douglas Diez has amassed over five thousand historic smoking pipes while digging in abandoned wells and privies all across the world.

the Smithsonian would display only a fraction of the collection at a time; the remainder would be kept in storage.” For all the glamorous, humorous, bawdy, and elegant pipes in the collection, Diez said there is one that is particularly special to him. The pipe has a bowl shaped like the head of a Native American, which he found near the grounds of Houmas House, the ancestral lands of the Houma nation.

“Native Americans were the first to smoke tobacco in pipes,” Diez said, explaining that European settlers in the Americas started making clay pipes in the likeness of the Indigenous people there, and they were often used to trade with the Native Americans in exchange for fur. “Finding that pipe on the ancestral lands of the Houma gave me a direct connection to history,” he said.

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The Pipes: A Brief History The five thousand (give or take) pipes in Diez’s collection are made of just four materials: clay, wood, porcelain, and meerschaum.

Clay Pipes

White clay pipes were made in England and France beginning in roughly 1600 after tobacco was introduced from Virginia in the new world. “The arrival of tobacco gave rise to whole new industry,” Diez said. “Clay pipes were made all over England and France. The bowls were small at first because tobacco was so expensive. But then when there were more growers and it became plentiful, the bowls of pipes grew larger. At that point, pipe smoking was no longer for the wealthy only, but for the common man as well.” The fine grain of the clay that was harvested made it possible to make pipes with exquisite detail. Every pipe started with a small piece of clay that was kneaded to get the bubbles out, then rolled out by hand. A long pin was inserted in one end to create the pipe stem, and at the other end, a nub of clay was left that would become the bowl. The rope of clay was laid into a cast iron mold, then the mold was clamped in a vise to ensure that the clay filled every nook and cranny. The last step was firing the clay at 1000 degrees Farenheit for two days. No pipe maker did it better than Maison Gambier in France and Charles Crop in England. Beginning in 1780 and continuing into the 1920s, Jean Gambier’s company made two billion clay pipes, as many as 300,000 pipes per day, representing figures such as Queen Victoria, Rembrandt, and Niccolò Paganini, as well as Bacchus and Cupid, plus horses, monkeys, and more. Gambier’s best known—and most copied—pipe was the “Jacob Pipe,” introduced in 1834. When Gambier shut down in 1928, there were 1260 molds included in the liquidation, eleven of them variations of the Jacob pipe. Diez said that about thirty percent of his clay pipes were made by Gambier. “Crop in England tried to compete with Gambier, but they didn’t quite make it,” Diez observed. “American clay pipes—made of brown or red clay from the Ohio River region, were not as refined as the European ones, but they were nonetheless wildly popular. Many were made in the image of Native Americans, others depicted the heads of political figures, such as Diez’s very first President Fillmore pipe. Back in the 1800s, pipes were so plentiful and inexpensive they would be given away with the purchase of matches— someone one would smoke a pipe once or twice and throw it away.”

Wooden Pipes

Use of wooden pipes began as early as the sixteenth century in Europe, and in the eighteenth century in the United States. There are hundreds in Diez’s inventory, many made of briarwood. Some of the carved wood pipes are considered folk art, carved by untrained artists into grotesque faces with exaggerated features. One of them depicts the head of a pirate; Diez believes it might have been a gift from Andrew Jackson to Jean Lafitte, celebrating the great victory of the Battle of New Orleans.

Porcelain Pipes and Meerschaum

Porcelain pipes from Germany, on the other hand, required trained artists to paint the women, forest scenes, horses, cherubs, and more on the body of the pipe. These pipes are colorful, with bright images painted on a white background, then glazed. The artists who carved meerschaum (a type of white, porous sedimentary rock made of the shells of many small microorganisms) were expert sculptors who carved horses, women’s heads, Arabian princes, horses, and erotica out of the material, which is mined today only in Turkey. Perhaps it’s the Turkish origin of the meerschaum that has resulted in the now iconic turbaned and bearded head seen so often on contemporary meerschaum pipes. h

