Down on the Bayou (March 15-19, 2021)
It’s easy to tell the difference between alligators and crocodiles. One will see you later whereas the other will see you in a while.
The next leg of our journey led us through the bayous of Mississippi and Louisiana. Neither Charley nor I had ever experienced a bayou before and since we’re accustomed to clearly defined shorelines, the landscape was a completely new experience for both of us. We realized pretty quickly that the bayous are full of interesting wildlife but even more interesting is that the locals just adjust to life around them and a lot of times, over them. I decided that that the states of Mississippi and Louisiana must spend a fortune on bridge maintenance because there are bridges everywhere. It’s hard to drive anywhere without crossing a bridge, sometimes many miles long. This post’s fun fact - Bayous can be freshwater, saltwater or a combination of both.
The ultimate goal of this leg was to spend time in New Orleans. We decided though to make a two-night stop just outside of Biloxi Mississippi to break up the drive from Destin to New Orleans. Since we love staying at state parks and in this case, a National Seashore Campground, we settled into Davis Bayou Campground, a part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. After settling into our site we stopped back at the ranger’s station for directions to the Visitor’s Center. (Remember - always stop at the visitor’s center first!) Ranger Kevin let us know that unfortunately, due to Covid, the Visitor’s Center was closed BUT “there’s an alligator sunning herself on the bank right down the road”. Excuse me? The road we just drove in on? I wasn’t prepared for this. About a quarter-mile down the road (but still within the park), there she was. I don’t know why seeing an alligator in the Mississippi Bayou would come as such a shock to me but it did. The ranger told us that the alligator was female and measured about seven feet long. If we did nothing else at this location, I was excited to have seen an alligator for the first time.
We spent most of our short stay at Davis Bayou familiarizing ourselves with bayou life by hiking and walking the park, looking for other fun wildlife, and making feeble attempts at birdwatching. We saw lots of turtles, crabs, beautiful birds, jumping fish and we visited our new alligator friend daily (she really liked that spot!). The park ranger also let us know about a nesting pair of Osprey in the park. We only ever got to see one half of the pair at a time but it was really cool to watch them through our binoculars and practice taking some photos of them with the fancy lens on our Nikon camera (we still need to work on this). We did wander about a mile outside the park to take a peek at The Charnley-Norwood House, a home designed in part by Frank Lloyd Wright. I tried but was unsuccessful in getting a tour of the house and unfortunately we couldn’t see it very well from the road. We enjoyed the walk though as it gave us a chance to look at other Mississippi bayou homes in the area. They’re beautiful and many of them were for sale but they definitely wouldn’t fit into our retiree budget.
We left Mississippi early on the morning of March 17 and after a brief stop at the Biloxi Visitor’s Center headed directly to our next location just outside of New Orleans. The drive was only expected to be about two hours but if you happened to see the news that day, forecasters were predicting serious thunderstorms and tornadoes for much of the south, Louisiana included. We wanted to get to our campground as early in the day as possible in the hopes that we could at least avoid being stuck in a severe storm as we were driving. We didn’t end up driving through any rain at but it was very windy as the storms were approaching. As we drove over the long Lake Ponchartrain Bridge, Charley was cool as a cucumber of course (thanks to the new hitch!) but the wind made me very nervous so I, unfortunately, wasn’t able to enjoy that experience as much as I would have liked to. Lucky for us, our site was ready when we got to the campground at Bayou Segnette State Park and we were all settled in by lunchtime. Severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado watches were posted for our area so we decided to spend the afternoon exploring the National World War II museum in the hopes that the storms would pass by while we were there. Who knew the National World War II museum was located in New Orleans? This came as a pleasant surprise to us and we really enjoyed our time at the museum, as much as you can enjoy a museum of that nature. The exhibits led visitors through a timeline of the war and were very informative. We spent nearly four hours there and didn’t get to read or see everything that we could have before they closed for the day. Turns out the storms didn’t pass until later in the evening but we killed the time by enjoying a nice meal and walking around the museum district. The storms were pretty intense but thankfully there were no tornadoes where we were. We were actually sitting in the Excursion in a parking garage as they passed and we felt much safer there than in our camper.
I’m not exactly sure why (I think I might have read a book about it as a kid), but New Orleans has always been a place I wanted to visit. So when we started planning this trip, the big easy was definitely on my must-do list. After a quick ferry ride across the Mississippi, we spent the better part of our second day simply exploring the city on foot. The French quarter was exactly what I had anticipated it to be – beautiful, busy, quiet at first but then rowdier as the day went on. The only thing that surprised us was the man pushing a cart down the street yelling “beer and shots for sale”. We enjoyed the obligatory French Beignets at Café Du Monde. I was surprised at how inexpensive they were, $4 for 3 (although somehow we got four). Add two coffees (for a grand total of $11) and it made the perfect, albeit unhealthy, lunch for us.
We decided to wrap things up in New Orleans by taking a short road trip to tour a historic sugar plantation about an hour’s drive from our campground. There were actually several plantation tours in the area to choose from but we settled on the one that looked the most grand and Oak Alley Plantation (oakalleyplantation.org) did not disappoint. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside “The Big House” but were free to take photos of the rest of the grounds including the recreated slave quarters adjacent to the Big House. The house and property were breathtakingly beautiful but this was clearly a situation where the ends did not justify the means as the entire operation was built on slave labor. On our way back from the plantation, we picked up some takeout gumbo and jambalaya – both part of my New Orleans bucket list. I was afraid we wouldn’t like the gumbo or jambalaya so we had a backup plan for dinner but both Charley and I thought both were delicious!
Meanwhile, we continue to settle into life inside our tiny home. We’re already closing in on a month on the road and haven’t had any major problems or surprises (knock on wood). We’ve had to make a few minor repairs to the camper but nothing significant yet. I did have an oopsies moment this week when I pulled out my air fryer for the first time and realized I left the trays back at home. We improvised though with a homemade tray made out of tin foil. We’re currently in Texas and will spend the rest of the month here. We hope all our family and friends are healthy and safe J
