Montgomery, Alabama is a town full of history. Founded on the Alabama River soon after Alabama became a state in 1819, it became the state capital in 1846. Montgomery served as the capital of the Confederacy for four months following the state’s secession, and is where Jefferson Davis took his oath of office as President. Montgomery has also been the site of many Civil Rights battles, from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to the Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights. Martin Luther King Jr. served as the pastor for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church for several years. Today, Montgomery is a clean and quiet city with some beautiful buildings, a great riverfront and lots of fascinating museums. I really enjoyed my visit to Alabama’s capital city and hope you enjoy these photos from my stay.
It’s been a busy and fascinating week out here on the road. Wildflowers are blooming everywhere here in Alabama and it is truly magical to see all the beautiful colors along the side of the road. We’ve had some pretty serious April showers here as well, but when the sun is out the temperatures have climbed into the 80’s. I’ve made a big loop this week from southeast Alabama to west-central Alabama, and gotten a lot of history to think about along the way. From the Civil War to Civil Rights, this part of Alabama is both fascinating and tragic. I spent a few days in the state capital of Montgomery and am winding the week up here in beautiful Selma. I’ve had my hustle on this week, but with the longer days I’ve been able to cover a lot of ground.
When I finished writing last week’s This Week post, I did, in fact, head on to Dothan, a small city which I really enjoyed. Dothan is in a region called The Wiregrass which extends into southwest Georgia and the Florida panhandle. The downtown area was compact and walkable and absolutely packed with beautiful murals and statues. I really enjoyed just wandering around and having a look and, of course, taking lots of photos. I love when I can explore somewhere that’s totally new to me and somewhere where I go in with no idea of what I’ll find there. Sometimes it’s a real treat, as was the case here. I strolled around until well after the sun was down, and then went for a wonderful dinner at the local and family run Hunts Seafood Restaurant south of town. I got a half-order of oysters there which was enough to feed me twice. It’s always a good sign when you pull into a small-town restaurant on a Wednesday night and the parking lot is completely packed…
Pulling into downtown Dothan, Alabama, I had no idea what to expect from it. I knew it was the seventh largest city in Alabama, and the “Hub of the Wiregrass” - a region which covers southeast Alabama, southwest Georgia and parts of the Florida panhandle. Other than that I was pretty much going in blind. What I found was a pleasant city with a compact downtown full of beautiful murals and statues. Dothan has an excellent art museum, a gorgeous opera house, and some wonderful cafes and restaurants all within just a few blocks of each other. It was a quiet and pleasurable place for a stroll, and I had a beautiful day to do just that. I spent several hours photographing this beautiful city, and you can see the results in this post. I really enjoyed my time in Dothan and I’m already looking forward to my next visit. If you’re ever in southeast Alabama, be sure you stop in and say ‘hello’ - you will definitely be surprised by what you find here.
Mobile, Alabama is truly one of the most beautiful cities in America. With a population hovering around 200,000, Mobile is large enough to feel like a big city, but small enough not to lose its charm. The downtown area is a colorful mixture of old and new, classic and modern, ornate and utilitarian. It seemed that each time I turned a corner, I found a scene which I just had to capture on film, and I spent three days doing just that. This post will show you the results and, I hope, the many different faces of Mobile. It is a city whose history stretches back over 300 years and yet is full of modern touches and recent additions which seem to add to, instead of detract from, that history. Still, the one characteristic of Mobile which stood head and shoulders above the rest is the one which cannot be captured on film: the kindness and friendliness of its people. I hadn’t been to Mobile in several years and was happy to find it as welcoming as ever. I must admit I was charmed by The Port City. I left a little bit of my heart there and can’t wait to go back and find it.
Hello everyone, another week has past and it’s time for another edition of This Week on the Road. It’s been a pretty great week out here in Southern Alabama, beginning with a much needed and well enjoyed visit to the Gulf Coast and a few minutes on the beach. I also spent some wonderful time in beautiful Mobile, a city which I really enjoyed. The week ended with a long drive across the south of the state heading east, through rural farmland and quaint little towns. It’s been a great first week here in The Heart of Dixie, and I’m looking forward to everything the state has to offer in the coming few weeks. HERE is this week’s map if you want to follow along as we go!