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MUSEUMS

Pulling out the Big Guns

WITH A NEW MUSEUM, CHARLES PENDLETON FILLS IN THE GAPS IN VICKSBURG'S CIVIL WAR NARRATIVE By Cheré Coen

Charles Pendleton pictured with exhibitions at the new Vicksburg Civil War Museum. Photo courtesy of Visit Vicksburg.

n a quiet weekend in Vicksburg four years hago, a Civil War gun show piqued the hcuriosity of resident Charles Pendleton. As a Black man, he recalls the discomfort his presence invoked in other attendees and sellers. “I just wanted to buy guns,” he said. But people would approach him, saying things like, “You know, this war wasn’t about slavery.” Fascinated by the features of the antique guns, particularly those from the Civil War era, Pendleton continued to attend these events, eventually accumulating a collection of guns he believes to be the largest in Mississippi. Along with his collection grew a deeper curiosity about their history. He began researching the Civil War and the following Reconstruction years, studying the lives of soldiers on both sides of the conflict. He visited various Civil War museums, noting with concern the lack of information available on the role slavery played in the war, and on the lives of enslaved people at all. Then, one day, his antique dealer Hardy Katzenmeyer showed him a collection of historic pre-Civil War documents, one of which was a bill of sale for a seven-year-old child named Ella, who was sold for $350. Reading about a child sold in 1848 and “guaranteed a slave for life” stirred something in Pendleton. He approached his church congregation in the hopes they would be inspired to support an exhibit he would curate,

but there was no interest. He tried to find what happened to Ella, but hit dead ends, experiencing yet another instance of American history left untold. Looking to his now vast collection of Civil War-era guns and other artifacts, he realized that he could play a role in telling the whole story. In the spring of 2021, Pendleton opened the Vicksburg Civil War Museum as a non profit, with a mission to educate visitors on the war, its context, and its impact—especially focusing on the contributions of African Americans during combat. A key element of the museum are its letters of secession from each Confederate state, documents he hopes every visitor reads when they first arrive. The letters demonstrate that slavery was indisputably the main issue of the war, he said. For instance, “A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union” lists the refusal of new slave states into the Union and the nullification of the fugitive slave act as reasons for Mississippi’s secession. It also rejects “negro equality, socially and politically.” “No one can debate that this was a war that ended slavery,” Pendleton said, emphasizing the importance of having conversations about slavery’s role in the war, and its long-term effects on society. Pendleton also uses his artifacts and historical documents to showcase the African Americans who fought

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in the Civil War, as well as every other U.S. war. “Here, we try to highlight the military role of African Americans,” he said. “For instance, twenty-five Black men were presented the Medal of Honor during the Civil War.” Other artifacts featured at Pendleton’s museum include a replica enslaved person’s cabin and ephemera from both Confederate and Union soldiers, including uniforms, coffee pots, and musical instruments. And then there is of course Pendleton’s remarkable gun and artillery shell collection, which fills up display cases throughout the museum. Since the museum opened, Pendleton has received numerous visitors, including a steady tourist stream coming off the Mississippi River steamboats that regularly visit Vicksburg. “We’ve had a ton of people in the museum and I can’t believe the positive feedback,” Pendleton said.

A Destination for Civil War History: By the summer of 1863, in the thick of the Civil War, New Orleans had fallen to Union forces, cities north of Vicksburg were under Union control, and Natchez had acquiesced. U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant set his sights on Vicksburg and the fortification at Port Hudson, Louisiana downstream, hoping to take control of the Mississippi River. He surrounded Vicksburg with troops, facing Confederate guns and cannons, and from March 29 to July 4, 1863, Grant bombarded the city until the Confederates surrendered. Vicksburg National Military Park, one of the oldest battlefields in the National Park Service, exists today on the hundreds of acres where the 1863 battle took place. The park contains more than 1,300

