East Houston, TX

Hammond, Louisiana greeted us this morning with a continuation of rain and decidedly chilly weather at 47 degrees along with lots of mud.   We get up early enough to get on the road by 8:45 a.m. to put this weather behind us we hope.

I-10 is busy with lots of trucks and cars making the rain on the windshield even worse with the water they project up from their tires.  A short distance down the road on our right in a field we see what appears to be hundreds of white, identical travel trailers parked in rows in a field.   A few are missing some siding and insulation is in view.  I wonder, “Are these the product of Katrina’s emergency housing?  Does the Government still own them and store them in this condition?  If yes, why are they not kept in good repair, stored in possibly some unused military or FEMA warehouses to protect them and made ready for the next inevitable disaster?”  I would love to know the story of these campers and the reality behind this view.  I want to believe the Government would not squander assets this way, but I also believe it is a real possibility.

We cross the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge and this river has high waters as well under stormy skies.  Now the road becomes a raised bridge for miles over swamps with standing water around the trees and marshy bayous of small streams and lakes flow into the canal below our road.  The trees are gray and without leaves with moss trailing from their boughs like silvery sheets giving the swamp a ghostly look in the rain.  My imagination runs wild with the tales of Tom Sawyer and Cajun lore sprinkled with a few pirate and ghost stories thrown in for good measure.  We pass near the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge, a 15,000 acre preserve found about 30 miles west of Baton Rouge.  Established in 1984, it is part of the largest bottomland, hardwood swamp in the country.

Soon we see signs for Cajun Gumbo restaurants and other eateries touting they have the best “Boudin” (a type of sausage) and “Cracklings” (pork or chicken fat trimmings that have been deep fried to a golden brown.)  The gumbo is tempting but we continue on and soon we are passing through flooded rice fields and crawfish ponds near Crowley and Eunice, LA.  Normally the fields are flooded three times, the first occurring in April.  Mother Nature has helped out this year flooding them in late February.  One wonders what effect that will have on the crop?  The crawfish eat parasites that grow on the stalk of the rice plants helping to increase rice yields then hibernate during the hot summer months while the rice matures.  After the rice is harvested in October, the crawfish come out of the drying mud in the fields and they too are harvested in traps set to collect them.

Climbing the high bridge over the Lake Charles Reservoir we come down the other side to pass a BBG oil refinery complex before crossing the Sabine River into Texas.  We stop at the Texas Welcome Rest Stop and collect a map of Texas, view a swamp situated behind it and buy a candy bar for the road.  The swamp has a raised wooden walkway to several interpretive signs, but it is so cold we elect not to walk out to read them.  Maybe on the trip back we will have a chance to do so.  Intermittent rain and cold temperatures have stayed with us throughout the day and we are grateful to reach Houston East RV Resort and quit for the day.