When I finished posting my This Week article last week, I did, in fact, get out of town. I love New Orleans, and it’s always hard to go, and it was particularly hard with French Quarter Fest starting the following day, but it was way past time for me to get out of Louisiana. I scooted down to the interstate, and took Route 10 all the way to Alabama. I hate the interstate and its never-ending monotony, but it’s great when you have places you have to be and a limited time to get there.
When I got to Alabama, I headed southwest on 188 to beautiful Bayou La Batre. You may remember the name from Forrest Gump, as it is where Bubba was from and where Forrest went to start his shrimping company. It really is a shrimping town, and if you’ve been following along with me on this journey, you know I’m a sucker for old shrimping boats. The fleet there was really beautiful, and I stopped off to have a look and take some photos. While I was stopped, a young man of maybe 9 or 10 named Matthew pulled up…
Burnt Corn, Alabama is a quiet community of about 300 people in the southeast of the state. It is actually a town that pre-dates the formation of the state of Alabama and traces its roots back to the early 1800’s when it was a stop on the old Federal Road connecting Washington D.C. to New Orleans. A post office opened in town in 1817 and operated there all the way until 2002. It’s a beautiful little town which I enjoyed stopping in to take these photos. To read the full history of the town and find out more about the different interpretations of how Burnt Corn got its name, check out THIS fact-filled website about the town. If you’re ever passing through the area, take a few minutes to detour to beautiful Burnt Corn, Alabama.
Out on the prairie in the heart of Acadiana sits the tiny old railroad town of Rayne, Louisiana. Originally called Pouppeville, the citizens decided to rename their town Rayne in honor of the engineer who laid the tracks. In the early 1900’s, three brothers started a frog leg business, shipping frog legs all over the country, and Rayne got a reputation as the Frog Capital of the World. They truly have run with their nickname and frogs are everywhere you look in this quiet little town. They even host a Frog Festival every May! I loved walking the streets and taking these photos, and this post is just a sampling of all the frogs to be found in Rayne. They made me smile and reminded me that life is too short to take too seriously. How can you take things too seriously when you are constantly surrounded by frogs? Kudos to the citizens of Rayne for keeping their sense of humor and bringing a lot of joy to their town streets. Your town made me want to jump for joy!
St. Francisville, Louisiana may be small, but it sure packs a big punch. This beautiful Southern town got its start way back in 1809. It was built on a hill overlooking the older French settlement of Bayou Sara, which was at one time the largest port on the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Memphis. For 74 days back in 1810, St. Francisville served as the capital city of the independent Republic of West Florida when it ousted its Spanish occupants before being annexed by the United States. In the years leading up to the Civil War, St. Francisville was the supply center and main town for surrounding plantations, perfectly situated for trade on a bluff high above the river. Today it contains a fascinating collection of antebellum, creole and Victorian homes, and some beautiful churches and businesses as well. I spent a lovely afternoon there, wandering the quiet streets and taking these photos. The few people I met on my stroll were remarkably pleasant and kept pointing me towards even more beautiful parts of town for me to shoot. The river has been high this year, and you’ll see a few photos at the end of the flooding in the area. St. Francisville is a wonderful escape from the big cities and offers a magical combination of small-town charm, fascinating history and delightful people. You should definitely put it on your list!
Coming into Alexandria, Louisiana up Route 1 from the south was a difficult ride. Buildings were crumbling, houses were obviously lived in but shouldn’t have been and the road itself was terrible. And then, before I knew it, I was in the heart of downtown, and at first glance it was more of the same. Broken glass, graffiti and boarded up old buildings seemed to be everywhere. I seriously considered turning around and heading right back out of town. But I knew Alexandria had been around for over 200 years and sat right on the banks of the Red River; there must be beauty there to capture somewhere. So I parked and started walking and slowly, very slowly, the beauty of Alexandria started to emerge from the cracks. I started wiping away the years with my mind and my lens and found some extraordinary buildings and scenes to photograph. And then, as happens, I started talking to the people who live there and every one of them from the businessmen to the homeless people were unbelievably friendly. While I found all of these wonderful scenes as I wandered the city, I would still say Alexandria’s real beauty is in its people. The more I lingered and the more people I talked to, the more it grew on me. I went to see a play at the Coughlin-Saunders Performing Arts Center, took a stroll along the levy and stopped in for a beer or two at Finnegan’s Wake. By the time I was pulling out of town, I had an entirely different opinion of Alexandria. This was definitely a case of “don’t judge a book by its cover”, stick around a while and you might just like what you find there.