“The Vicksburg Civil War Museum has been a great addition to our Vicksburg attractions,” said Laura Beth Strickland, executive director of Vicksburg Convention and Visitors Bureau. “The museum has done an amazing job showcasing our Civil War history. . . It’s becoming a must-see attraction in downtown Vicksburg.” The museum is located at 1123 Washington St. in the heart of downtown Vicksburg in a building that was formerly the Corner Drug Store. Hours are 9 am–6 pm daily, but Pendleton insisted that if he’s there, he will open the museum for visitors. Admission is $7 for adults, $3.50 for ages seven to twelve years old and free to ages six and younger. h

vicksburgcivilwarmuseum.org

OTHER MUSEUMS TO VISIT WHILE YOU ARE IN VICKSBURG

monuments and statues honoring those who fought and died there, plus a museum and welcome center. In addition, the park contains a unique ironclad used in the Civil War. The U.S.S. Cairo was commissioned in January 1862, one of seven of its kind to patrol shallow waters like a submarine. The City Class gunboat prowled the Mississippi River and other waterways, firing on Confederate forces at Plum Point and Memphis, Tennessee, in 1862. The Cairo sustained damage and sank in the Yazoo River, but was later pulled from the mud and put on display in the national park. For more Civil War history, Vicksburg’s Old Depot Museum downtown includes exhibits on the city’s siege, including a diorama depicting the battles,

model Civil War gunboats, war-themed paintings by American artist Herb Mott, video footage, and more. In addition, the museum spotlights historical displays on Vicksburg and assorted memorabilia. The museums are part of Vicksburg’s City Attraction Passport, a visitor’s guide that allows tourists to collect stamps from participating attractions, including the Vicksburg Civil War Museum, the Old Depot Museum, and the national park. After five stamps are recorded, visitors may return their passport to the Vicksburg Visitors Information Center (52 Old Highway 27) for a free Visit Vicksburg T-shirt. For more information, visit visitvicksburg.com/passport.

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Escapes

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MANATEES, IGNUANAS,AND

BURMESE

PYTHONS—OH

MY!

WALKIN’ ON SUNSHINE

COASTIN ’

Crystallized Sunshine ALL ROADS LEAD THROUGH FLORIDA

Story by Kristy Christiansen • Photos by Paul Christiansen

Top left: The Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge, the only protected habitat in the United States for the Florida manatee. Top right: Once considered a domesticized pet in Florida, the wild iguana now runs all over the state. Bottom: In the springs of Doreen’s Cove at Kings Bay, snorkelers can swim with Florida manatees, who are attracted to the warm waters emanating from the springs. 66

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Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge

On a cool, late-December morning, a thin layer of fog hovered over the emerald-green waters of Three Sisters Springs at the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge. Arriving as the gates opened, we walked the boardwalk alone, searching the waters below us for signs of life. A ripple drew our attention, and the massive shape we had mistaken for a stone poked its snout through the water’s surface, sucking in a breath of air. We’d officially spotted our first manatee. The day before, I had departed from New Orleans at daybreak with my husband, Paul, and our three boys to launch our epic, nine-day road trip in search of exotic wildlife and highlights of the Sunshine State. We cruised into our Airbnb long past sunset and briefly explored our new home before spreading the maps and guidebooks across the kitchen table. The first stop on our Florida journey was Crystal River, a coastal city about halfway between Gainesville and Orlando, and a popular wintering home for hundreds of Florida manatees. A distant relative of elephants, these mammals crave warm water—which draws them to the constantly seventy-two-degree spring water bubbling up in the seventy freshwater springs of Kings Bay, adjacent to Crystal River. During peak manatee season, the Bay can get crowded with tour groups and kayakers, but the protected National Wildlife Refuge offers the manatees a safe haven only shared by the local fish. Sprinting around the boardwalk, our boys were stopped by a volunteer, who fascinated them with stories of manatees’ “marching molars,” which grow from the back and gradually push the old teeth out the front. She pointed us beyond the boardwalk down the trail, where we encountered several skittish rabbits and were rewarded with the most adorable view of a mama manatee with her calf riding on her back. fws.gov/refuge/crystal-river.

