Rick Blount is clearly pleased to be where he is today.  We met the CEO and fifth generation proprietor of Antoine’s at one of their private dining rooms yesterday where they were marking the momentous occasion of having been open since 1840.  That’s quite an accomplishment in a city that’s […]

It was a late night, we’d been on the road since 7:30, and dinner didn’t end til 9:30. So when we were taken by our Lafayette Louisiana hosts to a local nightclub, I wasn’t sure if I’d pass, or just watch a song or two and go back to the […]

We set out from Shreveport early this morning on a tour across Northern Louisiana, beginning on an interstate but quickly getting off on the smaller blue highways lined with pine trees, some clear cut, and some showing the replanted trees for a future harvest.  Our bus trip took us for […]

The Municipal Auditorium in Shreveport is famous because it’s where America’s favorite singer, Elvis Presley, got his big start.  We toured this beautiful edifice built in 1929 today and got a chance to go backstage and see the dressing rooms and even listen to a few tunes sung by an Elvis look-a-like. […]

What’s a Muffy?  You can find out at Fertitta’s Deli in Shreveport, Louisiana. It’s the only building left standing for blocks around.  Once there were 31 other small simple houses, but they’re all gone. Inside this wood-framed building is a local institution, so beloved that a street was named after […]

We started the day in a swamp, and moved on to view a museum of rural life, the biggest Antebellum plantation, and the Lousiana state museum in and around Baton Rouge today. A group of 27 writers, we enjoyed getting to know each-other with little time to dawdle.

I’m packing for a trip that starts tomorrow with a flight to New Orleans. I’m joining a group of journalists on a road trip through the great state of Louisiana, and on Saturday morning I’ll take a swamp tour in New Orleans Plantation country.  Then we’ll visit the city of […]

We’re all just so sick and tired of winter here in New England that we can’t even joke about it any more.  On Thursday I drove to Boston with Paul Shoul for a lunch with some Atlantic Canada tourism people. We parked on a street where every car was perched […]

Fort Hill Brewery’s big grain silos loom before you out of farm fields driving up Fort Hill Road, off Ferry Street in Easthampton. The footprint is huge, with the towers and a new steel building that looks like a medium sized factory. This new Easthampton brewery is by far the […]

In our little country neighborhood, we enjoy watching the parade of people walk by, and the pulse of the neighborhood during different times of the year.  We watch our neighbor’s kids on their playset, the single men next door clearing their driveway of snow, and the passing parade of walkers […]