~Bald Eagle
Tag Archives: Louisiana
~Birding in Arizona – Number 388!
~Catalina State Park, Oro Valley, AZ (near Tucson), November, 2017
I am excited to add a new bird sighting to my Life List. Number 388, a cute Dusky Flycatcher.
This Dusky Flycatcher, migrating south, visited our RV site, at Catalina State Park, for several days; continually searching for insects in the Mesquite trees.
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I am writing this post from Lafayette, Louisiana, arriving today after spending three nights in Beaumont, TX. The birding at Cattail Marsh in Beaumont was wonderful! We met some expert birds while out on the pier, giving us some great advice on birding along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coasts. Wouldn’t it be fun to attend a couple “Birding Counts” in this area?
Hopefully, next winter we can spend a few weeks down on the Texas Gulf Coast birding. Yeah!!
I am so far behind in posting; hopefully I will catch up soon. I have a few more photos from Catalina State Park to share, and photos from Rock Hound State Park in Deming New Mexico; South Llano River State Park in Junction, TX; McKinney Falls State Park near Austin; and Cattail Marsh in Beaumont.
Howard and I are enjoying our journey…. meeting with friends along the way, eating some delicious food (we had Crawfish Étouffée for lunch) and persuing our hobbies as best we can on the road. I even got to play a couple hours of Pickleball with friends in Austin, which made me extremely happy.
We haven’t seen rain for many, many weeks; I bet we will see some very soon!
~Enjoy the Journey~
~Our Ride Today, 11/17/2015
To my RV friends…
If you are ever traveling down Highway 49 near Alexandria, Louisiana, consider stopping at River Cities RV Park in Boyce, LA. It is new, it is nice and clean, it is convenient. Notice the security gate in and out.
After leaving Boyce, Louisiana we traveled Highway 49 to I10 heading toward Madisonville, Louisiana (all interstate travel today) .
We crossed the Atchafalaya Basin, traveling on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge. A little information about this unique area taken from the web.
The Atchafalaya Basin, or Atchafalaya Swamp, is the largest wetland and swamp in the United States. Located in south central Louisiana, it is a combination of wetlands and river delta area where the Atchafalaya River and the Gulf of Mexico converge. The river stretches from near Simmesport in the north through parts of eight parishes to the Morgan City area in the south. The Atchafalaya is unique among Louisiana basins because it has a growing delta system with nearly stable wetlands. The basin contains about 70% forest habitat and about 30% marsh and open water. It contains the largest contiguous block of forested wetlands remaining in the lower Mississippi River valley and the largest block of floodplain forest in the United States. Best known for its iconic cypress-tupelo swamps, at 260,000 acres, this block of forest represents the largest remaining contiguous tract of coastal cypress in the US.
The Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, also known as the Louisiana Airborne Memorial Bridge, is a pair of parallel bridges in the U.S. state of Louisiana between Baton Rouge and Lafayette which carries Interstate 10 over the Atchafalaya Basin. With a total length of 96,095 feet or 18.2 miles, it is the second-longest bridge in the US and fourteenth-longest in the world by total length.
A few photos, I took, out the window of the RV….
After exiting the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge we crossed the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
We arrived this afternoon, under cloudy skies, at Fairview Riverside State Park in Madisonville, LA. We have enjoyed visiting this state park many times. Here is our site for the next three nights.
Howard and I enjoyed a late lunch today at a New Orleans style restaurant here in Madisonville. Howard had a Shrimp Po-Boy and I enjoyed what is called a Southern Thing, which includes green-fried tomatoes, shrimp and coleslaw with special sauce, all on french bread (a Po-Boy). Yummy!
What’s for lunch tomorrow?
~I am going crazy, four days of cloudy, rainy weather
Sunday, Traveling the back roads of Texas…
Leaving Copper Breaks State Park we traveled on state highways under cloudy skies to Cooper Lake State Park. It was a nice ride. We drove through small towns and in between, as far as the eye could see, hilly, pastoral, acres filled with cattle and horses.
White rail fences and cleverly designed entryways surrounded huge ranch houses proudly displaying their ranch name, something like the Lazy R Ranch, dotted the landscape. Some of these ranches had even larger Show Horse Barns. Gorgeous!
Unfortunately, we were at Cooper Lake State Park for only one night. Under cloudy skies we walked around some of the park and what we saw we liked. We felt we were the only campers in the park, which is filled with lots of trees and scrubs. This park is also designated as a Dark Skies park and believe me it was dark. Just after our walk it began raining and it poured all night.
Monday, We traveled in the rain……
Again choosing to travel down the back roads we made our way to Boyce, Louisiana. We drove through eye pleasing towns with American flags proudly flying, beautiful murals covering the sides of buildings, and well taken care of landscaped city parks on corners.
Every once in a while a truck would pass us with deer legs sticking out of truck beds. Not cute. Hunting season is in full force.
We are stopped tonight in a town near Alexandria, Louisiana, called Boyce at River Cities RV Park.
They are very efficient, I called them on the phone this morning to make a reservation, they sent me a text with the security gate code and our site number, we pulled in, entered the gate code, drove to our site and settled in for the evening. Perfect! But, still raining.
We are heading to Madisonville, Louisiana to visit with friends for two days, then to visit family in Purvis, Mississippi. While in Madisonville we plan to indulge in greatly missed, delicious, cajun food! Grilled Oysters on a half-shell with butter and parmesan cheese just to mention one. C’est Si Bon!
Still raining, missing my sunshine, going crazy…
El Nino is going to be a bummer.
~Weekly Photo Challenge: Motion
The Daily Post – Photo Challenge – Week of April 24, 2015 – “Motion.”
Wolf Song Blog 