Beignets and Oysters

After spending a great weekend with Patricia and Bob at three rivers state park we headed down to the the beach and spent two nights at Grayton Beach where we enjoyed the tar free (as far as we could tell) white sand beaches.  We had a nice time relaxing, biking, and reading.  I managed to stay in my chair outside all day reading (as some random lady walking by kindly pointed out) the book Atlas Shrugged that Patricia had given Alexis and that I then stole.  After our respite we decided that it was beyond time that we get out of Florida.  Although we had a great time in parts the state has way too many old people and strip malls, this combined with the almost total lack of topography had us eager to explore another state.  In our haste to head west we ended up on yet another ferry.  I don't know how many ferrys there are along the Gulf Coast but this was the third or maybe fourth ferry ride, so I'm guessing we've managed to blindly stumble onto most of them.  We spent a night at a state park in Mississippi and then headed over to New Orleans.



We spent three nights at Fontaineblue State Park; the park turned out to be one of the nicest we've been to.  The first night we explored the park, checking out the ruins of an old sugar mill, and making a pineapple upside-down cake for my birthday.  The park was heavily damaged by Katrina but the park and volunteers had been busy planting new trees and repairing some of the old buildings.  The park, like many we found in the south, was originally built by the CCC and had a bathhouse and swimming pool before the hurricane. 



We spend two full days touring around New Orleans.  The first day we explored the French Quarter (like good tourists) having coffee and beignets at Cafe Du Monde (we noticed the line and figured that whatever everyone was waiting for must be good and it was), oysters at Acme (thanks Patricia and Bob), and crawfish etoufee at some random restaurant.  Lots of good sights and people watching although the best of the day was an older gentleman in a cowboy hat driving a brand new red Dodge Charger drinking a beer while a couple of frat boys on the sidewalk yelled "Sir, Sir, your drinking a beer while driving!" in a concerned voice; the man just smiled and drank his beer.  The second day in New Orleans we explored downtown and found that there was a Marti Gras parade in the afternoon.  While waiting for the parade to start we had a beer at the very pleasant Carousel Bar, the bar slowly revolves around the bartender.  Had fun watching the people and the parade (Alexis made some new friends) and getting a small taste of what New Orleans during Marti Gras official would be like.  On the way back to out camp we ran across another parade in the town of Slidell blocking our way home so we parked and enjoyed our second parade of the day.  We're now headed towards the Big Thicket in Texas, hopefully we don't get stuck.