State of Louisiana

When we left Texas, we traveled across the northern portion of Louisiana, stopped just for the night, then kept going right into Mississippi. I’m sure there’s plenty to do in northern portion of the state of Louisiana, but our destination was the bayous and swamps of southern Louisiana. So after  visiting Jackson, Mississippi for the week, we headed south to the New Orleans area.

There aren’t many places to boondock in the east, so when we can find them, we’ll take them. Louisiana has a campground that is located in a spillway. Should the water from the Mississippi River overflow (as in a storm surge) the gates of the spillway would be opened to allow the water to flow into Lake Pontchartrain a few miles away. The New Orleans area is surrounded by levees, berms, and spillways to keep water from flooding the area since most of it lies below sea level. 

The image below (not mine) shows a cross-section of what is going on here. The Mississippi sits about 12 feet above sea level in this area while Lake Pontchartrain, being connected to the Gulf of Mexico, is at sea level. Since the land sits below the Mississippi River elevation, you can see how a break in the levee would flood and destroy the whole area. This is also why when the levees broke during Hurricane Katrina, the city suffered a catastrophic loss of life and property.

That said, no storms were due in the area – meaning the campground was not in danger of flooding. However, we did run into a snag. It was raining cats and dogs the day before and the day of our arrival. The campsite I had reserved was supposed to be on a little grassy spot beside a small lake in the spillway, but due to the amount of rain the area received, the ground was soaked and muddy. You know what I’m going to say next, don’t you? Yeah, we got stuck.  

That Louisiana mud was thick and soft and with the combined weight of the truck and trailer, we sunk right into it. Had there not been the need to get unstuck as quickly as possible due to the imminent setting sun, it would have been a good opportunity to give the kids a lesson on the different types of soil we find in the east as opposed to the hard, rocky soil we find in the west. After all, we got to see it up close.

We were also too busy getting unstuck to get any video or pictures of the event, but after an hour of rocking back and forth on our leveling blocks, and gunning it back up to the road we eventually dug ourselves out of that hole. Being covered in mud with no other source of fresh water for the week except for the 80 gallons of water we just filled the tank up with was not an ideal situation. You could say that the rest of our week stank, but I think it was just us because the rest of the week was really neat.

Our week was packed with educational and interesting sites, tours, museums, and unique Louisiana experiences. 

Before I get into all of that, I wanted to show you the busy Mississippi River. We haven’t seen the northern parts of the Mississippi River yet, but in the southern portion, near the mouth of the river, the waterway is jam packed with industrial barges, tug boats, and other ships making their way up and down its wide banks. We sat at the edge of the water for a while and watched the ships the ships pass. I don’t know if they have lanes they must travel in like a road does for cars, but they seemed to know their way like a choreographed dance upon the water. 

World War 2 Museum

If you want to visit a World War 2 museum in the U.S., this is the one you need to see. It is arguably the best as far as the collection of artifacts, interaction, and telling the story of what happened up to and during the war with an exhibit for each of the axis powers.

The kids and I learned so much from touring the museum. The amount of information presented can be overwhelming but it’s done in such a well thought out manner. This is a place you could spend your entire day going through.  

They even had an enigma machine. I’ve heard the stories about the machines and watched movies about them, but had never before seen one in person. Many allied troops died to get their hands on one. Having this little device proved vital to winning the war with Germany.

If you’re visiting the New Orleans area, this is a must stop place to visit.

Mardi Gras World

Mardi Gras is a festival and parade that occurs once a year only in New Orleans. They close down the shops and the schools for the week and everyone comes out to celebrate. Apparently the festival has catholic roots. The celebration starts on “Fat Tuesday”, the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday the beginning of lent, 40 days before Easter. Traditionally, the time before lent was spent binging on all the rich, fatty foods that remained in people’s homes in anticipation of several weeks of fish and fasting during the time of lent.

The first Mardi Gras was held March 3, 1699 when the founding French explorers of New Orleans and the Biloxi areas landed on the shores and declared the area for the French King Louis XIV. When the Spanish took control of the area, they banned the festival citing rowdiness and revelry. It was later reclaimed in 1837 and floats were introduced in 1857. 

In today’s celebrations, people wear masks, throw beads, and eat King Cake ( a kind of praline flavored bread with icing). It has also retained its rather rambunctious and drunken merriment from earlier times. 

The festival is something I would never attend myself due to its lascivious nature. We did however visit a place called Mardi Gras World to learn about the festival and see how they make the floats and decorations that go into the parade.

To make them light enough to pull on the floats, they make them out of styrofoam, cover them in paper mache and then give them a realistic coating of paint. There were some really neat designs in the collection… probably hundreds of styrofoam creations crammed into the warehouse. Ellie loved Princess Tiana. Creations ranged from Clint Eastwood to Woody Woodpecker and everything in between. 

There were a couple non-appropriate ones as well (such as the famous Marilyn Monroe skirt picture) and because of such I wouldn’t recommend visiting Mardi Gras World to others.

Oil Rig Museum

The Oil Rig Museum is a one-of-a-kind place. It’s the only oil rig in the U.S. that is open to the public. This oil rig drilled the waters of the gulf for 30 years before being moved and retired to the shores of the Atchafalaya River in Morgan City, Louisiana. It’s not only a museum, but also a training facility for those wanting to become a rig operator or driller.

A man who used to work on oil rigs as a diver was our tour guide.   

The oil rig is older and therefore out of date with the newer rigs on the ocean waters today. As such many of the amenities that the crew had back in the day have been updated to newer and better conditions. While they used to share quarters in orders of 4 per room (2 night shift and 2 day shift), today the rigs are larger and because of this, everyone gets their own room. 

The rig operator and drilling jobs used to be made up of mostly men due to the amount of physical, back-breaking labor working on a rig used to be, but today the conditions are much improved. Many of the updated rigs are computer controlled from an air conditioned structure and much of the workforce is split with both men and women.

The heart of the oil rig was the drilling platform. The crane overhead lowed the drill and the pipes into place as it drilled further and further into the seafloor to hit a pocket of oil. 

When the 30 days of work was up, the workers were granted 30 days rest. They would normally leave the oil rig by helicopter, but if it was too foggy or a storm was threatening, they would need to leave by boat. That’s when they would hop aboard “Billy” to be lifted off the rig, over the ocean and down on the boat for their travel to shore.

A few of the workers on board were part of the engine crew. Those were a select few of rather skinny guys who had to squeeze down these 24″ wide tubes, down several floors of width to reach the engine compartment at the bottom. They spent many hot hours down there ensuring the engines were running as they should be before coming back up to catch a break from heat and noise of the engines.

We stopped to see these amazing cypress swamp trees before going to the Oil Rig Museum. There were hundreds of them in a park, still green, with hanging foliage. I just had to snap a few pictures.