Born on the Bayou....

Lake Charles, LA  January 25 - 30, 2013

It turns out the drive east out of Texas is much easier than the trek west.  We made the six hour drive from Georgetown to Lake Charles, Louisiana in one day and arrived at the Quiet Oaks RV park.  Other than the requisite train rumbling by every hour it was actually pretty quiet.  Our first impression of Louisiana is flat and soggy.  We keep hearing about alligators, but didn't see a one.  I think they are a thing of the past just like the bears in the northwest.

Quiet Oaks RV park

We had a relaxing few days, catching up on laundry and household chores.  We took a drive on the Creole Nature Trail which was a sixty mile loop around the Lake Charles area.  It took us through farmland, neighborhoods, along the coast and through several wildlife refuges.  The only nature we really saw were birds.  We took the opportunity to use our new bird book (thanks Alex and Jacob) to practice our bird identifying skills.  We went into the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge visitor center to read about the area's wildlife and we were treated to a downhome Louisiana presentation we could barely understand.  We were hoping to drive the Pintail Wildlife trail in the Cameron Prairie NWR, but it was closed due to flooding from the three weeks of rain they had before we arrived.  We were treated to a ferry ride across a channel where the pelicans were plentiful.  Every stop along the trail was filled with families fishing and crabbing.  We found out they flood the rice fields during the winter to harvest the crawfish.

We drove into Dowtown Lake Charles to visit the Charpentier Historic District which is french for carpenter.  The house designs were unique in that the carpenters seldom held too closely to original designs, adding turrets, towers and wrap around porches for charm.  This style is known as "Lake Charles Style Architecture".  To be honest it was hard to find many of these houses as most have been allowed to fall into disarray.  We did see some that people had put time and money into to resurrect.  It seemed the district owes a lot to the local attorney's who have turned many of these homes into offices.  We attempted to try some crawfish at the well known Steamboat Bill's, but it was 3:00 and they didn't serve them until after 5pm - whatever! 

We used our final day to experience one of the many casinos in Louisiana.  We drove to the Coushatta Casino just a few miles up the road.  It was a huge complex complete with three hotels and a luxury RV park.  Inside it looked just like Vegas.  Lots of old people sitting smoking and pulling slot machine levers as fast as they could.  There were all the standard table games and a few new ones I had never heard of.  We just walked through and headed home - no room in the budget for gambling.

Coming soon.... Marksville then Houma, LA