We got a late start today on purpose since our first stop is only an hour away and doesn’t open until 11:00 AM. We have been dreaming about this stop ever since the last time we left Baton Rouge with tears in our eyes. Of course everybody knows that we’re talking about Mike Anderson’s Seafood Restaurant, the world famous Mike Anderson’s Seafood Restaurant. The last time we were in Baton Rouge we ate here on our third day, and then again every day until we left, all seafood places are now rated against Mike Anderson's and none come close. Mike Anderson was a two time All-American when he played for the LSU tigers in the early 70’s, but if you Google his name all you’ll find is his restaurant. We parked at a Wal-Mart’s just off the freeway unhooked the car and drove cross-town to the restaurant, hoping to be the first ones there but about 15 people had beat us there (can you tell how much we love this place). We have always gotten the daily special and never been disappointed, sometimes it’s shrimp, sometimes crab but always good, today we had “The Jason” it’s a fillet of fresh fish wrapped around crab meat , fried and topped with crawfish tails cooked in a cream sauce on a bed of rice, with your choice of potato, salad and a piece of garlic bread.
It was our little hour of heaven on earth, and now we probably have to wait another 3 to 4 years before we can return to Baton Rouge, tomorrow we’re heading to New Orleans and will probably get stuck eating at some junkie place in the French Quarter.
Today we did something that I have wanted to do for a long time, we went to New Orleans by driving across the Lake Pontchartrain Cause Way. This is about 25 miles of bridge that cuts right across the middle of lake Pontchartrain, there are seven cross overs between the two bridges and each one had a Cause Way cop sitting there. If you ever drive this and get stopped by the cops be sure to do exactly what they tell you to, if you should ask them why, they will tell you “Cause Way told you to” I crack myself up sometimes. Any how, we drove through the city on the side streets and could still see a lot of damage from Katrina, we went to the Chalmette Battlefield, remember the song:
Well, in eighteen and fourteen we took a little trip
along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.
We took a little bacon and we took a little beans,
And we caught the bloody British near the town of New Orleans.
We fired our guns and the British kept a'comin.
There wasn't nigh as many as there was a while ago.
We fired once more and they began to runnin'
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.
To bad, but you're going to be singing this the rest of the day.
The brick visitors center was gone and had been replaced with a trailer and a ranger that was about as useful as a bucket of sand, he did manage to push the button to start the video for us, so I guess that was something.
We were planning on stopping at Jackson Barracks but it is still closed, they are doing a few million dollor restaration which is going to take a few more years.
Went up to the garden at City Park, this is a freebee for us and thank God it was, took us about 20 minutes to go through the gardens, it looks like they have done very little work trying to clean this place up. The only thing worth while was a bunch of birdhouses dislayed around the gardens.
OK, enough of this city, time for use to find a place to eat then get out of here, we decided to take the surface streets rather then the freeway, big mistake, took us over an hour to figure out how to get out of town, and we really didn't figure it out we more or less lucked out and finally made a wrong turn that got us out of there and we didn't stop till we found a CiCi's Pizza Inn.
