One of my favorite memories of Louisiana road trips is a stay at the rustic and authentic Bayou Cabins.

They are right on the Bayou Teche in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana (a couple of hours west of New Orleans) and have been run for years by friendly Rocky and Lisa Sonnier.

Our stay included sampling fresh boudin (a special sausage) plus cracklins and homemade root beer upon arrival,  an enormous breakfast the next morning, dinner and live Cajun music down the road at Mulate’s and an excellent, eco-conscious guided Atchafalaya swamp boat tour in a shallow-draft crawfish skiff with an experienced local company, Champagne Swamp Tours.

We never made it to some other local attractions like the Zydeco Breakfast (every Saturday morning 8:30 am to 11:30 am at Cafe des Amis) but there’s always next time.

The tourism blog for St. Martin Parish, which includes Breaux Bridge, indicates that most places are quite open for business and would appreciate your support.  Some lodging is full with Texas evacuees, but certainly not all.

Curious about how the Bayou Cabins had fared, I called them up this morning and spoke with Rocky Sonnier.  He reports:

“We are open here. With Gustav, we had some big trees fall on a couple of the cabins, 2-4000 pound big ones, but they didn’t even dent the tin roof. I think the wind was keeping them up, you know.  With Ike, the water was already up in the bayou [Teche] of course, but we didn’t get the rain so we’re OK.  We’re really blessed on this end.”

Rocky said that unfortunately, Mulate’s roof was torn off and their dance floor and office were damaged, so it will be a few weeks before they reopen.

Meantime, eat at Prejeans, the Blue Dog Cafe or Randol’s in Lafayette, or at Cafe des Amis.

At the end of our conversation, Rocky said, “We thank you for calling, chère” and I felt all fuzzy.

You won’t find a more hospitable country anywhere than Cajun Country, so pay them a visit.

(….and bring me back some of Rocky’s cracklins!)

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 12:31 pm and is filed under Hotels and lodging, Sheila projects, US travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.