Arrival in New Orleans

Tuesday, May 17 -   Leftover from yesterday, we traveled through the "duck capital of America," in Gueydan, Louisiana, on Highway 14.  Of course, we did not see any ducks.

Back to the Palmetto State Park.  They really did cut this campground out of the jungle, and it would take a machete to walk through the growth.  We are at the end of a cul de sac, and if our camping buddies were with us, we could have had our own private area.

Last night after dinner, we took a little walk on the path through this jungle.  We didn't really know where this path would take us, and the Vermillion River is near here, but we did not get there.

 However, as we were walking, and it was just before dusk, Joe heard a rustling in the brush and lo and behold, an armadillo strolled out of the brush and crossed the path about 10 feet in front of us.  It blends into the picture, but in the first photo, it is about in the middle, just to the right of the path.  In the second photo, it is at the edge of the green.  The lighting wasn't very good, so we didn't get very good pictures, but I was sure excited to see a live one!

We've seen several dead armadillos on the highways, but this was the first live on this trip, and just the second one I've ever seen.  We didn't have our New Mexico walking sticks but Joe says from now on, we have to have them.  Who knows what we might have to fight off!

We got up this morning to 68 degrees, another beautiful day.  We slept without air conditioning last night; we are so lucky with the weather right now.  We sat outside with our coffee while Joe contemplated his day -- I'm sure that's what he was doing.

We headed to New Iberia, but when we got to the intersection with Highway 90, it was closed and we had to detour on through town to Hwy 674.  We first thought it was road construction, but we heard over the CB radio that they were moving a tree.  I did a little research and found this: 
"Mr. Al, an ancient oak that stands beside U.S. Route 90 near New Iberia, will soon have a new home.  The massive tree, estimated to be at least 150 yearsold, was orginally scheduled to move last week but that had to be delayed after the lifting jacks sank into the soggy ground."

So today was the day they moved it, and we got caught up in the detour.  Then, just as we got to the intersection to get back on 90, there was an asphalt machine, unrelated to the road closure, blocking our way.  It was working on the frontage road, but that held us up another 10 minutes.  It's a good thing we don't have a schedule!  Then, just as they let us by, they opened 90 back up, both ways, but traffic had to get off and immediately back on at this exact intersection, so we had a little traffic to deal with then.  But, finally, we got back up on the highway and away we went.  Portions of this highway are really rough, reminds us of last year's frost heaves in Alaska and Canada.  As Joe drives along, he pays a lot of attention to the crops growing in the fields -- can't take the farmer out of him, I guess.  We kept seeing something that he couldn't identify, but, again after some research, we now believe it is sugar cane.  We saw thousands of acres planted with this crop, miles after miles, for 2 days.

As we drove through Calumet, I believe it was, we passed an above-ground cemetery.

We crossed a bayou here, which is fed from Lake Atchafalaya--the lake they are diverting some of the flood water through to protect New Orleans.  The water is not very many feet below the railroad bridge, and probably the one we were on as well.

And flood water is still on the way.  I think the crest here is another 7-10 days away, and I do not know where all that water is going to go.  But as we continued on through Louisiana's swamp land, we could imagine that this might handle a good portion of it, if it can get spread out over the swamps. 

We drove through Morgan City, and as we crossed that bridge, we could see the sea wall at the town's edge.  It looked like a lower flood wall had already been reached, but it looked like they did have some protection yet.  If you can see the printing on the wall, that's what I'm talking about.

We saw trucks with sandbags and a couple of times, we actually saw where they were either laying sandbags or driving steel into the ground to make temporary flood walls -- a multiple of flood control is in action down here.

I know these pictures don't show this very well, but there is a lot going on down here - it's good to see preventative measures and pro-action, instead of just reaction.

As we crossed the Mississippi River again, into New Orleans, it was running strong, and it is full.

We traveled 165 miles today and got to the campground around 3:00.  We picked out our campground, Pontchartrain Landing, at random, but it turned out to be really nice.  It's only 3 years old (build post-Katrina), and is right on the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal, which connects Lake Ponchartrain and the Gulf of Mexico.  It has a pool, spa, outside bar area, and they are putting in hookups for boats that will provide water and electric.  The Lake Pontchartrain seawall is just across the street, and the check-in girl said the water would have been at the top of the stairs here had this place been here then (didn't get a picture of those stairs).

They have a shuttle here that takes guests down to the French Quarter, so we are planning on taking that tomorrow and checking out the city.  We may go off on our own the next day.  There's lots to see here so we'll probably be here 3-4 days.  It was an interesting day, and the good news is that they don't think the flooding is going to be as bad as earlier expected.