You know you're wandering in Louisiana . . .

You know you are wandering in Louisiana when the first thing you see at the entry of the local Walmart is a display of large bags of seasoning for a Crawfish, Shrimp, and Crab boil. It must be our lucky day, because it's even on sale.

You know you are wandering in Louisiana when the next display at Walmart is Tony Chachere's creole seasoning and Savoie's old fashioned roux. That's two more items that Walmart doesn't usually carry--much less spotlight at the front of the store.

We're here at Walmart to do some shopping for things that we need, which happens to include paper goods. This is our idea of hoarding since we live in an RV--one four-pack of toilet paper, and two rolls of paper towels. Most people are going to be sad when they get home and see that the precious toilet paper they finally found is one-ply paper. But living in a motor home, that's what we always buy. We couldn't help but notice that almost all the carts in the store were brimming with more.

You know you're wandering in Louisiana when the roads are narrow and the asphalt patches are patched again. We've been driving many miles on the back road highways of Louisiana, and we have to say that it seems to be one of the worst state road systems we've ever experienced. This picture highlights some of the patching jobs we've seen over and over. This highway, however, is unusually wide by Louisiana's standards. Most roads aren't wide enough to paint that outside white line. We've seen much worse roads, but Denisa didn't think to take pictures of this not-very-picturesque topic.

We've been driving these roads while we explore southern Louisiana, as we move from one remote campground to the next. Today we are on the way to our next remote stop in Marksville, Louisiana--where the parish court house is so historic it has three historic landmark signs out front.

We have moved from Cajun country in the south to an Indian reservation in Northern Louisiana. We found a very nice RV park behind the Tunica-Biloxi tribe's Paragon Casino. At half-price Passport America rates, it was quite a good value for a first-rate new RV park. We walked the board walk that connects the campground to the tribe's museum. The board walk is close to one mile in length, taking us over the watery marsh through the trees.

Once we got to the museum, we found that it was closed because of the Covid-19 virus. So we returned to the boardwalk for the mile walk back to the motor home. This impressive system has another mile of boardwalk that you can barely see through the trees in the picture below.

We were entertained by the fast lizards darting across the boards in front of us. These two guys were easier to photograph, because they were focused on each other instead of a couple of walkers with a camera. We watched as they continued to circle each other . . . staring each other down . . . getting closer with each rotation . . . until one grabbed the other and flung him off the rail. It was a national geographic moment right here in Marksville, Louisiana!

It is the only sporting event we'll be watching, as college basketball's March Madness and the NBA season have been cancelled. That's been followed by the Master's golf tournament, Nascar, hockey, baseball . . . Sitting here in small-town America, we watch as the news reports more changes that are being made around us. Two months ago, who would have ever guessed that Disneyworld would be closed, or that colleges and public schools would be suspending classes all over the country? It's a crazy time we're living in as we wander here in rural Louisiana watching as history is made around us.

But we think our life style is one of the best ways to avoid contact with Covid-19 virus. While Marksville doesn't seem to have any big tourist attractions, it is surrounded by miles of wildlife areas. We spent one afternoon at Spring Bayou State Wildlife Management Area, 17 miles west of town.

We didn't find any trails to hike, and only one other vehicle in the parking lot. That water sure looks nice, so we are glad that we always have our inflatable kayak with us. Even though its late in the day and cloudy, we aired up the boat and got it on the water.

You know you're wandering in Louisiana when the best kayaking is in the bayou. We love the tall cypress trees that thrive with their roots in the water. We found calm coves that perfectly reflect those straight cypress trunks in the water.

One of the interesting things about these trees are the knobs that grow around them. We read that scientists don't know the purpose of these cypress knees, but they are everywhere at this wildlife refuge.

The only thing that seems to be missing in this beautiful wildlife refuge are wildlife! Even though we paddled several miles in different directions, we saw only a couple animals. You know you're living in Louisiana when you hear a big splash, and automatically know it was an alligator. We saw only one alligator, but we heard several more alligator-size-splashes. We also got an alligator-sized nudge on the bottom of the boat as we paddled, even though we never saw the culprit. 

We had to note that the forest surrounding the water seemed to be free from birds. We normally wouldn't include a picture of an osprey so far away, but this was our only bird sighting in our afternoon at the wildlife area. It's almost as if the animals are self-quarantining from this Covid-19 virus as well!

It was a nice afternoon on the water, and a lovely way to spend a day when the world is in pandemic mode. As the sun was getting low in the sky, it was time to head back to the car and the comfort of our traveling home here in Louisiana.

That evening we watched the news. You know you are wandering in Louisiana when you notice that the local news channel has a crawfish report. They compare the price of five pounds of crawfish at twenty different markets in the area. We know that we are happy to be wandering in Louisiana!