2020 Trailer Tripping ~ Circling the USA: Day 26

We will be spending 5 days in Louisiana; an overnight stay in the Lafayette area (to break up the miles to our main destination), and 4 days in New Orleans. Welcome to the world of dampness and frizz. The humidity was so high here that I had to wear my sun hat 24/7. My hair stuck out in fuzzy ringlets, could not do a thing with it. The hat kept it somewhat flat. And everything is damp. All the paper in our trailer was damp, walking on the throw rugs felt damp and our clothes are damp. We saw very little sun during our stay. The sky was covered with dark clouds and there was a yellow glow on everything. Weird, could not see the screen on my cell phone when I was outside. Hard to take pictures.

Despite the cloud cover, it did not rain. And the temps were not that high so it was bearable to explore.

Mar 1: Our overnight stay was at FROG CITY RV PARK, in the Lafayette area. It was a 4-hour, 284-mile drive to get there. We did not unhook the car. We settled in and relaxed the rest of the day. This RV park is okay, but there were trains nearby, that were very loud when they sailed by. Shook the ground sometimes. Fortunately, they were quite during the night.

NEW ORLEANS

Mar 2: After 2.5 hours and 135 miles we arrived at BAYOU SEGNETTE STATE PARK. We are in Westwego, a town on the other side of the Mississippi River, across from the French Quarter area; in the swamps in the heart of the town. You feel pretty isolated, except you can hear the sounds of the city. The campground is large with spacious sites.You are far from any neighbor. We have full hook-ups (except for sewage) and we can get several local channels on the antenna. And, a bonus, we have Wifi. A fairly strong signal too. The comfort station is not so comfortable, but there is a laundry room with fairly new machines and it is FREE! That’s a first.

After ‘setting up camp’ we went to the French Quarter and walked around a bit. Took some pictures before it got too dark. We found a nice place to eat dinner; Sylvain.

Andrew Jackson ⇧

A nice place to eat. We had a delicious dinner on their back patio.

Audubon Zoo

Mar 2: This is a nice zoo on 58 acres with more than 1,500 animals. It has about 5 regions and is laid out just like that region; for instance, Jaguar Jungle has Mayan temples and ruins. Very pleasant to stroll through. You felt like you are actually there. We got there early afternoon and all the school groups were gone and the place was very quiet. So, on this day we had a very relaxing stroll through the zoo.

A great fountain at the entrance with dancing water spouts among elephants and lions with big pots around the outside that squirt water into the fountain, all synchronized.

This beautiful peacock joined us for lunch.

Feeding time.

Mom with her baby.

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

Mar 3: This place is right on the Mississippi River. It has more than 15,000 specimens that represent some 530 species of marine life found throughout the Americas. Your entrance fee also included a 40-minute movie. We saw “Hurricane on the Bayou”. It was about all hurricanes, but focused on hurricane Katrina. It was fascinating. It explained how all the wetlands along the coast of Louisiana were a natural barrier that stopped hurricanes from going inland. Slowly the wetlands were being destroyed; first the trees were cleared to grow sugarcane, then more currently the swamps were being drained to avoid flooding. This allowed the salt water to come in and destroy the rest of the trees. Fascinating and so sad. Almost all the marine life in this Aquarium died during Katrina. They lost power, which cut off all the oxygen in the tanks.

Feeding time ⇧

This otter got half a crab and

kept banging it on the glass to break it open

Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve

Mar 4: BARATARIA PRESERVE is part of Jean Lafitte NHPP. It is a 23,000-acre home to a hardwood forest, cypress swamp and marsh. There is 9-miles of boardwalks and trails. We got there late and was only able to walk about a mile of a boardwalk trail from the visitor center.