The 2004 Adventure, January 30 2004, Louisiana Close, and I Mean CLOSE, Parking

It starts raining at 4:20 AM (I was out taking the dogs potty when it started). By 8 AM it is a steady rain, Al is trying on raincoats. Now that is really newsworthy, as no one I know hates a rain coat like he does. He will carry an umbrella in a little drizzle, but hates rain coats. I on the other hand, have no use for a umbrella, but have no qualms about donning a raincoat on appropriate occasions. We have to hookup and get out of this campground and head west, but first I want to check my email. I don’t think he is too happy about this, but relents, and oh, goodie, when I have finished, the rain has stopped. We get to hookup sans raincoats, high and dry, thank you very much.

We have no interest in repeating the push and surge of I 10, so, having discussed this with others around the campground, decide to go south by southwest, and then north by northwest on Louisiana 90 (some day to be I 49). This takes us over the Mississippi River, through bayou country. There are cedar swamps that run for miles. The road, in places, is in reality a long long long bridge. Miles and miles of bridges, I believe they call them causeways. Very interesting. We marvel at the engineering of all these bridges and what effort it must have taken to build the roads.

We join I 10 back at Lafayette, Louisiana, heading due west. Along this route we see rice planting. There are fields surrounded with low borders of dirt, the fields are flooded. I don’t think we have ever seen rice growing before, so this provides another interesting site.

But, as usual, the event of the day, is arrival at the new campground. We have chosen a Louisiana State Campground. (Just for the record, we have been calling all campgrounds we visit to be sure that this rather large 5er will fit on their sites. Better safe than sorry, specially at the end of a long travel day!) When we arrive, they tell us, if we cannot get our rig in the site, there are no other sites available, their attitude is a bit stinky. The campsite is long enough for us, and surrounded by LOTS of huge trees. It is hard to get the rig in the site and not hit trees on the way in, it is so narrow that we have to move the trailer around a number of times to get to the point where all the slides will open and not hit trees. We barely have room to park the truck, in fact, one door on the truck cannot be opened as it will hit a tree. At one point between the trailer and the tree I can barely walk through, only about 2 inches to spare at my shoulders. Tomorrow we will take photos. We will laugh about this soon, but tonight we are tired and a tad stressed.

I think it took us 30 to 45 minutes just to back into the site, if it did not take that long, it sure felt like it! We actually put the slides out before we unhooked, to see if the living room slide would open, or hit a tree. Why unhook if we are gonna have to hook back up and move it. The other campers were very nice and helpful, one even moved his picnic table so we could pull forward, he laughed, said we could pull right into his rig’s front room, and we almost did! Pulled right under his awning and about 5 inches from his side wall. We have parked in other spots through our camping years that were more of a challenge than this one, but this ranks in the top 5 for difficulty. From what we saw, the campground and state park are very pretty.

So ends another day of the ADVENTURE of 2004. Rather aptly named we believe, as a day can turn into an adventure quickly.

Here is Al standing between a tree and the side of the 5er.

Note his shoulders are touching on both sides.