Cracker’s Bar & Grill

We caught an early lunch across town at Cracker’s Bar & Grill, sitting outside overlooking the expanse of Kings Bay. Our waiter, Dylan, gave us insider tips on the best places to fish as we feasted on scallops, redfish and grouper sandwiches, and coconut shrimp. While we relaxed in the sun, savoring the last bites of our meal, what appeared to be a female Jack Sparrow paddled up to the restaurant’s dock in her pirate-bedecked kayak and sauntered up to the tiki bar for an early afternoon drink. None of the other customers batted an eyelid, so between our giggles and slack-jawed stares, we had to assume this was just another Monday in Crystal River. crackersbarandgrill.com.

Kayaking Kings Bay

Besides its enviable view and great food, Cracker’s is located right next door to Captain Mike’s, where you can take a tour to swim with the manatees, or as we did, rent kayaks to paddle Kings Bay at your leisure. We opted for two tandems and a single and set out to explore the local springs. The Bay proved a formidable foe, pushing our arm muscles to their limits as we pulled ourselves through her waters. When a paddleboarder sprinted past us, her dog hanging off the front and helping paddle, I realized it must be the dead weight of my sightseeing seven-year-old, Bryce, that reduced my tandem to a crawl along the surface. The battle was deemed worth it,

Palm trees at the Crystal River Archaeological State Park.

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though, when a two-thousand-pound manatee tagged us as a friend and followed alongside our kayak like a lost puppy. swimmingwiththemanatees.com.

Crystal River Archaeological State Park

Day two found us enjoying an early morning stroll among the burial and temple mounds at Crystal River Archaeological State Park. For sixteen hundred years, Native Americans used this area as a ceremonial site, and artifacts from their prehistoric lives are housed in the museum. We scaled the steps of the impressive Temple Mound, standing tall on the banks of Crystal River. With manatees traveling alongside the seawall just below us, it was easy to see the lure of the location as a sacred resting place. floridastateparks.org/parks-and-trails/ crystal-river-archaeological-state-park.

Swimming with the Manatees

Heading back to town, we snagged wetsuits and joined the lines for the outdoor dressing rooms at Hunter Springs Kayaks & Tours, where we had booked a “Swim with the Manatees” tour. Our expert guide, Elise, led the group down the street to the pontoon boat waiting at the dock. She and our driver, Matt schooled us on the dos and don’ts of manatee etiquette and gave us newbie snorkeling tips, such as assuming the skydiver’s pose for more restful floating. Matt skillfully steered us away from the crowds to an unnamed spring in Doreen’s Cove, and Elise ushered us one by one into the shallow water. Despite knowing that it’s completely safe to breathe through a tube attached to your mouth, the unfamiliar experience did take some getting used to. When Bryce— clutching me like a life preserver—and I finally stuck our heads underwater, we were shocked to see an enormous manatee heading straight for us. The rules were clear in my head—stay calm and stay still. Unfortunately, that all flew out the window when Bryce started screaming and backpedaling, dragging me along with him. For a split

A highlight of the Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park is the two-hundred-year-old Cape Florida Lighthouse.

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The Redfish Hole Trail offers plenty of great spots for fishing.

second, I locked eyes with the manatee and gave an apologetic grimace before she veered off toward our less excitable snorkeling mates. Elise then led us to the source of the unnamed spring. Schools of fish seemed to dance in the water flowing out of the ground, diving deep into a small cave-like opening and shooting back to the surface. She explained that when the surrounding water becomes cooler, manatees huddle together around the warm springs, nearly stacked on top of one another. On the ride back, Elise warmed up the group with hot chocolate and marshmallows while we reflected on what a surreal experience it was swimming alongside these gentle giants. hunterspringskayak.com.

Kane’s Cattle Co.

