displaced in LA

Buddy: You know it's bad when the crawfish come up to your camper with their little claws raised to the sky wanting in with you.........if I just had water boiling.....hmmmmm.

The Flood of 2016.

Sunday morning, August 14th, Buddy walked down toward the office to see how bad it was, the lake was out of its boundaries, joined up with the adjacent bayou, water as far as you could see through the trees.

The rain had stopped but the news said the local bayou would crest the next day at 24 feet, a record level. So he decided he better get out while he could in the truck and leave the camper there. This picture was taken from the road at the exit after he plowed through with his truck, water up to the bottom of the doors. He called to say he made it out, "I took some pictures looking back after I made it to the other side, not sure if they took though because my hands were shaking."

He turned north out of the campground and made his way up and around and down I-49 which was down to one lane, closing up fast. And made it to a motel nearer the jobsite, far from natural waterways. Safe and sound and dry.

The campground posted this picture of the entrance looking down the driveway toward the office on Sunday evening.

and these on Monday afternoon, August 15th, near the office

The bayou has crested now and the water will take a while to recede. 

So he will go back to the campground maybe this weekend to see how everything fared. Our camper is in one of the higher areas of the campground, not a lakefront site thankfully. 

Luckily the job site fared well and work goes on.

Meanwhile back at home… the insurance guy says we are covered for flood or water damage on our travel trailer, just let him know.

Just another day in the paradise that is southern LA, and another reason to get the heck out of there!

precious stones

Here in the mountains, stone is a part of life. Just try to plow a field or garden or even dig a hole for your mailbox, you will hit rock. Evidence of old garden patches and fields can be found when walking through the woods, identified by the stone walls or piles surrounding them, stones culled out by the horse-drawn plow and stacked up along the edges.

In southern Louisiana there is no natural stone. So how do you build anything? How do you make a driveway? How do you cover a truck stop parking lot before paving? Who do you call?

Buddy was elated this week when they were finally ready for the stone after months of fighting with the 'crappy' soil there, soil that had to be removed from site down to 3 feet deep and replaced with somewhat better soil which then had to be mixed with different minerals just to make it stop crawling and be more compactible to meet specifications.

Anyway, back to the stone…

Buddy: The stone is finally here, tractor trailer loads of it coming in, it looks great!

Me: Where do they have to haul it from?

Buddy: It comes from Baton Rouge.

Me: That's pretty far to haul gravel, over an hour.

Buddy: Oh that is just where they get it off barges from the Mississippi River, it is all shipped in, there are no quarries here.

Me: What? Gravel coming in on barges? From where? Isn't it too heavy?

Buddy: That was the cheapest option, the other one was to get stone that came from the Gulf up the Atchafalaya River, but it would have to come through the lock system and that made it cost more.

Me: So how much does it cost, say compared to around here?

Buddy: At home we can call and get a load of gravel for around $15 a ton, here we are paying $35/ton.

This is of course in contrast to the last job he built in Oklahoma, where they hit rock every day and even the Love's rep would come by with his trailer to get giant landscape stones.

Dirt and stone, things we take for granted here, hard packed red clay and rocks are the things to contend with when digging here in Georgia, making a good firm foundation.

Here if your dirt driveway needs gravel you just call and a dump truck of crushed stone comes from one of the local quarries. Years ago all the driveways around here were covered with a pretty white gravel from Whitestone, GA (which is getting into the local marble vein). Now most of the gravel is quarried up at Cherry Log, and is gray granite.

But it comes right out of the earth here locally, just bust up one of the mountains and it makes great gravel, our own natural resource, precious stones.

So the next time you are trying to dig, be thankful for the dirt and rocks, it could be worse, you could be in southern LA where the soil is only good for growing rice and crawfish.

partied out

Camping in southern Louisiana is like no where we have ever been. The locals start trickling in on Thursday afternoon, and by Friday noon there is a line of RVs out the driveway waiting to check in. RVs pulling trailers of course with the camping essentials in tow - golf carts and coolers. 

The beach here at Lakeview is a local tradition going back to the 1960s, families that grew up swimming at this beach are bringing their kids and grandkids now. It is VERY popular, the only place around for swimming (without gators). 

The sand is trucked in, the palm trees and tiki bar and giant water floats make it fun. The campground office/store has a constant line of folks wanting to pay $ to swim, rent floats, get ice cream on a stick. 

They come for the day or the weekend or the week or the month. This is their little oasis in the big swamp of life.  

The park is full to overflowing every weekend in the summer, they come to get away from their working life, they come to get together with family and friends, they come to cruise around in their souped up 'camping buggies', they come to party. Big groups arrange their RVs of all sizes and shapes so that all the doors face a central location with all the tables in the middle, the golf carts are charged up, music playlist ready to blast. 

All of this is fun to watch, the parents teaching little kids to ride bikes, folks playing volleyball on the beach, dads and sons walking down to the lake with fishing poles in hand... it is all fun until dark.

Dark is when the grownups really get going, The decibel level of the whoops and hollers and booming music directly correlates to the amount of alcohol consumed, and all of it gets gradually louder and louder throughout the evening and usually goes until about 2 a.m. 

We finally learned to turn on the AC unit over our bed (the one that we don't usually use at night because it is so loud) and it works pretty well to drown out the noise just outside our camper door and windows. 

Kids learn from their parents, whether it be riding a bike, or fishing, or how to party. So if one were to come back here in 15-20 years, those little sunburned kids will be partying to all hours, blasting their music, staggering around and yelling, carrying on family traditions. 

