Week ending Dec 10, 2015 New Orleans and Area

Friday after a skype visit with John's parents we did our basic shopping for the week. Our campground host visited with us a bit. He is one of the most hospitable hosts we have ever had. He has a nice chocolate lab, and shared his dog's biscuits with our dogs.

Saturday we did a plantation trip.  Our first stop was Laura, a Creole Plantation.

This is a very good example of a Creole Plantation, and in fact one of the slave cabins was occupied until the 1970's, by a man who had worked on the plantation.  Laura was not open to tours when we drove the plantation road in 1989, as it was not renovated and opened until 1994.   We had an excellent tour guide, Rose, who told us the story of the du Parc family who ran the plantation. The story of the family was recorded by Laura Lacoul Gore for her children who never saw the plantation, since Laura chose to sell the plantation instead of running it like her mother, grandmother and great grandmother had done.   If it hadn't been for her memoirs, Laura plantation would have been best known for the stories of 'Compair Lapin', or 'Br'er Rabbit', which were told in the slave cabins on the plantation. 

 

We were surprised that there were 23 varieties of bananas grown on the plantation.

 

Since the tour was so comprehensive (about 70 minutes), we chose to just look from the road at the rest of the plantations that are on both sides of the river west of New Orleans.  We saw that the bonfires along the levee were already being erected.  These will be burned on Christmas Eve, so Santa Claus will be able to find his way down the river to New Orleans.  We will miss this event this year, but enjoyed it when we here in 1989.

 

Sunday we drove down to Grand Isle State Park.  We wanted to check out the facilities, because Joan had heard it was a nice park. It appears to be well suited for us, except for a proliferation of mosquitoes.  All of the houses in the area are built on high stilts to keep them out of high water.
It would be quite an 'interesting' experience to be here when there was enough water to justify the height.  

 

At the  day use area, we saw an excellent motto for our lifestyle. 

 

Monday we completed our Great River Road trip by driving south of New Orleans along the Mississippi as far as the road goes towards the mouth of the river, arriving at the town of Venice.

 

 

We had a great lunch at CrawGator's Bar and Grill on the deck overlooking the Venice Marina. John had a grilled shrimp platter and Joan had a very decadent seafood baked potato. The deck was a perfect location to watch the trawlers, sport fishermen, pelicans and cormorants come and go.

The Mississippi area is an interesting mix of nature and industry.

On our way back, we stopped at Fort Jackson, which was built about 30 years before the Civil War to protect the river.   During the Civil War, it withstood a 10 day siege by Farragut, but surrendered when New Orleans fell to the Union army.

Then we crossed to the east side of the river on a free ferry, which had to wait for a ship to clear the route.

 

This east side of the river, south of New Orleans has many houses that are still boarded up since Hurricane Katrina.

Tuesday was clean-up day. We made a quick trip to Winn-Dixie for some items we missed on our last grocery trip and discovered that in fact our RV park was located only a few blocks from the motel we had stayed at in 1989.  The hotel we had eaten at during the rain/ice event of that Christmas is in ruins, a result of Hurricane Katrina from 10 years ago.

Wednesday morning we packed up with Grand Isle state park as our destination. We stopped at Raceland for coffee and a driver change. We arrived at the park early afternoon.
South of Golden Meadow, there is a toll fee for the Gateway to the Gulf Expressway that goes out to the island.  On our trip down on Sunday, we had asked the toll booth attendant about getting our trailer through the pay lane.  She suggested that we stop at the Expressway office to get a pass, which would allow us to use the through lane, which is much wider.   So we stopped at the office to get a pass. The attendant explained that they don't do one trip passes, but that the trailer should fit just fine, as semi-trailers use the booth lane.  They had a chart that indicated that vehicles 8 feet wide were allowed through the lane, so we measure the trailer, to find it was 8 feet 3 inches, plus an allowance for the awning posts.   Not too comforting, but we carried on to the expressway.   Just short of the toll booth, there was room to park the trailer beside the road, so John got out the tape measure, and walked up the the tool booth lane to check the width.   We wouldn't want to have to back the trailer out of a narrow lane if it was too narrow.  It turns out the lane is over 10 feet wide, so not a problem.  When we got to the booth, the attendant complimented us on being 'handy' and checking the width.  She said that people have managed to get their vehicles stuck in the lane.    

When we arrived at the park, and had arranged for a site for a week, we asked what the 'marine hazard' is that requires the purple warning flag to be flown.  A small alligator had been spotted on the beach.

Thursday was a hot day. Everyone in shorts and t-shirts.  We spent the day wandering along the beach and enjoying the warm weather.