Louisiana - Day 9 - to the mouth of the Mississippi

Bayou Segnette State Park
Sunday, 9 February 2020

There are a lot of birds in this campground.  I saw a flock of at least 50 Robins; a Great Egret was fishing in a swamp not far from our campsite; I heard a Pileated Woodpecker pecking away at a tree; lots of chickadees all over.

The campsites are on two loops of a half-mile each.  In the middle of each loop is swampy land where there must be lots of life - I know there are frogs because I heard them.

Part of the state park is a heavily-used boat launch into the bayou, so I drove over to take a look.

that sign says this bayou is a manatee area

This is what Bayou Segnette looks like.  Bigger than I'd thought, looks more like a river to me.

Today I wanted to find the end of the Great River Road and the mouth of the Mississippi.

today's route

Louisiana has a narrow peninsula of land that's split in half lengthwise by the Mississippi.  There's a string of small towns along the road - Belle Chasse, Cedar Grove, Ironton, West Pointe à la Hache, Port Sulfur, Jesuit Bend (settled by Jesuits in the 1700s who were the first to farm satsumas here), Myrtle Grove (a community built on stilts), Buras, Boothville and Venice.

Of course there's a levee all along the west side of the road between it and the river, but I was surprised to find that along part of the road there was a levee along the east side as well.  But you can see from the map that the land gets very narrow toward the end, with plenty of water on both sides.

I'd barely started down the road - it's State Route 23 - when I came to a bridge/tunnel that I had no warning about.  The southbound side of the road went through the tunnel, and I saw no signs at all telling me what the clearance was.  All I could do was hope that it'd be high enough for us since Rt. 23 seemed to be the only road south, so trucks must pass through there.  I found out later that not all trucks do use that route, but the clearance was 13.5' so I was okay.  I don't care much for tunnels and this one went down quite steeply - very unnerving.  Fortunately, it was short.

The northbound traffic got the bridge - a very steep one - but at least I could see it coming so had some warning.  A sign northbound told me these were needed for the Intracoastal Waterway that passed through the peninsula.  The tunnel, by the way, was built in 1956 and was the first fully automated tunnel in the world (it automatically changed the air in the tunnel every 2 minutes).  The bridge wasn't built until 1968, when the traffic level got too great for the tunnel.  I can't tell you how very glad I was to realize that I didn't have to cope with that deep, narrow tunnel back when it was 2-way traffic, instead of 2 lanes 1 way as it is now.

When I looked up the Intracoastal Waterway to get some information (3,000 miles long, from Boston to Brownsville), I found a pending lawsuit in Louisiana brought by bordering landowners who are suing the US Corps of Engineers.  This link is to a brief summary of the interesting circumstances that led to the suit.   http://icwwclaims.com

A sign told me I was now in Plaquemines Parish.

I passed a Naval Air National Reserve Base.  And a Chevron gas plant.  Also a Phillips 66 oil refinery and the Chevron Oronite plant (manufactures plastics).

The road was lined with massive power lines that went on for miles.  I forgot to notice where they were headed, why such enormous amounts of power would be needed.

Houses were strung all along the road, including some very fancy ones that backed right up to the levee (demonstrating more faith in the Corps of Engineers than I have).  I passed Bobby's Citrus Farm.  In fact, I passed several citrus orchards along the way.

I saw something on the side of the road that I was afraid was a dog, but it turned out to be a big sack of French bread loaves, the very long ones.  A much happier sight to see.

I went by what looked like a major shipping operation at International Marine Terminals.  I saw an acre of chutes and conveyor belts, and huge piles of coal.

these are just some of the contraptions in use there

I passed fields with a lot of cows, a few horses, scattered trees across some very flat land.  Marine support businesses all along the levee.

I realized when I passed a house decorated for Mardi Gras that I haven't seen any Valentine's Day decorations anywhere.  It's all Mardi Gras everywhere.

I passed several borrow pits, which surprised me because I always think of them as being in hilly country.  But I know they were borrow pits because they had signs saying so.

I passed a sign indicating I could cross the levee for the road to Grand Bayou Indian Village.  But when I looked it up I found that this community is one of the few tribal communities accessible only by boat.  They're trying to get federal recognition of their tribe, but I'm thinking that might need a Democrat in the White House, Republicans not seeming too responsive to such issues these days (though they used to be).

I passed a lot of facilities labeled Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co., which I think sends liquified natural gas north from the Gulf Coast into the Midwest and East Coast.

Because the highly navigable Mississippi River was just over the levee, I kept seeing tops of big ships as they passed along the river, or stopped at service companies.










Almost from the beginning of the road, I was dealing with crosswinds, and they got much stronger as I went farther down the peninsula.  I had to pay attention to the road more than I wanted to, just to counteract those winds.

