The picnic area of the park is huge (the park itself is 2800 acres!) and makes up most of the park. Massive live oak trees, dripping with Spanish moss, dominate the park.
Nice walks take you out to the swamp area. This isn't solid ground under our boardwalk - these are floating swamp grasses.
We drove to one of the large parking lots in the park to hook up the car to the RV on the morning of our departure. We barely made it under the trees!
Our next stop was Sam Houston Jones SP at Lake Charles, a mere 200 miles westward.
Lots and lots of swamp and Cyprus trees here.
I love the Cyprus tree knees. We are familiar with them from the Dismal Swamp in NC.
A nice boardwalk gives great views of the swampy area.
The park also has a boat ramp.
Today was sight-seeing in the area. First to Lake Charles. A stop at the Visitor Center got us a good agenda. Luke tried to go "Mardi Gras", but just wasn't quite dressed for the occassion.
The Civic Center has a beautiful waterfront park. We liked this sculpture.
Across the lake you can see the business end of Lake Charles, the oil refineries.
The Carpentier Historic District is a 40 block area of the old houses in Lake Charles. The collection of diverse architecture is amazing. These homes go from small and simple
to medium and a bit Victorian
to large and very impressive!
The Town Hall, at the far end of the district, is a work of architecture itself.
We had to see the 375+ year old Sallier Oak. Not only is the oak unbelievably large, it also comes with it's own ghost stories and sordid gossip. Strange lights like flashes from muzzle flares of derringers are reported to be seen at the tree, a known site of several duels. Also, it seems that Charles Sallier (yes, the Charles of Lake Charles) had a young second wife who was caught under the tree with the pirate Jean Lafitte! Charles had a fit of rage, shot her, and ran. She lived because the bullet hit an amethyst broach she was wearing. The story goes that the chastened Charles forgave here and ultimately had 6 children with her.
We drove to Sulphur next. Ready for lunch, we researched for a "real" Cajun dinner - found one!
We shared a shrimp basket but the highlight of the meal was the appetizer course. Luke tried a Boudin ball. That is a rice and sausage filled ball that is deep fried. ugh. He said it was ok but ate only 1/2 of it. "I" had a pistolette roll with crayfish etouffee! THAT was perfect! Luke had 1/2 of it. Had we know how good it would be, we would have simply both had crayfish etouffee for lunch!
As you might imagine, Sulphur was founded on the sulphur mining business. The Brimstone Museum chronicles the history of the city and of sulphur mining. The best thing they have is an O gauge railway set up to show both the mining and business sides of town.
and town
The sulphur mining business was an expensive, time consuming, and deadly one until Mr. Fresch came to town, bought 1/2 of the defunct sulphur mining concern, and introduced his new process for extracting sulphur in huge blocks. After a few years of getting it right, he was unimaginably successful. His backers literally made $30,000 per day in the 1920's! Here is a short description of the system.
Sulphur mining has now gone and the new industry is the oil business. These aerial views of Lake Charles show the expansive oil refinery buildings.
A 37 mile drive down the Creole Nature Trail (route LA27) bought us to the Gulf Coast. This is the first time either of us has seen the Gulf Coast. We could see refineries in the distance as we approached
The Gulf Coast beaches (at least in this area of Holly Beach) are wide and white, with bright cottages high on stilts.
In the far distance you can spot some of the oil rigs. Not great pictures due to the distance, but you can still make them out.
On our way back to Lake Charles, we stopped at the Wetland Waterway in the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge. A combination of concrete walkway and boardwalk gave us a nice 1 1/2 mile saunter along the marsh.
This area is touted as a superb birding region, right along a major migration path. But this isn't the right time of the year and we saw only a very few large herons and a few ducks.
The shrimping boats were in by the time we headed back north.
As we drove over one high bridge, we could see an enormous barge heading out to sea.
Back just a little after dark, around 6:30. Tomorrow we will go to San Antonio!
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