I Got Lost In Louisiana For A Week. This Is What I Saw.

what's it like to live here you like country life is great they got some good Bill plaid that's 16 miles from here I'll come all the way over here to Eaton that's David Fontenot I liked him a lot he might have been one of the coolest people I met on my Deep South Road Trip he was one of many interesting folks I met driving around on the back roads of Louisiana in the spring of 2023 I'll tell you that if you've ever been to Louisiana you probably went to New Orleans got drunk got back on your plane and left if you did that you missed out on a whole lot of stuff when I first got to Louisiana of course I did that New Orleans thing but only for a couple days then I took off and headed up through Cajun Country into the woods over the river past Grandma's house all the farmland and Shreveport and I only went into Arkansas the whole trip took five days and boy did I see a lot [Music] oh my God and they sure were nice days for Louisiana back roading partly cloudy and 75 degrees in the springtime and all we begin in Cajun Country it's really rural down here it's a lot of forest and farmland and rednecks and duck hunting poor Ducks I think I saw some looking pretty Freddy a lot of people here live off the land shooting Hunting Fishing good people of course church is a big deal down here and helping one another is too there's churches every five minutes in rural Louisiana I'm not kidding you look for places to stop along the road and it's almost always at least one Church this church didn't make it though that sucks the only thing that kinda comes close to the number of churches or places to eat I try to meet Pie when I was in Natchitoches at a local joint called lesnions where famous people go when they're in town if you call Shirley McLean famous anymore but somebody told me I needed to try the gas station meat pies since they're so much better down here I did that and they are great that's a thing down here in Louisiana they eat gas station food here a lot fried gas station food and just small Corner Market food in general you can bet when you see a little place like this in the middle of nowhere is Louisiana they have some good homemade fried stuff inside made from somebody in town I went into a lot of these little gas stations in every one of them there was a little freezer full of meat that I didn't know what it was just hacked off from something I don't think I'd eat that but they do some places down here or just a gas station and chicken and that's it parts of Louisiana are like a foreign country with the culture and the funny ways people talk and the funny food and all lots of places in Louisiana have Boudin it's a cooked sausage made of pork and rice and veggies they even make them into boudin balls more deep fried stuff probably made from somebody in town I hope they wash their hands they love their chicken down here that's for sure in one little town I was in on one corner there was a chicken king and the other corner there was a Church's Chicken King looked way busier my favorite was that little Chicken Shack it had way better chicken than anywhere else we went I know Mappy I like that place a lot too you insisted not to stop there and I'm totally glad we did I think I remember you ate all my nuggets so we were just driving on some back road and we spotted this little tiny chicken joint in the middle of nowhere called Toms and look at those prices well kinda try to read it it's handmade that means the food is handmade too while we were waiting for our nuggets I struck up a conversation with a cool local dude named David who was out in his truck chomping on some chicken gizzards he was really agreeable to talk poor guy he was trying to eat and I felt bad like I was interrupting his lunch but he said I could ask him a bunch of questions so I did what's everybody do here for for fun on the weekends you go to the lake and go fishing excuse me uh in a in a in the fall we go hunting and the winter time during the summer and spring and summer when we go fishing in the lake you know I prefer bass myself um I Heard the Crawfish Industries having trouble around here because the price of crawfish went up have you heard that we bought see uh six pounds each each of six pounds yesterday and what was it 29 dollars the ball crawfish and they were good they were seasoned good and everything you know they were good you ever eat crumping a little bit a little bit yeah we don't have I live in North Carolina we don't have a lot of crawfish no well that's cool so tell people what it's like in Louisiana well baby it's just probably just like North Carolina you know in the con the country approach really really friendly people over here you know that's right you know what's important to people around here Hunting Fishing basically you know duck hunting the squirrel hunting deer hunting rabbit hunting you know stuff in that nature I'm sure you'll got the same thing up there huh we don't have much up there don't no I don't know uh Mississippi area you know they do a lot of they got some deer in Mississippi from uh Petal Mississippi had a we'd go out there and sometime we we'd have to almost stop on the interstate there'd be so many deers Crossing like hundreds of them bro I said man I'd like to have that in Louisiana and we like and another thing that people like to do Chromebook you know you know gigging yeah well it's against a lot of gigs so we have to admit we have to catch up with a net don't you damage yeah but people like eating frogs over here y'all eat Pro not really no but you need to go somewhere and tell me you want a seafood platter with frog legs and and crab and you know a seafood platter you know you'll really enjoy it thank you um one more question how was it changed around here in these parts has it changed at all since you grew up basically don't think it they got a lot of drugs man the drug is terrible when I was a kid if if you can find a uh some dope you know marijuana somebody come in a little Matchbox now they got all kind of drugs I know right and I didn't blame him for stuffing his face like that best chicken I've ever had um but there's nothing like damn crawfish down here I didn't know it until I asked but when I was down here was the