Today was our last full day in Louisiana so we elected to do some back road exploring. Before really getting going, we drove into Minden to eat at a place called Moody’s Restaurant or Cafe or Place, depending on which sign you read. They have been serving food since either 1950 or 1951, again depending on where you get your info. It is located in sort of a spooky neighborhood and the exterior of the restaurant looks like it is collateral damage but the inside looks okay so we went in. My chicken fried steak wasn’t that great but the beans and the apple turnovers are tasty. Peggy had fried chicken and it was very yummy. It was very inexpensive and we got out for less than $30, including dessert.
After Moody’s, Peggy got behind the wheel and we took off driving south on US-371. It is a two-lane blacktop road running through a mostly swampy area. The state of Louisiana apparently does not have highway cleanup programs or the state’s citizens are particularly cavalier litterers because bottles, cans, styrofoam cups, cardboard boxes, wrappers and large metal objects were strewn liberally along the roads we traveled today.
About 20 miles south of I-20, we visited a Louisiana State Park called Lake Bistineau where we coughed up $2 to get in. Lake Bistineau, or at least the part we saw, is pretty shallow because there are countless cypress trees poking up through the lake. There is some kind of green duckweed on some of the lake which, unfortunately, contrasts with the litter, 55 gallon drums and unidentifiable objects distributed throughout. There really is a roadside crap problem in this part of the state.
We looped back north and made it back to the Cinnamon Creek RV Park, stopping for fuel along the way because we are departing tomorrow. We can’t say we really enjoy this part of the country. The swampy stuff and the gorgeous though flat country is interesting, there is nothing here that really gets us excited. This is a rural, low income part of the U.S. and lots of folks live a tough life here. We will move along tomorrow looking for something else.
We took a few pix. To see them, click here