At the start of 2024, I had no intention at all complete my visit of all 50 states. My initial idea was to spend a few weeks in the New England area to experience fall. But when Paul had his annual work meeting moved from New York City to New Orleans, we made the decision that all three of us would accompany him in April and it changed my trajectory.
April seemed like the ideal time to visit New Orleans. It was spring and we would be hopefully avoiding humidity and any storms hitting the region. Most importantly, we didn’t foresee another opportunity to visit and since New Orleans is seemingly always in cross hairs of climate change, it may be a completely different city in the future.
So we made plans to road trip from San Diego to Louisiana where we would spend a week. Paul would stay a work-provided hotel while Doctor and I were going to by nearby in an Airbnb where I would work remotely for a few days.
As with most trips from San Diego, our trip to New Orleans would be a southernly route driving through Arizona with our first stop in Las Cruces, New Mexico, approximately a 12 hour drive.
This route (I-10) through New Mexico was barren with very little to see except the occasional amusing billboard. We knew we wanted to save our appetite for another Sonoran hot dog after our taste from a few years ago and we got our chance from the James Beard winning El Guero Canelo.
Dinner was at the New Mexico chain, Blake’s Lotaburger, topped with locally green chiles.
The drive from Las Cruces to the Texas border is short and we spent all of the following day making the tedious journey through the middle of Texas until we hit our second night outside of Houston. The trip was uneventful but included a visit to Buc-ee’s and a BBQ place in Kerrville that was the epicenter of the eclipse a few weeks earlier. Oil refineries dotted the landscape, no surprise for Texas.
Louisiana was about an hour or so outside Houston but we still had a day from when Paul needed to be in New Orleans, so we overshot and decided to drive into Pensacola, Florida, adding three more states to Doctor’s visits (can’t get to Pensacola without hitting Mississippi and Alabama en route).
Our route to Pensacola was along I-10, taking us through the tiny town of Scott, where we had our first taste of boudin from Billy’s Homemade Boudin and Cracklins.
Prior to this trip, we had never heard from boudin before but driving this region of Louisiana had multiple shops advertising their version of boudin. Little did we know until later that our route was also part of the boudin trail.
At Billy’s they sell ready to eat boudin along with boudin balls. Boudin, a blend of meat and seasoning stuffed inside sausage casing , didn’t sound like road trip friendly food, so we opted for boudin balls. It’s basically the same thing minus the sausage casing and rolled into a ball with breadcrumbs and deep fried. Billy’s offered several variations of boudin balls along with boudin, crackins and roll ups, basically eggs rolls stuffed with various fillings from the region.
There was a line inside as well as the drive thru with several cars waiting to place their order for boudin. The wait inside to order hot food was not boring since the shelves were packed with local specialties as well as refrigerated boudin.
We ordered several variations of boudin balls, plus crawfish pie and a crawfish pistolettes with a package of ranch to go. The ranch was a thankful addition especially to help tame down the spice from the food but still delicious regional taste we didn’t see anywhere else in our journey.
As we made our way further in Louisiana, we also stopped for beignet fingers and coffee from Coffee Call in Baton Rouge with plans to eat more beignets when we were officially in New Orleans.
Louisiana turned into Mississippi and like an hour later Alabama where we passed through downtown Mobile and finally hit the western tip of Florida where we stayed the night in a cute motel in Gulf Breeze, Florida.
My Burning Kitchen... on the road 
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