The Best Cajun Cooking In All.......TEXAS??

I've been on the road for one week today. I've been on the road for one month today. I've been on the road forever. Funny what floats through your consciousness when you're relaxed and in your zone. I missed a big event last night while driving in the dark to St. Charles. My van turned 60,000 miles. When Poppa and my mother and I went on road trips, my father, the accountant, found quirkly little pleasures in numbers. Numbers were his life. His work. His relaxation. "Watch! Watch! Don't miss it! Look, Penny, it's going to change from 59,999 to 60,000! All the numbers are going to roll over, watch!" I felt a funny sense of disappointment when I missed the actual event, although I had made note that it was coming. This morning in the coffee shop, the talk was all about the big storm. "Is that normal around here? Does that happen often?" I asked."Oh, no, that wasn't at all normal! We got tornado warnings too." "Glad I didn't know that! By the way, last night I crossed over the I-10 bridge into Lake Charles and, omigosh, those lights, those beautiful lights! What IS that?" "The lights? That's just the chemical plants." I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Chemical plants? What an odd place to find a sight I'll never forget. Outside the coffee shop I said good morning to a man enjoying a rocking chair with his coffee. He started talking about his work on pipelines and where it takes him and that he was really enjoying the food in Louisiana. Last winter was spent on the Mexican Baja. The weather was great but he didn't like the food. A friend of his walked up and handed him a book. "Do you like war books?", he asked me. "Probably not, I guess." I looked at the title: "Hogs In The Shadows, Combat Stories From Marine Snipers In Iraq". "Oh, my stepdaughter's grandson is there. He's a helicopter mechanic." So for all our guys and gals in a war zone, the book is available through Amazon and written by one of your own, Milo Afong. I hit the road for TX, but not before I asked where I could get an authentic Cajun meal before I left LA. "The Boiling Point" was between Lake Charles and the border, I was told. But, not a sign of it and crossing the Sabine River, I was in Texas. Low and behold, I should have gone to Texas for Cajun food to start with! I passed up a couple that didn't give me enough notice to hit the exit and finally did get an advance head's up for "Al-T's" in Winnie, TX. Winnie....where had I seen that before? When I saw the building I knew I had struck gold. Simple, low key. The parking lot was full...always a good sign! As I entered and looked around I was reassured that this was the real thing. Stuffed wild turkeys, armadillos, ducks, cast iron cooking skillets, a cement floor, and the smells! Waiting for a table I glanced over at the souvenir t-shirts and remembered how I knew Winnie....and Al T's (Al Thibodeaux). Bob looked at a radio station in Beaumont TX with an eye to buying it and decided we wouldn't like Texas...or at least not that part of it. He brought home a t-shirt for me from.....Al-T's! There is a fine gold thread that joins us all together in this life...past and present. It's a strange fate that allowed me to find great Cajun cooking in Texas and stranger yet that it was the same restaurant Bob ate lunch in 25 years ago. I ordered crawfish etoufee and fried boudain pieces. So good. From that one appetizer I stuffed myself and brought "home" dinner and lunch tomorrow. Finally, great food! Photos above. Tonight the 3 of us are "hanging out" at Love's near Katy, TX. With any luck, we'll cross into New Mexico Tuesday night. Time for a shower in my new rubber flip-flops. I'll run the hot water until my fingers shrivel and I'll think back to the days of our childhood when Betty, Wallace, Sara, Nancy and I caught "lightening bugs" in jars in a Kentucky backyard on a summer night.