A Bayou State of Mind - Days 6 - 10

I’m writing this segment of our blog from the passenger seat of a rental car driving from Jackson, MS to Memphis, TN…NOT, as planned, on the ‘City of New Orleans’ Amtrak. But we’ll come back to that in the next installment—

Friday, October 17, 2025

It was an early morning wake-up for what was supposed to be (keep track of these ‘supposed to’s’) a 6:25am boarding of the Sunset Limited from San Antonio to New Orleans. Pro Tip #3: check your train status as often as possible for delays which can be almost comforting in their reliability! We did finally board and got underway around 8:40am to find to our happy surprise, our buddies from the first leg of our trip!

What a fun group these guys are — they had done some rafting on the Rio Grand (!), hiking and remote B&Bing and were now headed to Lafayette, LA for some music followed by a drive to New Orleans for a final hurrah to the trip. We enjoyed a fun game of UNO and got to know them even better. They’re a musical bunch too, and about 2 hrs before we were supposed to arrive in Lafayette I got a text from Steve saying “Join us in the observation lounge!” Well, the short video below is a much better explanation of what followed — I’ll say that the guy who joined in at the end was a true Cajun, engaging, with a personality like no other and possessor of some cool, raspy vocals. 

(Click on video and enlarge in upper left corner)

As you may have guessed from the above ‘supposed to,’ we experienced a couple of delays that put us back a good 3 hours in our travels to New Orleans. Not such a big deal for us, but our new friends missed their music venue in Lafayette. We did finally arrive and made it to our hotel in the French Quarter around 12:30am, albeit via a very rude and stoned Uber driver. We slept quickly and easily, though!

Saturday, October 18, 2025

In the morning we were so excited because this was to be not only our day at the National World War II

Museum, but also our meet-up with my good friend Chris Woodle. Chris has been a welcome partner in crime for some years now…college days at Cal Maritime (with Betsy McNie!), training cruises as cadets and later as officers aboard the TS Golden Bear and visits back and forth between California and Louisiana have made for some good times!— We started at the museum about an hour before Chris arrived and some quick texts back and forth revealed, to no surprise, that Chris was keeping some stools warm for us at the museum’s bar:) Well it was a good time to take a load off, wet the old whistle and catch up before continuing with our tour of one of my favorite museums in the U.S. 

(Click on video and enlarge in upper left corner)

Time absolutely flew by and with our feet killing us, we made our way to “Pesche” a couple blocks away for some much needed

sustenance, drinks and such. Two rounds of oysters, some spectacular redfish, beans and brussel sprouts and we were ready for the 45 min drive across Lake Pontchartrain to Chris’ hometown of Covington, LA. I have to say that I may have been just as excited to see the fuzzy buddies, Barry, Percy and Lilly, as I was to see Chris…well, it was a close second.

As the next 3 days would find us settled in with Chris and the ‘kids’ we took things slow, happy to relax, catch up, cook together and explore some local spots. Chris’ house, also known as “Chris’s Toy Barn & Animal Boarding,” is a beautiful home complete with legos, 3 motorcycles, 80’s arcade multi-game console, stereo and equalizer set-up with a deafening array of chest-high speakers, a drone, 2 indoor and 1 outdoor cats, a dog (Barry!!), a post-apocalyptic stockpile of booze and a wonderful kitchen where the best Jambalaya around was prepared and eaten that very next night! 

I joke that the only thing missing is a swimming pool, but with the flooding that can occur during hurricane season, I suppose it could be considered redundant…

Sunday, October 19, 2025

When our laundry from the past several days was all caught up, we toured some local towns, stopping first to enjoy some brunch, bloody mary’s and Gin Fizz’s at Roux 25, a local favorite of Chris’. Then it was off to Folsom and Franklinton, LA where Tom was introduced to Juneau’s Cajun Meats. It was there that he decided he couldn’t do without the purchase of a smoked rabbit (?!). Now keep in mind we still have our train ride to Memphis coming up AND a flight home some days later which begs the question of transportation of temperature control. “Not to worry!”  Says Tom, and proceeded to add insult- to-injury to this poor creature by wrapping it in some packing foam that Chris had been saving (again, the post-apocalyptic supplies) and finishing it off with half a roll of blue painters tape, making the whole package 3x its original size —If only our old training ship Chief Mate, Dave Sears were still alive to witness this best intentioned cargo packing effort…that ever-present cigarette he had dangling in his lips might finally have dropped! 

That evening was brought to a perfect ending with a fan-favorite movie, Magnum Force!

(Click on video and enlarge in upper left corner)

Monday, October 20, 2025

The next day found us about 30 minutes away in Mandeville, which is right on Lake Pontchartrain. Beautiful stately mansions overlook the lake and there are some yummy restaurants and cute shops along the main drag, Girod Street. After a little lunch and

shopping we drove back to Covington to explore the downtown and visit a beautiful bar in the Southern Hotel.

Dinner that night: Rib eye steaks that had been ‘fast-dry curing’ for 24hrs, uncovered, and in the fridge with some Montreal seasoning. BBQ’d to perfection by Tom on Chris’ smoker and accompanied by some salad and, my contribution, whiskey sours, we sat and enjoyed with good conversation and a cat occasionally gracing us with her presence. Movie that night: “Hell or High Water” with Jeff Bridges & Chris Pine :)

Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Our time in Louisiana was coming to a close and we were both so bummed! We got up, had coffee with Chris, took a last walk around the neighborhood and then, with clean clothes in our bags (thanks Chris!)

headed to Hammond, LA to catch a 2:25pm train. Hammond is a college town and we arrived a little early, because there’s always time to shop! It was just a short stroll to what turned out to be a great lunch spot called Cate Street Seafood Station where we enjoyed great food and couple of afternoon cocktails. 

Just down the street was the old Hammond train depot and Chris stayed with us as the train arrived on time, finally. With some hugs and final waves goodbye, we hefted our now slightly heavier bags (see over-wrapped rabbit description above) and boarded the ‘City of New Orleans’ Amtrak, bound for Memphis. We’ll miss you, Chris!