Louisiana - Day 8 - southeast via Great River Road

Bayou Segnette State Park, Westwego
Saturday, 8 February 2020

today's route

Along the road
Near town I passed Kleinpeter Dairy, which I noticed because that's the brand of milk I've been buying in this area.  I really don't like buying the store brands of milk, since so often it's being shipped in from Illinois or somewhere.  But this dairy is even more local than I thought, with an address on Airline Hwy. in Baton Rouge.  It's family owned and operated, and the family has an interesting story to tell that I found on their website.    http://www.kleinpeterdairy.com/our-history

I was back on good old US Hwy. 61, aka Airline Highway, for about half today's distance.  The road out of Baton Rouge seemed non-stop franchises and small towns: Hope Villa, Prairieville (though not a prairie in sight), Duplessis, Gonzales, Brittany, Sorrento.

Aside from the bright yellow wildflowers in the medians, Weekend Edition with Scott Simon was more congenial than the scenery.  He had an interview by Susan Stamberg with the man who was dialog coach for the 4 non-American women who played in Little Women.  They're all from various parts of the British Empire and he managed to teach them all to talk like young women in early New England, USA.  Susan Stamberg asked him if he could do the reverse and teach her how to speak with an Irish accent.  He instructed her as follows:
   (1) say the word "whale"
   (2) then say the word "oil"
   (3) then say the word "beef"
   (4) say the word "hooked"
   (5) then run them all together in that order.

Speaking of the radio, I've been hearing a commercial from a company in the Baton Rouge/New Orleans area that keeps telling listeners they offer a "curated collection of flooring and window treatments."  Curated?  Really?  Floors and curtains aren't art.

I crossed the Mississippi River at least twice on today's drive southeast of Baton Rouge.  Still very wide river, and getting nearer the mouth.  So I guess it's not surprising to find swamp on both sides of the road in places and several bayou-looking bodies of water.

I saw a lot of egrets, both small and large, sometimes alone but also a sizeable flock at one point.  Once I saw one sitting in a tree, which I haven't seen since I've visited rookeries in Florida and Cozumel.

I passed a house with a porch roof that was being held up by the trunks of dead trees.  They used the cut-off branches to hang things on.

an Anhinga

I saw a couple of Anhingas with their wings spread out to dry.  Unlike most birds that swim, the Anhinga's feathers aren't waterproof and soak up the water they swim in.  They can't fly or even float very long when their feathers get waterlogged, so they stand on a tree or post and spread their wings to dry.  Seems an odd oversight of evolution, since these birds catch prey by swimming underwater.

Whitney Plantation
I stopped here on the off-chance there'd be space available in the next tour, which there was but it wouldn't start for another hour.  The tour lasts 1½ hours, and if I waited an hour for it to start, that'd mean a later arrival at the campground than I wanted.  So I decided to come back in a couple of days and buy a ticket online, as they told me in the Visitor Center there.

I walked the dogs around the large parking lot and we got back on the road.

Along the Great River Road
The next 18 miles or so were right along the west side of the Mississippi.  I had high levee on my left side the whole way.  In fact, that plantation faces the levee, as do several small towns.  I just can't imagine living that way, with the constant risk of drowning (since 100-year floods are happening more often these days).

I noticed out in a field a nice avenue of huge live oaks, dripping with Spanish moss.  My guess is that there was once a plantation there, and the oaks were planted along the drive up to the house.  Those oaks have lived through some major events of nature and are still standing.

For a ways, there was a bayou along the west side of the road, and all along the road I found men sitting next to their pickup trucks on upturned plastic buckets fishing in the bayou.  Lots of them.

I passed a couple of heavily patronized boat launches, one of which looked informal, rather than official.  But lots of folks must have had boats in the water.

I passed a sign pointing down a road, and it said Chemical Plants.  I'm beginning to think Louisiana is bipolar.

Errands
Since I'd missed the plantation tour, I had extra time and was glad I'd located a grocery store, where I stopped, and a Chase Bank branch, where I also stopped.  Nice to be back in a state where Chase is willing to operate - it's been months.

As I drove to the campground, I found a lot of traffic that hadn't been there an hour before.  Then I saw police out directing traffic and was so focused on navigating the mess I didn't realize what was going on.  My first clue was when the cop directed me off my side street across the main road and into the state park, and I noticed I was passing huge parade floats.  A Mardi Gras parade, and it looked like a big one.  I was so surprised it didn't occur to me to try to find what the parade route would be so I could watch.  I'm sorry I missed it.

I saw something in the state park I don't remember seeing before.  They had signs warning drivers of "speed tables."  They'd widened and flattened the top of a speed bump, so it'll still slow you down but won't take out your axle or unbalance the RVs going across them.

The campground was nearly full - it's a Saturday, after all.  But the campsites are quite far apart and paved, so it's very pleasant.