beginning of the peak of crawfish season people get really excited about that down here it's like holiday season I mean they talk about it everywhere you go in the midwest on the radio they talk about the price of Wheat and cattle down here on the radio they talk about the price of crawfish we're really in that sweet spot where it is really easy to find from this you've already boiled from your favorite drive-through for about 3.99 a pound King says the platter of crawfish is ideal for watching the sweet 16 this weekend everywhere you turn in Backwoods Louisiana there's a place to eat damn crawfish entire restaurants or just some little crawfish cart on the side of the road but now the Crawfish places were open though that sucks if you know a little bit about my back story you know that I do not like crawfish I had ordered this giant platter of seafood in a backwoods place in the Georgia bayous one night and it had a bunch of crawfish on it the lady convinced me to suck their heads which means you rip the head off and suck out the guts I did it like 20 times and I was never the same sense so I didn't actually eat any crawfish until I got to Shreveport I asked somebody down here I don't want a whole bucket of crawfish can't you just get like a six piece or a 12 piece crawfish they laughed and laughed at that they're like that's ordering like two fries at McDonald's we eat five to ten pounds at a time down here boy you ain't from here are you clearly not so we were just driving around down in Cajun Country and we came across a big building that looked pretty important and it was actually open so I went in there to see what was happening turns out I stumbled into an interesting story this place is called crawfish Center Bait and supplies neat operation I found out this is where they sell crawfish traps and crawfish bait so people can Harvest crawfish for the local markets but this place also harvests their own crawfish too the guy in charge his name is Carrie Lee he told me all kinds of news about the Crawfish industry really spilled the tea apparently the local crawfish Market struggling right now because of three reasons one of them's drugs so many people down here are strung out so they won't or can't work and people are still getting free government paychecks so the labor Market's dried up the Mexicans are the only ones who will work on the Crawfish Farms anymore and they have to pay them nearly 14 an hour now because of inflation so this dude's trying to keep his business going battling inflation and drug abuse and pure laziness welcome to America I say this is the Trap we catch them with and it's a debate I'm catching with oh ball 300 traps Duke will be catch you know so how many are in one bag about 35 pounds 35 pounds 50 bucks pretty much you know did you have to lower your price because people are buying yes right what did they used to go for uh we got up to four dollars and fifty cents this year and and December now they're down in the quarter yeah there's a big difference very big difference yep so what are you gonna do to just wait it out wait it out some people are going to drain I'm there pressure rice is up they go plant rice drain the Crawfish flakes day by day you know how long you've been doing this long time man long time calmly uh 30 years 35 years you know yeah this is the worst scene Mercy I've seen to know yeah look at these mothers they're not too bad you know looking big ones in there you know I mean four people can eat on this four people for fifty dollars pretty cheap on them that's right cheaper than Pizza Hut right chipping in McDonald's right there you go bro so everybody needs to start eating them again yeah right starting with some crawfish again crawfish that's right really help us out yeah yeah Carrie Lee asked me where I'm from I said North Carolina and he said we'll get them North Carolina people to start eating more crawfish would you I said I told him I would I probably won't do that though and that wasn't the only story I stumbled upon driving around asking people dumb questions we were in some other rural part of some other parish and We Came Upon another crawfish food truck they were still boiling and they weren't ready to eat his name's Louisiana Mike we talked about crawfish stuff for a bit how many pounds of crawfish did people buy usually around average around three to five pounds you know per person I heard the Crawfish industry is having trouble because the price has gone up and people are not buying them as much well what's actually happened is the price has failed the bottom fell out of the price like last week in the last two weeks they were around 350 375 and now they're less than two bucks a pound live above you know how it's been a lot warmer lately the Crawfish are just abundant I mean there's so many of them and they can't they can't get rid of them fast as they're putting them out and a lot of farmers are talking about parking up their equipment because they're losing money and sell them at that price you know I don't know what's going to happen like they'll be out of business for good oh no probably just this is just an off year you know like last year they stayed High most of the Season you know this year's they were just an abundance we had a lot of warm weather you know in the last month unusual but the crop the good side of whatever the Crawfish are big and beautiful you know healthy so but he told me a lot of dirt about the oil and gas industry and the timber industry too so how has this part of Louisiana changed in the last 10 20 years well in this area right here it's booming because of the oil field you know it's like a lot of oilfield drilling rigs everywhere that's what I do during the week is build oilfield locations where they put the drilling rigs this is just a little weekend gig for me and my wife so things are going well here because their oil is doing good oily natural gas mostly yeah it's a it's big business the location we're building right now it's like a million dollars project you know for one spot but they're going to drill four wheels in it you know it's like 12 acres big plate and oil and gas are real important in this day oh yeah that's one of the biggest things that in the timber industry and right now the timber industry is