South Louisiana, Before the Oil

I am very glad we got the opportunity to go to South Louisiana again before the oil arrived on the beaches.  We spent 2 nights at Grand Isle… beaches there are now closed due to oil.  Here are some of the things we did…

We spent lots of time doing this, and came back with a good collection of sea shells.

I took lots of bird pictures… they were everywhere!  I am so impressed with the sheer size of the LA brown pelicans, our state bird.

We went crabbing… we used a couple of crab nets and turkey necks tied to a string to catch crabs from the Elmer’s Island marsh..

We just parked on the side of the road and started catching!  We managed to find 15 nice crabs, and then attempted to boil then on a Coleman Stove on the picnic table… too much wind.  We ended up cooking potatoes and crabs in a huge pot on the small stove inside the camper… took FOREVER!  BOY!  Were they good!  This is the first time I was actually able to get into the crabs successfully.  Sorry there is no picture… poor blogger that I am… I FORGOT to take a picture of the crabs!  Talk about missing a blogging moment!

Shrimp boats were everywhere.

I LOVE the very creative names of some of the camps!

 

HMMM… Is there Spell-Check for sign painting??

We went to Avery Island… the Egret rookery is a very impressive sight!  There were about a thousand (I’m guessing here… it is HUGE and there were birds everywhere!) birds roosting there.

And we saw ‘gators!

We toured the Tabasco factory….

And we had a couple of occasions to eat some of these…

It is so sad to see the pictures of how the oil has ruined that area now… I am very thankful we had the opportunity to go when we did.  Those memories of the beautiful coast, abundant water fowl, and wonderful fisheries will have to last until the cleanup is complete, and the area recovers from this disaster.

So here is my trip report… I hope you enjoyed this photo tour!