I passed South Plaquemines High School out in the middle of nowhere - I mean no communities nearby, which seemed odd except it must serve the whole peninsula, so I guess this was somewhere in the middle.  It had clearly been recently built, probably after Katrina.  The unusual thing about it is that, as you can see, it's completely elevated.  I don't think there's anything on the ground floor except pillars and the entrance.  The other side must have a great view of the Mississippi.

All the churches I passed along the way were having Sunday services and, based on the numbers of cars parked outside, were enthusiastically attended.

I passed the turn for Fort Jackson, site of a Civil War battle: it was a Confederate fort that was taken by the Union navy in 1862 and then used as a Union prison.  Katrina caused a lot of damage, destroying many of the historical exhibits and a lot of the fort's structure.  Though it had been declared a National Historic Landmark, the parish is apparently making no effort to restore it.  I think there's a Visitor Center, but I can't tell if what's left of the fort's still open or not.  A shame to let history slip away like that.

I saw pelicans, singly and in flocks.  I saw occasional Anhingas.

I saw a variety of houses from those sitting on a slab to those elevated to the 3rd story.

I passed a sign for Seatigers Spearfishing Rodeo, held annually in August.  Somehow I thought that had something to do with boats and sportfishermen, but the group says it's the oldest dive club in Louisiana.  Founded in 1959, they don't just scuba dive, they spearfish while they're down there.  They offer lots of prizes for various kinds of fish caught (speared) during this "rodeo" and I'm sure have a great time.

I passed several flying companies operating at small airfields, and their parking lots were jam-packed with parked pickup trucks.  I finally figured out they must be helicoptering workers out to oil rigs.

Toward the end of the road, the vegetation leaned heavily toward scrub trees and sea oats.

Venice
I'll say right now I don't think I ever found Venice - odd, since there's not a lot of land to lose it on.  There didn't seem to be more houses along the road near the end of it than I'd seen anywhere else along it.  At the end of Route 23, there's an ACE Hardware store that I think is still open, though it looked dusty and abandoned.  But there was a car parked in front of it when I drove back by.  Next door is a place that was once a restaurant but now is quite clearly closed.  And that was about it for the end of that road.

Of course, the road kept going for quite a way after that, and eventually I saw a road sign saying it was called Tidewater Road - which it certainly was because the water came right up to the road in places.  It kept going and going and I wasn't seeing anything more than the pickup-parked-by-the-roadside-and-a-fisherman-on-a-bucket outfit at intervals along the road.

Then suddenly I came to a High Water Warning sign by the road and decided I'd gone far enough.  But I still hadn't found Venice, so I turned down a road labeled Venice Boat Harbor Road.  That ended up at a boat harbor (surprise!) and a restaurant and little houses on stilts.

part of the shrimp fishing fleet, I think

The houses faced the water (just a few feet away) and most had boats or trucks parked underneath them.  My guesses are they either rent like condos at a beach or this is where some of the staff of the businesses live.

I don't actually think that's the Mississippi River all this is on.  I think not far past where Venice is/isn't is where it finally dumps into the Gulf of Mexico, and the roads I took from there are running along the little waterways that branch off it.  I think this might be part of what's called "The Jump" because it's the jumping-off point for fishing large numbers of species in those small waterways.  There's both salt- and fresh-water in those waterways so fish that live in both kinds of water can be found.  This article describes some of the incredible variety of species found here.   https://www.thejump.net/Venice-LA

Heading back north
I'm sure I saw a Bald Eagle - that white head and their size make it hard to confuse them with anything else.  And the bird book says they're common in winter along the Mississippi River and, in fact, live in this part of LA year round.  Pretty neat.

I took most of the photos (above) on my way back north, because the facilities were on the east side of the road.  Though it was a fairly good road with shoulders (for once), I still had no chance at all of getting out of the RV, which is why it figures in many of these.

The state park I'm staying in (which doesn't appear on the AAA map, for some reason) is in the town of Westwego.  On the radio today I heard them mention the 1977 disaster of a grain elevator exploding there, so I looked it up.  And it was a disaster: a 25-story grain elevator exploded and a concrete tower fell on a nearby office building; the shock waves  could be felt as far away as New Orleans and 36 people were killed 2 days before Christmas.  Turns out they still, 50 years later, don't know exactly what caused it because the explosion was so thorough there was no trace evidence left.  Their best guess is that an unusually high level of static electricity generated a spark that ignited the highly flammable grain dust.  It was one of several grain elevator explosions within 2 years, so Congress held hearings and revamped regulations.

Sometimes the history of the places I'm visiting isn't always easy to spot.  I just got lucky with this radio story.