Ferry Waves & Southern Grub

Day 11: Today the east coast trip really begins! Chad and I rested in a Love’s truck stop parking lot near Lake Jackson, Texas. We planned on heading to Galveston, Texas to get on a ferry that would take get us over to Louisiana. It’s free, so why not?

We packed up our camping space (lol, we put the pillows and blankets in the trunk) and headed out. The countryside was full of crop fields and then it started to become industrial as we came across a few chemical plants. Massive pipes, tall metal towers, lights, and doodads littered the companies’ grounds. Wowza.

Country fields soon turned into to marshes and swamp-like areas. We have made it to what I think is the bayou? As we came around a curve, we saw homes raised and built on stilts???

Homes were raised one or two stories high into the air and had their boats stored under their decks. Every home had access to the water and some were even completely surrounded by lapping tides. We took the next exit and drove through the streets to peek around. What a totally different lifestyle! They are preppin’ for those hurricanes and high tides!

We made it into Galveston and drove around to find a coffee shop in their downtown space. We snagged a 2 hour parking spot for free and I was pumped to get out of the car and make it to the restroom after the morning drive. WAM!

“Uh, Chad? I can’t get out of the car….because I just smacked the car door against the gutter…”

Poor Jetta, he did nothing to deserve that. There was no damage (not sure how, I wacked it pretty good) and I crawled out the driver’s seat. Super oops.

Chad ordered one large regular coffee for us to share while I set up camp to blog. We took our time and detoured our creativity a little to design a few comics about winter photos we received from friends back home. (Check out the last post to view the comics.)

Why not include them? Our family and friends are a part of our journey too! During the process of blogging and creating, I was pretty sure I only drank a few sips of coffee. Chad downed the whole thing. Oh boy, Chad will be lit later!

Galveston was a cute little beach town and you could tell that it thrived best off tourism. There were cute little shops, very old buildings, a large permanent carnival on stilts above the beach and the ocean waves crashed onto the shore. It was breezy, cloudy and humid. We finally saw the ocean!

We drove to the end of town and ducked into a side street directing the waiting line for the ferry. Filing in line, we arrived at the port and waited for the next available ferry. Chad and I watched as one of the two ferries had arrived with a load of cars. Huge semis, pick ups and cars came off in waves. Wow, who knew the semis could take the ferry too? Chad drove the car onto the deck and we squeezed into a spot near the railing.

If we wanted to, we could get out of the car and go stand on the upper deck, but we chose to stay inside our car. Rolling the windows down and setting up a make-shift table in the middle console, we broke out game of Rummy while we crossed the little water puddle on the coast of Texas.

The ferry ride didn’t take more than 20 minutes? I really don’t know, we weren’t in a hurry and time doesn’t seem to matter when you don’t have a need to be somewhere. 😊

Our next destination was to head for Baton Rouge, Louisiana for dinner and rest. To get there, our only option was to take the coastal road for a few hours until we hit the major highway. The coast was a mixture of grass lands, nature reserves, small communities of homes on stilts and little oil pumps thrown here and there.

Once on the main highway, it was smooth sailing for the next four hours. Chad and I switched driving after a pit stop and I took over. We passed through bayous and water-filled fields. We think they could be crawfish fields or rice paddies?

The water started to get deeper and we found ourselves on a bridge. Oncoming traffic had their own bridge and there would be no u-turns. The land bridge lasted for over an hour driving while driving above the bayou below. Sometimes the middle section between the highways had open water and people were driving little fishing boats through the passage.

Chad and I haven’t had crawfish so we plugged into the GPS Sammy’s Grill. (Chad had been doing some research and looked for best place to have some southern delicacies.) We drove over a large arched bridge into Baton Rouge and pulled into Sammy’s super full parking lot. We wandered inside hearing loud conversations, seeing kids running around and people relaxing for dinner.

The waitress helped us order our first bucket of crawfish (4 lbs) and a buffalo shrimp po boy sandwich. She even showed us how to properly take a part the little fellas and the proper way to eat them. Don’t forget to slurp out the juices from the upper body cavity and pull the meat out of the tail! Chad and I were covered in spicy juices from the boiling brine and were "all-hands-on-deck" working on devouring the massive platter of crawfish.

The po boy was like a fancy Subway sandwich. It was good and we are glad we tried it, but we don’t really need to order it again (unless there is a delicacy recipe that we just HAVE to try). The crawfish was also good and kinda fun to pull a part, but it would be more enjoyable to have one lobster to work on with way more meat-rewards.

The waitress from Sammy’s also said we should try another restaurant to get the full experience of some famous southern dishes. So, we drove to another restaurant for a garlic shrimp poboy and boudin balls (pronounced boo-DAN.....the waitress laughed at us trying to pronounce it with our MN accent). Might as well hit it all in one night, right?

Taking the order to-go, we made our way to our sleeping space for the night in a Bass Pro Shop parking lot. We ate the food in the car (super messy!) and I tapped out. I was so full. The spicy flavors from the crawfish were finally starting to leave my lips and I was ready for bed. Chad kept going to town and finished everything. Woof.

This po boy was good, but I liked the buffalo shrimp one at the other restaurant better. The boudin balls were so strange. It tasted like wild rice soup and felt like you were munching on a fried meatball. What a crazy little ball.

Meanwhile throughout the second dinner, I was able to catch up with Mom and see how they are doing with the recent snowfall back in Minnesota. It sounds like they had a unique snow storm!

While it was snowing, thunder boomed and lightning cracked. I have never heard of those types of storms before, but I guess it sometimes happens once in a blue moon. What a strange spring they are having. I’ll send warm vibes up that way to help thaw y’all out!

Super stuffed, all cleaned up from the multiple dinners and pillows dispersed, we hit the hay. The night was still hot and stuffy with humidity, but I think we are adjusting to it slowly. :)