Day 6 - On to Louisiana

We'd never done more than pass through Louisiana on our travels west in the past. Our original plan was to do that once more and go directly to Texas and stay at Sea Rim State Park for a few days as it is near Sabine Woods and Anahuac NWR, both prime birding spots. Spring break and a weekend was not considered and, as noted earlier, Sea Rim was full.

We looked around for options and found Grand Isle, LA, and that became our first overnight in Louisiana. The route there took us through New Orleans, not our preference. We don't really like traversing cities in traffic, but it turned out pretty easy (I guess they don't call it the Big Easy for nothing), the quickest route took us across the top of the city along Interstate on the southern edge of Lake Pontchartrain, then southwest to US-90 and then secondary roads to Grand Isle. There is a long toll bridge/causeway section south of Leeville that runs over the bayous called The Gateway To The Gulf Expressway. It is reminiscent of the overwater sections of the Overseas Highway to the Florida Keys. In fact they are both part of Route 1. LA-1 here, US-1 in Florida.

Aside from the return of Speedy's transmission sensor fault, which was still clearable, it was an uneventful drive. Hopefully, it will not become a permanent fault before we get somewhere where it can be looked at by an honest mechanic (We are still smarting from the Dodge Dealer in Tucson) as it is either a $300 or a $1,200 problem. It went nearly 1,400 miles before coming back, so we are hoping to get at least that far again.

We made a stop at the Louisiana Welcome Center on I-10and a stop for groceries in Larose on the way to Grand Isle, before stopping at Artie's Sports Bar in Grand Isle for lunch. We ordered Oyster Po-boys at Artie's, but had to eat out on the rather breezy desk since they still allow smoking in bars in Louisiana. We were sitting at the bar waiting for our lunches and looked up and saw this:

Another reason to move outside...before I caused a scene.

The Po-boys were quite good, with lots of oysters in a light crisp batter, but the rolls were a bit on the soft side and the fries were just from frozen fries and not very crispy.

 After lunch it was time to check in to the state park campground. The campground is basically two rows of paved drive-though sites, fairly well spaced out, with water, electricity and string Wi-Fi (but not especially fast). It is behind a long dune system out to the Gulf and you cannot se the water from the campground. The facilities are at each end of the campground and 24 steps up. They are pretty modern and up on quite tall pilings. They have nice, clean, tiled restrooms with tile showers and....they have FREE washers and driers. We quickly took advantage of that.

After traveling much of the day, we only did a bit of birding around the campground before evening and dinner. We have a few campground Killdeer who wander through the campsites along with a few grackles and starlings. Lots of Brown Pelicans flying to and fro overhead along with the Laughing Gulls and some Willets were just sitting in the grass by the entrance kiosk were some of the local birds.

It was clouding up a bit and rain was predicted, so we took it a bit easy for the afternoon and evening. We researched the local hotspots and found that not only was the park a good spot, but there were several Nature Conservancy tracts of woods right downtown that were supposed to be migrant traps.

Big rains are predicted for overnight. Hopefully, we'll have some birds tomorrow after the rains.