Cypress Island

We are spending 3 nights here in Lafayette, so will be heading west tomorrow morning. Plan on going to Cameron, La and taking HiWay 82 west. There is a ferry that we will have to catch to cross a deep water shipping channel and then on into Sabine Pass Texas. I read that at Sabine Pass, the Union Navy landed troops to try and cut railroad lines in Texas. It did not work. The Texans put them back on their ships. Enough of this, so on to the last two days.

Yesterday, at Donna's urging, we found Lake Martin and the Cypress Island Nature Preserve. Cypress Island is home to a large rookery of birds, which number among them Blue Herons, Great White Egrets, Snowing Egrets, Ibis, Rosette Spoonbills, the occasional Bald Eagle(which unfortunately we did not see). Also alligators and turtles. We spent a couple hours there, walking the levee, and taking pictures.

After that we headed South and made a loop thro the Creole Scenic Trail. That contains several wildlife refuges, the Cameron Prarie. A very sparsely populated area that was pretty much devastated by Katrina and Rita. Saw remains of homes, not rebuilt. The interesting part was seeing how the new construction is done. They are putting the houses, mobile homes, etc.. up on pilings. Not little ones either. These things are 20 feet or more. On one I saw where they had built a ramp and attached a carport, with car in it. Also we saw quite a bit of bird life along the way. While driving down there, we kept seeing these things that looked as if they had pvc pipe at the top with a wire cage hanging down beneath them into the water. Stopped and talked to some guys fishing and they said they were crayfish traps. This is the big time in La for Crawfish. They are bring $100.00 per sack. Now a lot of the places it looked as if they were raising them. Shallow lakes of water with traps in rows thru them.

I'd raise and trap them for that amount of money, but I am sure it is hard work. And since I have an aversion to work, probably will not work for me. It was a long day and we got back to our campsite just at dark. We decided to stay an extra day.

Today we woke up much too early. It was 7:00 when we got up. Lost that hour of sleep. Took our time about eating our breakfast of cold cereal. Then to one of the important items on the agenda. Do the laundry. Around 11:00 we left here and went to a flea market. It was ok, but not on par with those we had been to in Fla. Or Tennessee. Then to a produce market. We tried to find a park in Lafayette, but were unable to locate it. So back to Cypress Island for another nice walk looking at plants, birds and alligators. Then back here to start packing up for tomorrow and to eat dinner. Now time to do some reading. Talk to you later.