Day 53 – 6:30 a.m., 56 degrees, sunny & breezy. Rob took a bike ride and he got some pictures of a Louisiana Heron. We sat outside for awhile, another beautiful day.
Louisiana Heron, Grand Isle State Park, Grand Isle, LA
Louisiana Heron, Grand Isle State Park, Grand Isle, LA
Tomorrow we leave for New Orleans. We recently found out there will be a huge music festival with many different kinds of music being played at different venues all day for 4 days. The festival began yesterday. It’s called the French Quarterfest and it runs thru Sunday. It’s free; last year 760,000 people came. The food & drink are not free and they are offered throughout the French Quarter at booths – sounds like a great way to sample everything, if you can even get there with all the crowds. We’ve heard the parking situation is horrendous on a normal day. Should be interesting!
We took a last drive thru town and came back and had lunch – tough day, LOL. The weekenders have been arriving and the campground is filling up, mostly big rigs. Many of the fishermen have left; they know better than to camp on the weekend. Recently a group of 5 or 6 trailers towing cars came in, travelling together in a caravan, and they parked near each other. They’re older folk and during the day until early evening, except when they break for the afternoon nap, they gather together at one campsite, eating & drinking & being merry; all the women grouped together and the men in their own grouping; the women get all the meals together while the men sit aroud & guffaw at each other’s jokes. Just an observation…..
People-watching is so much fun!
People are friendly and everyone we’ve encountered has been from the deep South, some with accents so thick (cajun probably), they’re hard to understand. We both love Louisiana so far; we do have two more campgrounds to stay at in this State, though. But Southern Louisiana has been special and we’ve developed a certain love for the people and the environment; they’ve been through so much and remain ever strong. We’d like to come back for another longer visit to explore this area.
Grand Isle State Park, 108 Admiral Craik Dr., Grand Isle, LA 70358, (985) 787-2559 “http://www.reserveamerica.com/camping/grand-isle-state-park/r/campgroundDetails.do?contractCode=LA&parkId=240012“. Great campground, smallish and remote. We stayed six nights, site 34, and would choose this site again as it was completely protected on one side by bushes & trees and we couldn’t see our neighbor on that side. Clean and quiet; hiking, biking, boating, birding, separated from the Gulf by only bushes/trees and the dune. Fishing definitely – a fishing paradise. Weather here is quite variable; it can be stormy with high winds one day and sunny with a perfect breeze the next day. Not a huge amount of things to do unless you like to be outdoors or sitting, relaxing in the sun; there’s not much shade. We found it to be absolutely wonderful and would definitely come back again. Not a lot to do in town. Few restaurants, and like most places in the South, everything is fried. Wonderful fresh shrimp, buy it right off the boat & cook it yourself. Sites had water and electricity, no sewer – there is a dump station. Each site is separated from the next one by grassy plots with a couple of palm trees, a picnic table and bar-b-que, a firepit for campfires, and they are large enough for big rigs. Several pathways to the beach, a fishing pier and observation tower, tent camping right on the beach.