Cross Country Road Trip - Days 26-28

Fri April 29 - Yesterday we arrived at Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville, LA which is across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. We had a short 2-1/2 hr drive to the park - a nice relief from the 6-8 hour drives we've had. This is a magnificent state park deserving a rating of "10". Bike/hike trails everywhere, a beach, air conditioned bath/shower rooms, laundry, water play area, an old sugar mill, etc. We hooked up the bike trailer and the three of us took a long ride to the boardwalk over a marsh and saw an alligator and tortoise.

Today, we are going on a boat tour of Honey Island Swamp, and will come back to Mandeville for some

authentic Creole dinner.

Wednesday we drove into the Atchafalaya basin and saw some great swampland, visited New Iberia (setting of one of my favorite author's (James Lee Burke) detective Dave Robicheaux) We then drove to Avery Island and toured the Tabasco plant and drove through the a bayou/jungle. We also saw an egret nesting colony. Most people don't know that while egrets fly south for the winter, ingrets fly north :)

Next we drove up to Lafayette and visited Vermillionville, a working museum of an historic Acadian (Cajun) village. It was neato and the architecture and grounds were interesting. We learned that the Acadian French were exciled from Nova Scotia by the British because they sympathized with the Americans. They settled in Louisiana because it was Spanish and they didn't mind the French and let them worship as Catholics.

We had a great Cajun dinner in Breaux Bridge, and enjoyed some authentic music while we ate.

Weather Update... Today is again beautiful and clear and should get up to 83. We hit some heavy winds, hot/humidity, and light rain coming in from Texas, but not too bad. The forecast is pretty much clear and moderate going forward 10 days. The hurricanes are further north - we skirt right along the gulf.