Road Trip Day 6 - To the Ocean (and the bayou!)

Bayous, canals, and the Gulf of Mexico. That sums up the day. We started off at IHOP for breakfast. Jordan and I thought we were getting a side of sliced strawberries, but it was pie filling. Oh well. We ate the berries anyway. The long drive to Grand Isle State Park took us back towards New Orleans on the first leg, I-10 East. From the edge of Lake Pontchartrain we took I-310 south to its end at Hwy 90. From there we headed back west to LA #1 South all the way to Grand Isle. Once we were on LA1 we were alongside a canal/bayou most of the way down to the gulf. That was pretty neat. Just small towns along the way hugging the bayou, big telephone pole size boat tie-ups / docking spots all along the sides of the bayou. There were all kinds of little shacks selling shrimp and crabs along the roads. I saw more draw bridges today than I think I ever have in my whole life. We also drove by a Saint Mary shrine along the road, right next to city hall, and I got a couple of pictures of that.

We finally got to Grand Isle State Park after a 3-1/2 hour drive. The hurricane (Katrina) really did a number on the facilities. The toilets flushed but there weren't any showers at the bath house we parked by. There were lots of crabs to be seen, many, many birds. Yes, I think we are all sunburned too. I did stop and get sunscreen, the new spray on "sweatproof" kind. But, I don't think it worked (user error). Unfortunately I walked around for about half an hour with my clothes still on in a tank top to take some pictures. The burn is following the lines of my tank top, not my swim suit. Can you say "DUMMY get on your sunscreen!"? We all got our suits on and splashed around. The kids had a lot of fun and so did I. I talked to a nice lady from about four hours away in Texas. They had come to do some crabbing, but there weren't many out in the heat of the day, although we did see lots of partially decomposed crabs above the water line. The tide started to come in. I walked around past the rock jetty to check out a bird conclave, and I SAW A FIN. Yes, I really did see a fin. It was way out there, and I took some pictures. It was kind of freaky to say the least. I wasn't worried about the people in the water or anything, as it was shallow for a long way out. I think he was probably a small one, I saw his back a couple of times when he came up and dived back down. But there was definitely a fin. About 2:30 we decided it was time to go and that's when we discovered the showers at our bath house were not working. Luckily we had a gallon of water in the trunk and used that to rinse off a bit. One other thing, we didn't come out with oil on us at all. The water seemed pretty clean to us.

The drive home was still interesting. I had to fight urges to stop every time I saw a bird. These coastal birds just fascinate me. Especially the Great Egret. It's such a pretty bird and when one or two fly over the swamps they are just beautiful. They have an interesting hunting stance too. They are so patient standing in the water until their target appears, then GULP. Dinner. Ahhh.

We drove across a little draw bridge to the other side of the bayou on LA1 for some Burger King. Cajun food just doesn't appeal to me, and I hope that doesn't disappoint any of you.

We got stopped when the draw bridge over the Intercoastal Canal (a big one) was raised to allow some boats to go by. We had one more traffic jam about 15 miles out of Baton Rouge. The traffic had to merge to one lane and it was a 20 minute process for about 2 miles.

Back at the hotel we are all interested in getting the salt off our skin, so I am patiently waiting for the shower.

Kids are anxious to check their face book accounts and e-mail of course. I try to imagine a world without computers sometimes, but I just can't. Then I remember Isaac Asimov's description of the planet Solaria (The Naked Sun novel) where all human contact, physical of course, was disdained, in favor of flawless "virtual presence" technology. Is that where we are headed?

LOTR Update: Two Towers, Gollum, Frodo and Sam in The Dead Marshes.

BIRDS: Brown pelican and more, but I have to look them up first.