My best travel days were behind me by the summertime. When my first trip this summer was to New Bedford, Massachusetts (no pictures taken) , I was happy to go anywhere else to train retinal imagers in August. This time, the anywhere turned out to be Alexandria, Louisiana. Home of the now-deceased founder of Popeye's Chicken. And this place, which he also founded.
Fact: Not every place in Louisiana has good food. When you ask the trainees where a good location for Cajun cuisine, and you're met with smatterings of laughter, you know you're too far from New Orleans. My colleague and I had one night of good food at Cajun Landing, then the next night we had an experience bad enough that we settled with Domino's Pizza on our third night to regroup. On the fourth day, we had Copeland's. Not too bad, but it's motto may as well have been "Butter? Yes." While the food tasted good, the stick of butter used for each item from fish to side dish overwhelmed after a few bites of each! And they expected us to have their homemade cheesecake after this? I took one home to a girl I was dating.
A week later, I've been told by a friend working in Shreveport that Copeland's has closed. I take no responsibility for it.
The big regret was not getting a rental car so we could drive around. We probably would have been rejected for one, given that the hotel's shuttle could and did take us where we wanted to go. Still, it would have been nice to try. If we had one, we would have gotten a better view (and I would have gotten pictures) of our surroundings. We were training in Alexandria but staying next door in Pineville, a Baptist town where alcohol has not been allowed for at least fifty years. You'd be surprised how much a little thing like that can alter the very look of a place.
During a drive back from the not-good restaurant, I got a view of a landscaper. I realized that a dry town means no brand name markets or restaurants at all (if a TGIF's or Outback can't serve liquor, they don't want anything to do with the place). The result of this was a town with most of it's greenness intact and stores with names like "Al's Market." In short, a landscape more reminiscent of the town I grew up in nearly 20 years earlier. More varied, colorful and fascinating to look at. For someone who's small town has turned to stripmallsvile (or another Worcester, as one friend unkindly put it), this was a jarring reminder of how much my surroundings have changed.
I wish I had taken photos then. I definitely will if I ever return (not too out of the realm of possibility), but all I managed to take this time around was some shots outside the VA we were training at. Quite a beautiful view just from outside the main doors to the building we taught in.
Sadly, there was no poetry scene to be found here. I did get a bit of inspiration from the trip, though. Hopefully, some of the poems written from the trip will pop up somewhere soon.
Until next time, Louisiana.And maybe somewhere down the road, I'll be able to explore Memphis, not just explore its airport's art exhibit.
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