This past weekend I had the distinct pleasure of attending and volunteering at the Third Street Songwriter’s Festival in Downtown Baton Rouge. This annual event brings together the best songwriters from around the state and region for a weekend of performances and workshops in the state’s capital city. This year’s festival brought out well over a hundred songwriters from 13 different states, including some big names like Jim McCormick, C.J. Solar and Jeffrey Steele. It was wonderful to meet and watch so many amazing songwriters in one place and it made for a magical weekend in Baton Rouge. While most of the performances took place in the bars along Third Street, the two main performances took place in some pretty fantastic venues as well. Friday night we went to the incredible Red Dragon Listening Room on Florida Street to hear two great rounds headlined by Jim McCormick. Saturday night, we filled the small and intimate Manship Theater to hear the wizardry of Jeffrey Steele. For me, the best part of the weekend was a late night song swap on a dark corner downtown, where we talked and jammed until almost 3 a.m. On Sunday evening, during the final round of the festival, one of the songwriters on stage sang a Hurricane Katrina song. As he hit his last note, thunder clapped behind him right on key, and the skies opened up in true Louisiana fashion, leaving the last two songs of the weekend unplayed. I guess I’ll just have to wait for next year to hear them. All told, it was an amazing weekend in Baton Rouge of networking, storytelling, songwriting and music. I wouldn’t have missed it. I hope you enjoy these photos from my weekend in Baton Rouge.
Hello everyone, and thank you for stopping by. The flowers are coming in nicely here in East Louisana, but the weather has cooled off significantly as well. I’ve been enjoying the little cold snap though, and sleeping really well cozy-ed up in the back of my van. I had an interesting stop in Alexandria this week, a town which has definitely seen better days, but which isn’t dead yet. From there I headed back into Cajun Country for the weekend, enjoying great food, drink, music and company. I stopped off in Lafayette to get some work done and have cruised across the north of the eastern panhandle to the North Shore where I am writing to you from today. It’s been a fun week as I start to make my preparations for my departure from Louisiana. It’s always sad to go, but it’s almost time I moved on. HERE is the link to this week’s map if you like to follow along as I go.
When I left you last week, I made my way south along the Mississippi River levee, and found the river is really high. It was definitely higher than the road in a lot of places, and while the levee was doing what it was built to do, it’s still a little bit nerve racking to be driving below the water line. I stopped in a few places to just look out at the river as it flowed past. I made the turn northwest when I hit Louisiana Route 1 and headed on to Mansura for a stop at Juneau’s Cajun Meat Market. This is a spot recommended by a friend as having the best boudin (Cajun pork and rice sausage) in Louisiana, so I had to stop in and give it a go. This was a real butcher shop with all kinds of beautiful fresh meat on display - if I had a proper refrigerator I would have probably spent a fortune there. Unfortunately, I don’t, so I settled for some boudin, a fried boudin ball, and a boudin and pepperjack cheese wrap. All three were amazing and while they didn’t help my cholesterol, they were well worth the stop.
The Wild Azalea Trail runs for 31 miles through Kisatchie National Forest near Alexandria, Louisiana. It is accessible from several different trailheads in the area, and I hiked about a 3 mile section of it leaving from the Twin Bridges Trailhead on Route 488. It was a pleasant walk through the woods with some up and down to make it interesting, but not enough to make it difficult. The trail was quiet when I was there, but well marked and obviously well traveled. While the wildflowers were only just starting to bloom when I visited, they were still putting on quite a show. I really enjoyed this hike and only wish I had budgeted more time to have been able to do more of it. Either way it was a wonderful couple of hours in the woods and I would definitely recommend this trail if you are ever in the area. I hope you enjoy some of these photos from the Wild Azalea Trail in Central Louisiana.
