Plantations, Eat a Gator See a Gator

We woke to a very chilly morning, I had to bring out our small heater to take the chill out. The forecast calls for a beautiful day with sun and highs 70’s. We are planning on taking the Great River Road Drive to visit old plantations. 

We drove the Great River Road and decided to tour the Oak Alley Plantation.  For information on the plantation I’ve included their web address  www.oakalleyplantation.com 

What impressed me most were the trees, these were the prettiest trees I have ever seen, they are magnificent. The most amazing thing is that they were on the property 100 years before the plantation was even built in 1837.

The following photos show the trees and grounds of this fabulous plantation.

 Slave cabin 

Some of the slave cabins 

Rear of the Main house where the slave cabins were

 Beautiful Large Oaks

The back yard 

Back of the house

Front of the house 

View toward the Mississippi River which is just over the Levee at the end of the trees in the photo

Beautiful grounds

Avery large front yard 

The name Oak Alley comes from the fourteen oaks on each side of the walk

Front view 

View of the front of the main house

The sitting and family room 

The dining room 

A slave boy would stand in the corner and pull the rope which would activate this large fan 

Our tour guide

View from the front of the second floor balcony

  View from second floor balcony

After the Plantation tour we stopped at a small Creole restaurant where we had a delicious lunch. I had a spicy sausage burger and Chris had the gator burger.

After lunch we went to Jean Lafitte National Park and Preserve. The park has a number of board walks through the swamp. I've attached a number of  pictures taken along our walk. Chris was first to spot the gator and actually took a picture in which I felt she got entirely to close. I’m sure we past many other creatures that we didn't even notice, may be that was for the best.

To find out more about the park you can google  jean Lafitte national park.

 An elevated board walk through the swamp

On the way back from our swamp walk we stopped at The Chapel of St. John Bosco on the campus of Hope Haven. Hope Haven is part of Catholic Charities. Hope Haven consists of a few interesting looking buildings.

Grand Isle Louisiana

We drove through New Orleans without really seeing anything other than bridges, more bridges, water and the freeway. We were headed a couple hours south of New Orleans to Grand Isle Louisiana. Grand Isle is a small settlement at the end of a very long and narrow peninsula. There is a state park at the very end of this land strip. It is a beautiful park and a nice place to spend some down time. Other than spending time on the beach and a few small hikes there is little else to do.

We will be leaving here on Tuesday and heading to New Orleans where we plan to spend a week.

The following are some pictures from our time at Grand Isle.

Along I10 approaching New Orleans

Water is everywhere here

Going across lake Pontchartrain. The bridge off to the right is the Causeway and is one of the longest bridges in the world, 24 miles long.

New Orleans

An eight mile bridge going to Grand Isle

All homes are built on stilts

Grand Isle State Park

Chris Is washing shells she collected on the beach. 

Looking back from the fishing pier

Bridges and water all around us

We found out this morning that we could not stay at the National Park in Ocean City because everything had been reserved mainly because of the car show. So after a walk in through the woods and along a small river and swamp we packed up and headed out toward New Orleans.

 We put our sights on Grand Isle State Park. The park is literally at the southern end of Louisiana with water on three sides. We are right on the gulf with only a short walk over the sand dunes from the beach. We paid for four days and we look forward to some down time. Because we are so far out there isn’t much to sight see and it’s too far to run into New Orleans. When we leave here we will move closer to New Orleans and check out the sights then.

It was a very pretty trip into, through and out of New Orleans; it seems things are only accessible by bridges here. There bridges everywhere and some are very long; the last bridge we had to take was eight miles long.

Trouble Posting

We are in the very southern most part of Louisiana at Grand Isle State Park. We have limited phone and Internet here. I haven't been able to post any pictures here so I'll have to post later this week when we move up to New Orleans.

Casinos and Hot Cars

We left Gulf Shores State Park at 09:00 this morning after a great week. We really enjoyed our time down here and were very impressed with the area. 

Leaving Gulf Shores State Park

Entering Mobile Alabama from the East on Interstate 10 

We are not on the wrong side of the freeway here the car is being towed (thank God)

Mobile 

Awesome Tunnel as you enter Mobile

Our destination was Ocean Springs Mississippi. There is another National Seashore Campground located here and we thought if it were anything like Gulf Shores maybe we would spend another week. When we arrived we were told that they only had one site left and it was for tonight only, after tonight they are full until Sunday. It seems that the first weekend in October is “Cruise the Gulf” time in Biloxi. Biloxi is the next town from here and all campgrounds are full. Cruse the Gulf is huge custom car show that takes over this entire area. So we checked in the night and we will see what happens tomorrow.

We crossed into Mississippi and crossed a large saltwater marsh which is adjacent to Ocean Springs

Ranger station at Davis Bayou Campground 

After getting setup we headed out to explore Biloxi. We found hundreds of people lining the street sitting on their lawn chairs wherever there was shade watching the “cruisers” as they made their way from one end of town to the other. The cars were beautiful.

We found a great seafood restaurant and had a couple beers and shared a shrimp appetizer. The restaurant was right on the pier and the shrimp boats had just returned from a day of shrimping so we walked around and checked some of them out. Some were selling their catch, jumbo shrimp for $3 -$ 4 a pound.

We ended the day by getting our lawn chairs out of the jeep and sitting across from the Hard Rock Casino along the highway along with the others watching the cruisers.