Famished, we made our way over to Kane’s Cattle Co. and refueled on Wagyu burgers and short rib phillies. Our eleven-year-old, August, couldn’t resist the Kane’s signature alfredo and stared in wide-eyed wonder as an enormous plate of pasta landed before him. The sign over the bar read “Leftovers are for quitters,” and all I have to say is that August is not a quitter. Not only did he nearly lick the plate clean, but then all three boys topped off their meals with candy-laced milkshakes served to-go in mason jars. facebook.com/kanescattleco.

Hiking & Fishing in Crystal River

After lunch, we waddled along North Citrus Avenue, the town’s main thoroughfare, popping in and out of boutique shops searching for souvenirs while burning off the calories. With an afternoon of daylight before us, we drove Fort Island Road to the Redfish Hole Trail. The 1.4-mile hike led us through a picturesque marsh and some open water where our thirteen-year-old, Charles, threw in his fishing line. The fish here were stubbornly ignoring him, though, so we tried again down the road at Fort Island Trail Park’s pier. As the sun went down and the boats passed in front of us on their way back home, Charles hit the jackpot with mangrove snappers, reeling in the greyish pink fish as fast as he could cast his next bait.

Michael’s Bromeliads

From Crystal River, we continued south. For my plant-loving husband, we made our first pit stop in Venice at Michael’s Bromeliads, Inc. As we browsed the stock at Donna’s Secret Garden, Michael Kiehl himself showed up and gave us a golf-cart tour of his collection. More than three thousand bromeliad varieties spread from wall to wall within his fifteen shade houses, a veritable Disney World for the plantophile. We managed to leave with only a few small specimens due to the limited car space, but Paul has since bookmarked his online store, and shipments are most certainly forthcoming. michaelbromeliads.com.

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Big Cypress National Preserve

In Naples, we turned east on the Tamiami Highway and soon entered Big Cypress National Preserve. After a tour of the Nathaniel P. Reed Visitor Center, we pulled out the ice chest for a picnic at the H.P. Williams Roadside Park, where alligators eyeballed us from underneath the nearby boardwalk. The birds seemed to favor the Kirby Storter Roadside Park, though, where a longer boardwalk led through a swamp lad-

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en with anhingas drying their wings in the trees. nps.gov/bicy. The scenic Loop Road brought us past views of sawgrass prairies and cypress trees dripping with air plants. As we ventured deeper into the swamp, the road repeatedly passed over culverts designed to allow water to continue flowing south. Each of these was party central for the alligators, all seeming to thoroughly enjoy the pastime of staring at the humans—especially when the fishing poles came out and the boys started pulling up Oscar fish. Native to the tropics, these colorful fish are popular aquarium fish, but as some locals advised us, they are also good for dinner.

Everglades National Park

Our home base for the next two nights was an adorable mother-in-law suite in Miami, known as Caliz’s La Casa Verde. Centrally located, the Airbnb was only a forty-five-minute drive past palm-tree-lined farmland to the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center in Everglades National Park. From here, we spent nearly the entire day traveling the thirty-five-mile road south to Flamingo, stopping at every trail along the way. If pressed to name a favorite, I’d lean toward the Mahogany Hammock

Trail, a boardwalk through an island of trees in the middle of the Everglades’ sixtymile-wide “sea of grass.” Hardwood hammocks are a dense stand of trees growing on elevated land within the freshwater slough—the slow-moving, marshy rivers channeling water through the Everglades. The Mahogony Hammock Trail led us through a lush jungle of gumbo-limbo trees, air plants, and the United States’ largest living mahogany. That’s not to say the other trails aren’t worth the stop, because each one featured unique qualities, such as the vulture playground at the Anhinga Trail, which starts at the Royal Palm Visitor Center. The Pinelands Trail cut a small loop through a pine and palmetto forest where striped tree snails rested on the sides of smooth bark. At the Pa-hay-okee Overlook, tourists lined up for family photos framed by an expansive sawgrass backdrop. The road ended in Flamingo, where boaters stocked up at the marina store before sailing off into the Florida Bay. We ordered an early dinner at the food truck and ate overlooking the water. We were lucky to secure a sunset boat cruise last minute, which toured us around the countless mangrove keys just off the coast. Our captain was on the search for the American crocodile, as the Everglades is the only place in the world you can see both alligators and crocodiles co-existing in the wild. Although we didn’t catch any lounging in the mangrove keys, the resident marina crocodile was waiting for us upon our return. Driving back the lone road at night, the pitch-black darkness yielded a kaleidoscope of stars in the sky. It also brought out the spotlight-toting Burmese python hunters, trolling the road in search of the invasive snakes, which are more active at night. More than 100,000 pythons are believed to live in the Everglades, growing up to two hundred pounds and devouring native animals, without any predators to slow their growth. In 2017, the state started paying bounty hunters to eradicate the harmful reptiles from the Everglades.