way down yeah why is that well they were bringing in lumber from Canada and South America importing it here cheaper than we can grow it and produce it ourselves you know I was in that business for 25 years me and my whole family you know we quit in 04 because after they signed that Free Trade Agreement they started shut they shut down six meals within 30 mile radius of my house you know and my dad who was the head of the whole thing he said son I don't need any more experience cutting Timber I'm not going to do it for free I think we'd be better off to sell all we had all our equipment paid for everything and we were one of the biggest contractors in North Louisiana and uh anyway we sold all our equipment got out and everybody thought we were crazy now they wish they had done it too because it's wet this went bad so NAFTA Scrooge in yeah that was a big mistake and then warehouser they came in and bought out a lot of the ones that would folded about all of the land and they planted it Pine Timber everywhere well now they have a monopoly on it you know on the timber industry here so like a private landowner like myself I've got 300 acres of land loaded with Timber I can't even give it away right now you know I was I was counting on that for my retirement you know what I'm saying for the later days you know so we're getting all the Timber from South America now well they're getting some from South America and a lot of Canada you know and uh and it's not good Lumber I didn't know there were so many stories out here I was just gonna drive around and look at but you stop and talk to people and well there you go right as crawfish guy Mike explained the energy industry down here is a big deal that's how a lot of people down here make their money there's a lot of bad that comes with that good for one down here there's a lot of pollution from all that energy extracting they call parts of this part of Louisiana cancer alley because of all the off the charms cancer rates that sucks and the energy world is pretty much boom or bust that's a big reason you see so much rural poverty down here driving around rural Louisiana you come across a lot of small towns where there's maybe a hundred houses in town and maybe 20 percent of them are wiped out and there's a lot of trailer parks around these bins I don't know if louisianans are mostly happy or not but there was a poll done by Harvard University once and they asked people about their level of happiness five of the top 10 places in the country with the highest reported happiness levels but right here in Louisiana I asked somebody here about that and she said if you see people smiling down here it's because they haven't lived here for very long I don't know if I believe her or not because I saw a lot of smiling faces on people who look like they've been struggling some will say if you're happy in Louisiana you must have money and if you have money what the hell are you still doing here but a lot of these people are hard-working country folks who are here because it's cheap some relocated from nearby States for the affordability others wound up here after a hurricane but it is true Louisiana does have a lot of uphill battles it's a lot of poverty and addicts and gamblers it's very unhealthy it's a good place for people with bad habits there's a lot of Alcoholics and gamblers down here you could say Louisiana cares more about hunting fishing and football than they do making sure their kids get a good education one time I read a story that said Louisiana is the worst state in the nation now and that's just plain mean I asked somebody at a bar in town I hear louisianans are so generous and proud and helpful is that true he told me used to be but today people down here just worn out from their daily struggles they don't have anything left in them to help one another anymore so everyone's become more closed off now there's so many personal tragedies down here that has become the land of struggles and that's the big reason people down here drink so much I met one cool dude driving around this part of whatever town I was in this Old Timer's named Buzz with one Z he didn't want to talk to me on camera but he said he has a band that he's in and he wanted me to tell you guys about it here's one of their songs [Music] I didn't just stop at small businesses when I was here there's a lot of stuff to see if you make the right lefts one day I stopped at an alligator park called Gator Country Louisiana you can't miss them there's a big bus painted like an alligator on the side of the road they have emus lizards and snakes lots and lots of snakes but I can come here for that all over the park they have these spoiled alligators that just sit there in the Sun and eat all day I think they're rescued they hardly ever move smile have these little babies in a tank but they have a big pool where they let you get in and actually grab them like you're a damn Cajun yeah do not fall what are you doing I felt like I was a real Louisiana born and bred corn fed my long hair don't cover up my redneck that was fun but the Airboat tore outside of New Orleans was way more exciting we took a few hour Adventure into the swamps at the Mississippi River Confluence where we got even more up and close with the damn things they feed him marshmallows and chicken s being around all those Critters I wanted to see them more and more you just don't see this stuff where I live I really wanted to see an armadillo out in the wild but all I got to see were dead ones every mile down here there's smushed armadillo I got to rescue a turtle though this dude was just trying to get across the road and he needed a little help continue to get out of the road Louisiana has the most prisons of anywhere else in the world I think you see signs for prisons everywhere you go I finally stopped to check one of them out just looks like a regular prison to me hopefully these people learn their lesson quit being an a-hole and just be normal I wanted to yell there's a lot of history here too The South was where slavery and cotton was born there's still signs of those days all over this place I stopped and saw a few plantations when I was down here this is the Melrose Plantation and down the road is another one they're big Staley homes