We left the state of Florida, and headed off to Alabama, aiming for the Gulf Shores State Park. Alas, we were turned away there, one of the few times we have not been able to get into our chosen RV park. But it turned out OK. We were able to locate a terrific city park on Dauphin Island outside of Mobile. Dauphin is a barrier island outside Mobile Bay and has an Audubon bird sanctuary right next to it, with beaches and bay within walking distance on both sides. There is also excellent biking and birdwatching. The park itself is a haven for northerners who come down for the winter, as it allows stays of up to six months. The sites were almost all taken by folks from the likes of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, who were retired and down for the winter. They were very sociable and had lots of potlucks and fish-fries, to which we were kindly invited. The seafood here, by the way, was fabulous, with lots of gulf shrimp and shellfish for sale fresh off the boats.
We spent a day in Mobile, visiting the sights. It was early Mardi Gras, and the city prides itself on being the "original" Mardi Gras site, before New Orleans. It turns out that Dauphin Island was the original capital of the French Louisiane territory. After the first hurricane, the capital was quickly moved inland to Mobile, and later transferred to New Orleans. But Mobile started the Mardi Gras tradition, which is still very much in evidence. Theirs is a more family friendly, less touristy, and less drunken version of the New Orleans ceremony. We also visited the Museum of Mobile, which had some well thought out historical exhibits chronicling the development of the area from the cotton era to the present. A treat. 
Leaving here, we headed to Louisiana, for a stay in New Orleans. We had located an RV park out along Lake Pontchartrain, in an area that is a bit industrial but much cheaper than the park in the French Quarter, which is hugely expensive, particularly during Mardi Gras. Our park was quite reasonable and close to the downtown area. We spent most of our time in the city itself, enjoying the urban world for a change. We saw a couple of Mardi Gras parades, and visited with a friend from Seattle, who showed us around for a day. We got acquainted with Magazine Street, a charming local area outside the French Quarter, with a lot of good restaurants, a French bakery, and a New York bagel bakery. You can see that food was very much a theme in our visit to the Big Easy.
A surprise was the New Orleans Museum of Art, which we liked very much. They had an excellent collection of paintings and a sculpture garden that was one of the best we've ever seen. We also visited the Louisiana State Museum, with its extensive exhibit around Hurricane Katrina and the history of severe weather events in New Orleans. We saw a very nice jazz group down on Frenchmen Street, one of the quieter areas for music right next to the French Quarter. We found that we had little tolerance for the level of loud and drunken partying in the French Quarter and could only tolerate the area for a short time.
It was sad to see how much damage New Orleans still exhibits, even five years or more after the hurricane. As you drive around the city outside the French Quarter, there are large areas that are still leveled and show no signs of rebuilding. There are huge open fields with foundations still showing, and abandoned houses that still show the legendary marks of the triage people who checked them for damage and scrawled figures on the outside. It's such a shame that more cannot be done to bring this city back from the catastrophe.
We moved on to the town of Breaux Bridge, near Lafayette, in the heart of Cajun country. We kept our focus on food, but shifted the emphasis to the more Cajun and Creole pleasures of this area. We sampled a lot of the local boudin sausages, jambalaya and gumbo. There were cinnamon coated pecans, bread pudding, and lots of local treats. The folks in this area are justly proud of their cuisine, and they spend a lot of time comparing different versions of their classics. We did our best to help out.
We visited an Acadian Village nearby. This is a small, non-profit recreation of an original Acadian community, built after the Acadian (Cajun) people were originally ejected from Canada and settled in the Louisiana area. It is a faithful recreation of the buildings, with each of the functional areas of the community outlined and documented, and it gives a very nice picture of how these folks lived in the early days of their settlements, and of the history of their culture and its odyssey across the North American continent. The previous events and parades that we had seen in other cities were leading up to the actual day, but on Mardi Gras itself we were in Breaux Bridge. We decided to do something different, and went off to a small town festival held in Iota, Louisiana, which celebrated Mardi Gras with a Cajun twist. The celebration was quite different, small and manageable, with local folks dressed up in traditional costumes called capuchons, who arrived in a big parade and then danced and demanded quarters thrown from the audience. There were several bands playing Cajun and Creole music, and lots of dancing in the streets. There was little or no alcohol and the whole party was over by five in the afternoon. We loved it. And the food was great, too. Here's a rather crude video that we took with our little camera, but I think it will give you the flavor.
From here, we are headed off along the Gulf Coast toward the bottom tip of Texas. Then we will head back up the Rio Grande and across the southwest. Home by the Fourth of July! It's hard to believe.
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