Big Muddy & Opelausas, LA

Louisiana is not our favorite state when traveling I-10 as the road will knock the fillings out your teeth.  So, we chose to take a different route to miss most of the cement, pot hole, rough as a cob Louisiana roads.

At an I-10 EXIT stop for gas...we encountered construction of a 3 in a row "round a-bouts" creating a nightmare to get into the Flying J & other things of interest to travelers.  Truckers were making wrong turns while shaking their heads trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B.

J could not enjoy the drive over the muddy Mississippi River as they were working on the bridge with only one lane open.  All those orange cones down center of road and bridge made it feel like a squeeze to get across.

As you can see below right....
all rivers/streams/ponds/lakes are muddy, muddy, muddy...flooding the lowlands.  Everything is wet.

Then we saw this billowing black smoke near the Fireworks place with J wondering if something had blown up.  LOL




The topography is starting to change.

Working oil well in LA.

 Below was a field full of FEMA trailers from when used during Hurricane Katrina.

Next stop...Opelousas, LA, for one night at the city park.  Met a nice retired sheriff's deputy & wife.  The retired deputy patrolled part of the park and a buddy nicknamed "Titanic" partolled our area until midnight.  Just before dark there was a noise at our back door.  Hmmm  J opened the trailer door to encounter about 5-6 medium sized kittens running away.  Guess they came for a hopeful handout...receiving NONE.

Opelausas Fiddle Mania began in April of 2010.  This one-of-a-kind art exhibit was started to promote community pride, support of the arts & bring activity to Main Street.
Twenty-one oversized, three-dimensional fiddles were designed, painted & adorned by local artists.  They now are a part of an outdoor exhibit around the historic St. Landry Parish Courthouse.

Then there came the OOPS!  Driving down I-10 with an occasional car in front....all of a sudden out of nowhere a rock struck the near center of our truck windshield.  Yes, as you can see from the dark spot below....there is a definite chip with small beginning crack.  GRRRRR

As we left Louisiana there were rice fields flooded with water and in the above right pic there were guys in a flatbottom boat in the fields harvesting crawfish.  I guess they get two crops...rice and crawfish.  YUM!

More to come as we travel westward.  See you by the campfire....after things dry.