Key Biscayne’s Crandon Park

As every boat tour, kayak, and paddleboard was booked when we arrived in Biscayne National Park, we instead opted to spend our second day in Miami exploring nearby Key Biscayne. The swanky Village of Key Biscayne, including the Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, occupies the center of the barrier island, while the two ends are pristine, undeveloped nature. The bridge from Miami landed us on the northern end of the island, near the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas Biscayne Nature and Visitor Center. After investigating the sea creatures housed in the hands-on nature cen-

Look for our May edition

The Embrace Your Place Issue I n c lu di n g S p eci a l A dv ertisi n g Sectio n, G o Lo cal on stands May 1!

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ter, we wandered the trails outside while Bryce gathered coconuts littered across the ground, remnants of what was once the largest coconut plantation in the country. The nature center is part of eight-hundred-acre Crandon Park, home to pristine beaches, an ancient fossil reef tidal pool, and an abandoned zoo overrun with peacocks, whooping cranes, crocodiles, and iguanas. Once exotic pets, the expanding wild iguana population is now more often considered pests. However, to those unaccustomed to their presence, the three- to five-feet-long, green reptiles are quite fascinating to track, and the boys spent half the morning chasing the lightning-fast lizards.

Key Biscayne’s Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park

The Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park dominates the island’s southern tip, its crown jewel the nearly two-hundred-year-old Cape Florida Lighthouse, the oldest structure in Miami-Dade County. Surrounded by palm trees and overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, the stark white lighthouse offered a serene setting despite its eventful history of hurricanes, shipwrecks, and Seminole ambushes. We missed out on climbing the wooden stairs to the top, but took a multitude of photos from the ground before driving back to Miami and then on to Lakeland for our last leg of the trip.

lunch options. The day was a whirlwind of shooting fireballs at villains in Ninjago land, driving Lego boats at the Boating School, and flying through a 4D movie on a couch. We, of course, set aside time for lots of Lego building, trading minifigures with staff, and watching the reinvented, Lego-themed water-skiing show. And tucked away in the park’s back corner, we discovered the original Cypress Gardens botanical gardens, including the overwhelmingly massive Banyan tree planted as a seedling in 1939. We slept well that night, dreaming of our week’s adventures, before setting off early the next morning for our long drive home. It was just enough time to compile a list of all the places we missed and start planning our return trip. h Disclaimer: This trip was hosted and partially funded by Discover Crystal River Florida, though the opinions of the writer are entirely her own and formed independently of this fact.

The Everglades National Park .

Legoland

I’m told no Florida vacation is complete without at least one visit to a theme park. Amazingly, our boys have never been to one since our vacations have all largely centered around national parks. We decided to ease ourselves into this mysterious new world by starting small with Legoland. As children, my brother and I would summer with our grandparents in Lake Wales, and I have fond memories of watching the pyramid-stacked water skiers at Cypress Gardens, Florida’s original theme park. The park closed in 2009, after three hurricanes and growing competition from Disney World, and was later sold and reopened as Legoland Florida Resort. I had planned ahead, downloading the app, bookmarking rides, and scouting out bathrooms and

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Directory of Merchants Albany, LA Livingston Parish CVB

