Travel days

Sunday, Monday, May 15-16 - We are leaving Corpus today, so I got up early and headed over to the laundry to get that caught up again.  John took Bridgette and Barbara to the airport (they had an earlier flight than he had), then came back out to the campground, so we went to breakfast, then to the grocery store.  We did a little clean-up (way overdue), then headed to the airport with John, then on out of town.  We dropped him about 11:15, and our goal was to get past Houston today (Sunday) to avoid rush-hour traffic tomorrow.  Joe drove 286 miles, eating lunch at the wheel, but we found a campground about 40 miles east of Houston and got off the road about 5:00.  The campground, Turtle Bayou RV Park, didn't look like much from the road, but we only needed it for one night so we decided to stop there anyway.  We registered, then the campground owner took us over the hill, down by the Turtle Bayou, to an absolutely beautiful setting, nicely mowed, with picnic and deck areas, right by the bayou.

After we hooked up our electricity we walked around the park and down to the water (saw a few turtles).  We kept looking for alligators, but only saw turtles.

The weather was very nice again today, low humidity, 80's.  There was a windsock on the deck and it was, amazingly for Texas, absolutely still.

I'm sure Joe is sharing his infinite wisdom with me here.

He likes to take "self-portraits" of us, so here is one of us on the deck.  We did see some fish jump from this deck, and he thinks they were "flying fish," because they landed a few feet away from where they jumped out of the water.  Of course, he's now into "flying" everything since the flying crab in Corpus.
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We had a peaceful night and a pleasant morning.  Joe took this picture this morning because the water had such a good reflection on it. 

We had to defrost our frig this morning, another chore long overdue.  But we got that done and got on the road about 9:30, and crossed the state line out of Texas at 11:15, after fueling.  We found gas today for $3.679, which was cheaper than in Corpus.  Here's the port at Beaumont, Texas.

We crossed the Sabine River again, I believe we drove along this river when we came down from Toledo Bend.

After crossing into Louisiana, we stopped at the Visitor Center to get maps, brochures, and find out if the roads to New Orleans were open, which we were told they were, so we left I-10 at Lake Charles and headed down Highway 14.  Here's the bridge over Lake Charles (for Eric), and the lake itself.

The part of Louisiana we are crossing now is consider the "prairie," and we did see a lot of flat fields, with some even being worked with tractors.

Something else we saw along here, and we had seen last year in Louisiana, are flooded fields with little traps on them.  These are rice fields, and their second crop is crayfish, so these little traps or baskets are for the crayfish.

Finally, we called it a day, and found a campsite at Palmetto State Park, outside of Abbeville.  This was another very nice place.  It was about 8 miles from town, and we didn't really know where we were going, but Joe said that we have always had good experiences at the state parks, and it has always been worth the drive.  And this one was no exception.

We really are in the swamp here, and Joe mentioned that there are probably bears around.  I didn't think so, but when I read the rules, sure enough, there are bears in the campground.  It sure would be neat to see one, through the windows of course.  We do have a blackberry briar right outside the kitchen window, so I'll have to be on the lookout.  However, the trash barrels are not bear-proof, so I'm not too hopeful.  There are some magnolia trees around our campsite, and we finally got a close-up picture of one of those beautiful flowers.

This is the campsite next to us, which could be for Jeff and Brenda, Collins and Marilyn, and/or Dave and Mazie -- anyone who would like to accompany us on our trip.  We miss you all.