surrounded by farmland they say Louisiana is two states down south it's Catholics and Cajuns and food and music it has a European and Canadian feel to it it's very swampy and then there's Northern Louisiana which has a lot more farmland and forests it's more Baptist than Catholic it's also where there's a lot more racism and rednecks too it's real America up here in Northern Louisiana you can really see the difference between the two regions As you move through the state sometimes you see lots of farms sometimes it's kind of older run down places and then you come to an area that's as pretty as you've ever seen I stopped by Opelousas one day why because it's the most dangerous place in the state that's why I mean it's not nearly as bad as New Orleans or Shreveport or Baton Rouge but per capita it is here's what that place looks like it didn't really look that bad to me but I'm sure at night it's off the chain Appaloosa also has a market in town called Dirt Cheap I've never heard of that before foreign my favorite part was the small towns though this is little Minden population 11 000. menden's about a half hour east of Shreveport it's about half white half black households here earn about 25k a year but it's really cheap to live here and I don't see any tints on the streets do you and here's what a neighborhood looks like in a small Louisiana town you can get a house in a little town like this for about 80k I know huh just a nice quiet little residential Community where they probably don't have a lot of drama in BS I went to Ville Platt home to 6 300 people all these places kind of look the same some are a little bit more run down than others but they're all basically the same but the real reason I came down here was to go to the swamp pop Museum I was so excited about that close that sucks but it was closed damn it no swamp pop for me I got to see some pop here though Louisiana people love their pop down the road was a little Homer population 2500. they have this little downtown square area where I'm sure they get together in Frolic and the like neat place Dairy Americana it was in Homer that I met this guy he was getting out of his truck and he had a big rifle on his shoulder I was like I gotta talk to you well it's a small town everybody knows everybody and if you don't want uh if you have a problem living in Homer's because everybody knows what you're doing it's back [Music] you know it's changed people still go to church and uh pledge allegiance to the flag it's not perfect but uh it's going back to the 70s more than anything else everybody depends on each other we work for each other welcome to America that should be yes thanks sir and if that ain't some small town Louisiana huh it's kind of hard to get to know the culture here when it seemed like everything was closed when I was down here a lot of stuff I saw in rural Louisiana wasn't open this gas station with the big pink flamingo on top was closed I wanted to see what they had inside the Cajun auction wasn't open I was excited about going in there so I could see what Cajun auction stuff is cattle place I passed didn't have anyone around I wanted to ask them some dumb questions about Louisiana Farms the cattle seemed interested in me though I heard all about this bar in the middle of nowhere called The Whistle Stop it too was closed damn it I know it was only 10 45 but I thought it's Louisiana I thought they drank all day down here guess not but the Daiquiri places aren't closed if you've never seen this it's a big deal down here you drive in and you order these booze slushies and they bring them out to the car and everything I got the small one and I could tell if I got the big one what it would have felt like jeez it's really weird though in some parts of the South they're like the entire County can't drink we're dry and then in some parts of the South you can drive away with a big gulp full of booze I thought Louisiana was just disgusting there's nowhere to shop for nice things and all the people all sound like they have marbles in their mouth well Karen these people are more honest and generous and caring than the snobby selfish people you run around with they probably lend you a hand before any of your friends would well sadly that's how most of us feel about Louisiana yeah the state has struggles maybe more struggles than any other state but if you get back there and you look around and talk with people you'll see a side of the world you've never seen before it might even bring your faith in this country back a little bit I like Louisiana I think you need to like Louisiana too and don't forget you can get my unboxing Louisiana t-shirts go to my Teespring store and wear something that I made you might even get a compliment the links in the description now get out there and travel everyone are you looking to move and need advice I do Consulting that's right I'll sit down and talk about where the next perfect place for you and your family should be I do it all the time together let's find you a new home that's safe and checks all your boxes and I can also help you find your new house too email me and I'll work with you on not just helping you figure out where to move but I can help you find your perfect home too that's right I know awesome reliable agents all over the country and I'd love to connect you to somebody who can help you search for that perfect home hey guys if you learned something new about America or what it's like to live in America great you should think about subscribing and turning on your notifications you can also click one of these videos or playlists for more this is Sage Nick's manager this has been Corner House action

Channel: Nick Johnson

Views: 323,219

Keywords: louisiana, louisiana travel, new orleans, shreveport, baton rouge, louisiana realtor, moving to louisiana, louisiana road trip, louisiana food, louisiana music, worst part of louisiana, louisiana economy, crawfish, oil and gas, louisiana homes for sale, louisiana hotels, boudin, meat pies, louisiana homeless, whats it like in louisiana, louisiana backroads, cajuns, texas, hurricane katrina, alligators, things to do in louisiana, opelousas, louisiana crime

Id: PdFRch6l6Po

Length: 31min 28sec (1888 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2023