Heaven help them if they ever go on vacation outside of Louisiana, there will be a rude awakening about camping in general, rules, and quiet time. I am reminded of the time we were reprimanded by the ranger at Glacier NP when we ran our diesel truck one morning a little before quiet time ended :)

Sunday is our favorite time here in the campground, our home away from home. Because that is when the party animals are all packing up and leaving out. We want to stand at the exit, direct traffic, and wave Bye Bye!

the party is over

the beer coolers are empty

the golf cart battery is dead

the kids are sunburned

the dogs are tired

time to go home

just another Sunday at the campground

the party is over

So is the circle of life here in LA, work all week, party all weekend, it works for them, and maybe there is a lesson in there for the rest of us. 

But we are about partied out and can't wait to get home to our quiet little cabin in the mountains, where sometimes the sounds of katydids through the open window is deafening, but oh what music it is to our ears. 

choices

When you get up in the morning you have a decision, 

to have a good day or a bad day.

This thought comes from a news story this morning about a local school principal who greets the car drop off line every morning with his karaoke, singing and dancing as he opens the car doors, the kids' faces light up at this sight.

You can avoid the lake for fear of snakes

 or watch the beauty of a bird in flight.

You can look out and see the cloudy sky

 or look closer and see the sunrise peeking through.

You can look out and see weeds growing up through your junk yard, 

or look a little closer and see roses and lilies.

 I choose to have a good day!

strolling

cattails at the little creek (this is where I see the 2 snakes sunning sometimes) eek!

the old dance barn is just so darn photogenic

and the back lot looks a lot like ours at home, 

stuff saved forever in case you might need it someday

My morning stroll around the campground, lots to see. It is nice and quiet here Mondays through Thursdays, then there is the weekend... these Cajun folks really like to party! They have a great attitude on life and what is important. 

Even though we are full-timers here at the campground, we have had to move a couple of times. The weekenders have priority, a lot of return business and they like to reserve certain sites for their big families. And their golf carts... 

It is fun to just sit out and watch the campground fill up starting on Thursday afternoon. Last week there was this huge motorhome pulling a jeep pulling a trailer. A lot of times there will be a truck pulling a camper pulling a trailer (for the golf cart). These folks cannot live without their golf carts, used to cruise around the campground, used to drive up to the beach for swimming. This is the only place we have ever experienced this phenomenon. You never see anyone walking, just riding, too funny :)

mudbugs

I know we have been here 5 months now and still haven't tried crawfish, well until this week.

A co-worker brought some to Buddy at work on Monday morning, leftovers from the weekend, cold boiled crawfish. Buddy was shown the proper way to push and pull and pinch to get the goods outta the shell. And he tried them and liked them!

So yesterday he went to the recommended crawfish shack down the road from the job to get 5# of boiled crawfish with accompanying taters and corn. But they took care of him and he came home with 8# pounds of regular size and 3# of large.

I had to get over the fact that they really did look like giant bugs, all those legs and antennae, but I too tried and liked them… okay.

That is what we had for supper last night. Very messy - a lot of work for a little meat. Actually too much work for what you get. The taste was good, kinda like shrimp.

 So we have been there, done that, check it off the list. Now we just need a golf cart to cruise around the campground and we will be almost local.

at the beach

an oasis in rural LA

filling up the swimmin' hole with cold well water

aliens have landed

Lakeview Park and Beach, Eunice, LA

The beach here at Lakeview Park is a 1 acre large swimming area with fresh well water pumped into it daily. The water is cold and refreshing. Beach opens April 23rd!

laid back in LA

We have yet to attend the barn dance here at the campground. One, it is from 8-12 and we are already in our PJs by that time, and two, we can hear it just fine in our camper, yes very loud until midnight, and three, Buddy has been working 6 days a week and is pretty tired by the time he gets home on Saturday evening, just show him the recliner please.

Other than the weekly barn dances and rowdy weekend campers, it is pretty quiet around here. 

The turtles like to catch some rays where they can, all crowded together on this one floating log, they usually jump off when I approach, but caught them this time!

sunrise

life is good in rural Louisiana, farm country, back roads, friendly folks

coordination

going vertical finally!

crowded site - one city block in the small town with no room to spare

buried tanks

it's all about coordination - what goes where and when

and trying to get all the kiddies to work well together

Buddy loves his job :) 

Creole Nature Trail

Saturday was a beautiful day, some clouds, some sun, a good day to get out and explore. The campground was overfull with families gathering for Easter, egg hunts, games, music, lots of kids on bikes. So another reason to get out on the road.

The Creole Nature Trail a.k.a. Louisiana's Outback is a scenic drive through the very southwest Louisiana. It was nice and peaceful, we left the bayous and swamps and headed south - not much traffic at all, long stretches of open road, gulf beaches, grasslands, canals. 

Sabine National Wildlife Refuge - walkways into the grasslands, gators, birds. We met some nice folks that told us you used to see gators all along this canal until they turned it into a refuge, now you might see one or two. 

We passed by this pull off and had to turn around after seeing the pink birds, thought they were flamingoes, then maybe thought they were pelicans because of the beaks, but after an internet search for 'pink pelican' discovered they are spoonbill roseates. 

Way down past the bayous and rice fields and sugarcane and grasslands we found the Gulf Coast, lots of seashells by the seashore.

The Creole Nature Trail was described as an 180 mile scenic drive, at the end of the day our odometer said 240. The description also said to fill up with gas before starting out, which we did along with packing a lunch. 

We crossed several shipping channels going between the gulf and inland, some with drawbridges, some with very high bridges for ships to pass under, and one with a ferry. We sat and waited on the ferry, first in line, eating our PBJs. A great day exploring the diverse countryside. 

more PIX