Day 48 – We got up at 7 a.m. figuring we’d be hanging around here for awhile because check in time at our next campground wasn’t until 2 p.m. 68 degrees, humid & cloudy. But the sky was getting darker and it was looking more stormy by the minute; we checked the weather situation and decided we should go ahead and move on out. We need to travel 2 to 3 hours south of the New Orleans area.
I was mistaken about Grand Isle – it is not on a peninsula, it’s a barrier island which is attached to the mainland by a long bridge. This drive was very interesting and it showed us a whole different kind of lifestyle. We don’t have any pictures though because the camera wouldn’t work; extremely humid out and we just couldn’t get it to turn on. So when I tried to take photos, we couldn’t get any, but we’ll be travelling this way again when we leave the island so hopefully that problem will be fixed.
Departed Bayou Segnette State Park at 9:50 a.m. after dumping and getting gas. It had just started raining as we pulled out – 76 degrees, very humid, light wind and light rain. We were already outside of New Orleans, so it didn’t take long to be out in the country. As we headed South and the roads got smaller and less-travelled, we began going through small towns which were surrounded by water, bayou, and swamplands on one side & what appeared to be a canal on the other side. The road went right down the middle and was at sea level. The canal turned out to be the Intracoastal Waterway. Even big ships & barges travel on it; here & there we saw large tug boats pulled up on the shore by the road. Across the road we’d see the house/shack where the tug boat owner (and presumably the family) lived, and we’re guessing that, when needed, they’d be called out to help the big ships get through the narrow canal. On the rare occasion that a road crossed the highway, there’d be a drawbridge so that the ships could get through to their destinations. After this long stretch of highway, the road became an extremely long bridge – no more towns, just very pretty bayou as far as we could see on either side of the road. At the end of the long bridge you could continue on to Port Fourchon, a large oil port, or go East towards Grand Isle. Two more bridges and we crossed over to the Island.
Arrived at Grand Isle State Park near the end of the Island at 12:15 p.m. It’s looking dark and stormy out and it’s pretty windy. They let us check in early since the previous users of the site had already left. 80 degrees & extremely humid. We have Site #34, and there aren’t many campers here. The Gulf of Mexico is just over the dune and the water looks very rough. There’s definitely a storm coming and we beat it here.
[insert Park sign here and campsite pictures]
It’s a great site; surrounded on three sides by bushes and trees, and the remaining side has no one parked by it. After we unpacked we put out the chairs and sat outside – extremely humid, very windy, cooler outside than inside due to the humidity. Rob checked out the camera, recharged the batteries, waited awhile & then it started working again. We took a walk to the beach and the Gulf; one of the pathways leading from the camp sites is close to our site. The pathway led us thru a muddy area (evidently it rains here a lot), then thru a bit of marsh with different flowers and plants, and then thru a hard-packed sandy area with a picnic table. We noticed black, oily-looking places on the sand and wondered if this could be an area where the oil came ashore from the BP oil spill a few years ago. We’ll ask about that. What a shame, this area is wild & pristene except for this, and there are so many birds & lots of sea life here. Evidently people go into the water and swim; there are signs telling people to stay off the rock wall & to watch out for rip tides. And there’s a flag warning system where different colored flags are hung to notify people of the conditions. Today’s flags were red and purple: red means unsafe currents and purple means watch out for jellyfish, sharks, and stingrays. We read that in these conditions if you walk in shallow water, shuffle your feet and that may scare off the stingrays. The water is very warm – Google says 75 degrees – and the waves are crashing.
We came back to our site, sat outside some more, watched the many birds that were in the bushes nearby and the pelicans & seagulls flying. We watched as the clouds thickened as they were moving rapidly overhead, and the wind was blowing, so we eventually went inside. The girls were relaxing, worn out from a day of travel and from watching the birds in the bushes close by. As of bedtime we still had a thunderstorm warning and flash flood warning saying the worst of it would be coming early morning. We’re glad we got here early enough to enjoy the day and that the storm hadn’t hit here yet.
Pixie