Baton Rouge, LA Allwood Furniture 44 Alzheimer’s Service of the Capital Area 43 Artistry of Light 58 Baton Rouge Blues Festival 42 Becky Parrish Advance Skincare 65 Blue Cross Blue Shield Louisiana 23 Calandro’s Select Cellars 46 East Baton Rouge Parish Library 76 Elizabethan Gallery 47 J & J Exterminating 38 Losey Insurance and Financial Services 48 Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault 60 Louisiana Public Broadcasting 56 LSU Burden Museum and 29 Gardens LSU Rural Life Museum 58 The Manship Theatre 22 Mid-City Artisans 47 Mid City Merchants 12 Our Lady of the Lake Regional 40, 49 Medical Center Pennington Biomedical Research Center 7 Pinetta’s European Restaurant 47 9 Stafford Tile and Stone Swampfly Landscapes 38 Three Roll Distilling Company 54 Wilson & Wilson Attorneys, LLC 55 Window World of Baton Rouge 24 WRKF 89.3 FM 64

Brookhaven, MS Brookhaven Tourism Council

Metairie, LA Jefferson Performing Arts 63 Society

Broussard, LA Parkside RV Park

Morgan City, LA 68 Cajun Coast CVB

Opelousas, LA St. Landry Parish Tourist 21 Commission

Covington, LA Covington Downtown Development

Natchez, MS Crye-Leike Stedman Realtors 13 60 Live @ Five 20 16 Monmouth Historic Inn Fredericksburg, TX Mudbug Music Festiva 10 Deborah Lynn Farquhar, Inc. 37 Murray Land & Homes Realty 11 Grand Isle, LA Natchez City Sightseeing 17 Grand Isle Tourism 14, 18, 26 Natchez Euro Fest Department 67 Natchez Festival of Music 15 Natchez Olive Market 47 Greenwood, MS Olivina Boutique 20 Greenwood Mississippi CVB 56 United Mississippi Bank 67 Hammond, LA Tangipahoa Parish CVB Jackson, MS Visit Mississippi

Natchitoches, LA 75 Natchitoches Area Convention & Visitors Bureau 19 5

Lafayette, LA Allwood Furniture 44 The Hilliard University Art 61 Museum Lafitte, LA Town of Jean Lafitte

New Orleans, LA The Historic New Orleans Collection New Orleans Ballet Association Stafford Tile and Stone Visit Jefferson Parish

Plaquemine, LA Iberville Parish Tourism Department

Ponchatoula, LA Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival

Port Allen, LA West Baton Rouge CVB West Baton Rouge Museum

73 65

Scott, LA Bob’s Tree Preservation

Sorrento, LA Ascension Parish Tourism Commission

St. Francisville, LA Artistry of Light Grandmother’s Buttons The Magnolia Cafe Town of St. Francisville

58 57 57 54

28 9 Vicksburg, MS 31 Visit Vicksburg

New Roads, LA Ville Platte, LA City of New Roads 59 Evangeline Parish Tourism Lake Charles, LA Pointe Coupee Historical Commission 53 27 Society Visit Lake Charles 33 Pointe Coupee Parish Tourist Zachary, LA Mandeville, LA Commission 2 City of Zachary 62 St. Tammany Parish Tourist Lane Regional Medical Commission 28 Oberlin, LA Center 32 Allen Parish Tourist Signature Southern Accents 62 Mansura, LA Commission 35 Avoyelles Tourism Commission 39

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Country Roads Magazine "The Road Trip Issue" April 2022

Articles inside

Awaken the Dreamer

Driving the Florida Coast

Pulling Out the Big Guns

Smoking in the Privy

Just Get in the Car

Confessions of a Car Fanatic

Road Eats

The Grand Canyon of Mississippi

On Thin Islands

When God Sends You to Alabama

State of the Art: Record

On the Highest Stage

vagabondance

Possibilities Under the Pass

Reflections: Location, Location, Location

On the Cover: Hot Pursuit on the Natchez Trace