Trip to NOLA 6

D took today off and so we didn't start too early, but we didn't dawdle either as we were planning a road trip. D planned to take us to the Wetland Jean Lafitte National Park Centre at Thibodeaux, so we piled into the van and headed west. A warning light came on to say that one of the tires had low pressure, so we tried to check the pressure when we filled up with petrol in Thibodeaux. No working air pump at the Shell station - this was the second Shell station we stopped at as the first had no petrol! Alan looked at the tires and found one had a huge nail in it. It didn't look good for travelling another 80 miles to Grand Isle as was the plan. But there across the road was a tire shop. We went over, but the man couldn't do anything for us for at least a couple of hours. We decided to go to the Wetlands Centre and have a look round in the meantime. This is not quite what you imagine and seems to be a centre for educating the kids about the history of the area, nothing much to do with wetland wildlife habitat at all. So in the car park we changed the tire to the temporary one and then drove to a decent café for a small sandwich and coffee. Then we went to the Chevron garage and after some help from the garage woman we got some pressure in that tire and she recommend that we go to the WalMart a few blocks away. We got there and the man said he could do it and it may take about an hour, so we handed over the keys and went to explore the huge supermarket. All went well and we were soon on our way again. It was quite a long drive following the canal all the way down into the swamp area, reaching Grand Isle as the sun was getting low in the sky. D had to stop and pay toll fees at a supermarket and we took some photos of the low sun on the water - discovering dolphins in the harbour and pelicans on the posts. We had seen lots of egrets and herons on the way down as well as a couple of belted kingfishers sitting on the telegraph wires. The National Park area was still a bit further on, so we drove along, but the sun was really about to set, so we turned off the road and drover to the end of the lane, just in time to see the sun dip into the sea and the light up the wispy clouds with the afterglow.


This spit of land is really built up with holiday homes on stilts - rather like large ETBs in Brunei. It looked as if lots of people have weekend homes here and come for the beach and fishing. To one side is the Gulf of Mexico where there have been clean-up measures taken following the oil spill, but there are offshore rocks looking very white with guano, so hopefully just here things haven't been as bad as feared. Back at the supermarket we stopped for refreshments and watched boats coming and going - so there seems to be some fishing happening.

D drove us all the back to NO which took about two and a quarter hours. We drove straight to Il Posto and D ordered two antipasti platters, some salad, bread and a bottle of Merlot. The wine came from the vineyard owned by the parents of the café owners. They were sitting at a table in the café and when they left, they asked how we had enjoyed the wine. It was the last bottle of the 2007. We had really enjoyed it, very smooth and just right with the food. Then it was home for a cup of tea and bed.


Wetland Jean Lafitte National Park Centre at Thibodeaux