Welcome to Louisiana!

After our two-night stay at Walter Umphrey park on the water, it didn't take long to get to our next state. Last night's campground was in Texas on the west side of this tall bridge. We walked to the edge of our park to get a better look at that bridge.

After we crossed that bridge this morning, we were officially welcomed to Louisiana. For our Cajun friends, that would be "Bienvenue en Louisiane."

We've decided to take the southern route across Louisiana this time. This is highway 82, and it has those dots on the map that indicates that this is a scenic byway. It's so scenic that at times we could look out our big motor home windshield and see the Gulf of Mexico right beside us.

We have a planned stop during today's travels. Mark found a parking place for the motor home, and we headed for our last walk on the beach. Four years ago we were at Holly Beach, Louisiana, amazed at the number of great sea shells we found. It was one of the highlights of 2016! So we had to stop again to see if we could still be amazed in 2020.

We did find some nice shells on this beach. It was nice to wander along Holly Beach and find some of God's wonders just waiting for us to pick them up.

While Denisa was wandering on the beach, Mark noticed ahead that a pickup was stuck in the sand. The tracks in the soft sand were long and deep. He headed that way to see if he could help.

This man had planned to go fishing, but found himself stuck instead. He had been working, and looking for a way out for over an hour. Mark went right to digging on the side that was deepest in the sand.

They had a few boards for traction, and they gained a few feet every time they dug a new path. After 15 minutes or so, he finally got enough traction to get to safe footing.

So our stop at Holly Beach ended up being a little longer than we had planned. Then we were back on Highway 82, heading straight east across the bottom edge of Louisiana. We crossed over several of these draw bridges. We're not sure how often the highway must be raised for passing boats, but we got a green light at each of our draw bridges today.

When we got to the intracoastal waterway, it was too long for a draw bridge. So we drove the motor home onto the second ferry this week, and sailed safely to the other side.

This stretch of highway is in a flood plane, and everything is built on stilts. That includes houses and stores. It also includes three-story schools like the one pictured below. We failed to get a picture, but it also includes a little white church with a steeple.

We're finding that Louisiana doesn't waste any asphalt when making roads. There is no shoulder on this road, and we've even traveled some that don't even have a white line on the outside. It seems like we've passed through the scenic sections, as all we could see for miles now was the tall sea grass on both sides.

We were glad when our views opened up to open fields. We are now in crawfish country. The fields have been flooded, and each dot out there is a crawfish trap.

This field has deeper water, but we can still clearly see the tops of the traps. We visited with a local, who explained that the wire traps under the water are baited with cut fish. The crawfish are lured in thru openings that are designed to be difficult to exit. Most farmers check the traps daily, and we found miles and miles of these flooded fields as we traveled.

We finally arrived to our destination--Palmetto Island State Park. Those fan-shaped bushes in front and behind the motor home are the park's signature palmetto plants.

We scored a double site when we made our reservation. Site #79 has a flat and spacious spot for our motor home. If you look closely, you can see that it has a separate space just for our car. This state park opened in 2010, and we could tell it was newer than most of the public parks where we have camped. The sites are level, long, and have 50 amp power.

As soon as we got the motor home parked, we headed out on the nature trail that connects the campground to the nature center. It was lovely and wide and dry, and lined with those signature palmetto plants.

It didn't take long before all those adjectives that describe a good trail, suddenly disappeared. Now the trail is no longer wide (as we were struggling to find our way through those palmetto branches) . . .

or dry (as we sloshed through the standing water and the icky mud). Yeah, this trail is no longer "lovely" either.

We kept thinking it was going to get better, and that the nature center must be just around the next curve. But instead, we ended up having to retrace our muddy footsteps all the way back to the road. For some reason, Mark kept taking pictures of Denisa, slogging through the mud.

It wasn't a great welcome to our new campground. But we are liking it here anyway. Welcome to Louisiana!