currently in:  St. Bernard State Park, near New Orleans, LA

We've been slowing down the last few days and actually being tourists, since neither of us have been to Louisiana before. Our first day here we stopped at Mansfield State Historic Site, which was a Civil War battlefield. I think that the reason it is considered important around here is that the Confederates held the line here and prevented the Union from continuing on into Texas. So since the South won, more or less (both sides suffered tremendous casualties as was typical of Civil War battles), they made it into a historical park. We spent the night at Bayou Chicot State Park, which has a nice little network of trails, so I got in a morning run before we headed south again. (I also went running at Copper Breaks State Park in Texas. It's great to get in a little exercise considering that we spend most of the day on our butts driving.)

You may notice a large number of state parks on our itinerary. We love 'em. The campgrounds are relatively inexpensive and usually laid out pleasantly, with lots of room; most commercial campgrounds are twice the price or more and pack in the motorhomes like cars in a parking lot, with corresponding ambiance. So what if there's no cable TV hookup?  We don't have a TV, anyway.

Lafayette had no state park, but we pulled up at the ludicrously inappropriately named "Bayou Wilderness RV Park" (which looked like a beautifully landscaped, very large parking lot) and inquired about prices. When the woman at the desk said "$30" our faces fell - then she pulled out a map and showed us where the city campground was. $9 a night (with electricity!), only three other people in the 40-or-so spaces, and there was a really nifty nature center with observation deck (closed while we were there, but it looked like the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse), and a small network of trails. Far more wilderness-y, even though it was tucked away at the end of a subdivision behind some soccer fields.

In Lafayette we visited the Acadian Cultural Center to learn about Cajun history; then that evening we got some hands-on experience when Matt, a "coon-ass" friend of ours (I swear, that's what he calls himself!) who lives here took us to dinner at Prejeans for some Cajun food and music. The gumbo was awesome; we also had fried shrimp, crawfish, frog's legs, and alligator. Kind of hard to distinguish the distinct flavor under all that breading, and we both hit our fried-foods tolerance quickly, but it was tasty!

Matt also advised us to see Nottoway, the largest antebellum plantation house in Louisiana, on our way east. On our way there we crossed the Atchafalaya Swamp, which was rather cool; the highway was two parallel, perfectly straight lines, raised on pilings over green-scummed swampwater and a tangle of cypress. We also stopped in to see the Plaquemine Locks State Historic Site, where a lock with a 50-foot drop once connected the Mississippi River with a bayou waterway system that cut 125 miles off the trip from the Gulf to Baton Rouge. The old lockhouse was quite lovely, testament to a bygone philosophy of building that favored attractiveness over lowest-bidder functionality. Then we proceeded to the mansion to see how the other half (or more accurately, 1%) live. Big and elegant, and the most interesting thing to me was that much of the furniture was original, and the style was wildly ornate. The clawfoot tables even had toenails!

We had been planning to visit New Orleans today, but Britt got sick last night and has been feeling pretty miserable all day. Not sure that we'll take another day tomorrow to be tourists (assuming he's up for it) -Windom's being pulled out of the storage yard on Monday for us, so we'd like to be there by then - we'll see what happens tomorrow.

PS to all our old friends who have been leaving comments and dropping us email - we really appreciate it! Hopefully soon we'll be talking boat talk instead of this boring old RV talk. :-)