Today our destination was the Fontainebleau State Park, located at the north end of the causeway across Lake Pontchartrain from New Orleans. Though we stayed on secondary roads for much of the drive, today we also used the interstate. Since the drive avoided all large cities, the traffic was light and the interstate was a pleasant surprise. The drive was about 250 miles and took about four and a half hours. The Fontainebleau State Park has not yet recovered from hurricane Katrina. Only the old campground is open to campers. The old campground is essentially a parking lot. It has been about 20 months since the hurricane hit, and re-construction is still the major activity. We walked about six miles, following a nature trail and a loop hikers trail. The forest must have been beautiful before the hurricane. Now is is largely a demonstration of how many ways the wind can snap a tree like a toothpick, even when the tree is three feet thick. We did see a Northern Black Racer and lots of evidence of deer. Some beautiful old live oak trees near the park picnic area survived the huricane without any damage.
Day 5, Thursday
Today was Silas's first birthday. We drove into New Orleans to spend the day with him, Ben and Stephanie. The bump-bump-bump ride over the causeway gave us motion sickness. The traffic was essentually parked on the interstate, so we took to the city streets. We after meeting up with the birthday folks, we hopped into their car. They drove to the French Quarter where we picked up lunch. We then had a picnic on the Mississippi River, behind the Audubon Zoo. We spent the first part of the afternoon in the zoo.
We had a great time. Though our grandson is only one years old, he seemed to be captivated by the animals. After the zoo, we returned to their home to get ready for the birthday party. The neighborhood and friends turned out for the party, a street party with an inflatable pool for the kids and basketball goal for the older kids.
That night we were joined by Eric and Ben's cousin Perry for dinner at Jack Dempsey's. When we got back to our campsite around midnight, we discovered we had neighbors. A bunch of drunken young men greeted us like old friends. They had a roaring fire built about ten feet from our front door. When we opened the door to our trailer, the smoke from their fire set off our fire alarm! Though we went to bed, their party continued for hours.
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