Recently went to the Barataria Preserve inside the John Lafitte National Historic Park.
If you get to New Orleans and have access to a vehicle I recommend a daytrip to this place. Around 40 minutes outside the city, my krewe and me went in January and it was 65F outside with good sun (on that note, I’d imagine this place in the summer to be absolutely festering, and would have an overpoweringly amazing smell!). We took the trail that I believe was just north of the visitor center; it was where the forest ranger at the center told us we’d be most likely to see some gators in the wild (he wasn’t lying!).
As we went in January, there wasn’t much in the way of flowers or leaves (from deciduous trees). However there were some incredible examples of swamplife plants:
And abound with little lizzies:
Which at first we thought would be a rarity, however there were brown and green ambystomas in abundance as we proceeded along the boardwalk. On that note, there was a boardwalk! I actually managed to not take a photo at all of the trail, which runs around a mile+ into the preserve, and is properly paved. Which I don’t believe is a bad thing, because as we proceeded became clear it sort of kept alligators from proceeding too far to your flank. But you had to keep a watchful eye. The first gators we saw were around 30 feet from the trail, and about 4′ in length; the second gator, around 25 feet from the trail, and 5′ in length; then a baby gator accompanying his mother, also 5′ in length; then gators closer to the shore; then on the shore, about 3′ from the trail, 6′ in length and growling as we approached! Okay, time to turn around!
baby gator! they’re so cute!
still plenty swamp-green in January.
We saw plenty of wildlife; some saw swamp rabbits, turtles, fishes, gators, but what I was really hoping we’d see, a great blue heron! It flew into our field of vision and landed on that pool of moss standing in the water. Wonderful! They’re so blue! As we crossed the bridge over the water it flew away, staying just 2′ above the waterline.
Leaving the preserve we toured the local area:
A fair number of houses and shops in the area are built on stilts. Personally I’ve never understood the point of wanting to live in a floodzone. The point at which you’re wiping your brow saying, “Whoo, good thing we built our house on stilts!” is exactly the point at which you shouldn’t be living where there’s a flood!
The greater St. Louis area where I grew up was heavily hit by the floods of 1993, and I remember six years later driving around parts of the outer county and seeing houses still being rebuilt on stilts, with rubble and remains nearby of the previous domicile, and wondering why would one want to risk losing it all again? Water is such a powerful natural force. Then again, if that’s your home I understand wanting to stay with where you live and what’s yours. And I’d totally consider living in New Orleans even though it’s clearly a floodzone (of course I’d hire the Dutch government to build a levee around my home!). But I digress.
We finished off the day at piggly wiggly, picking up some produce to grill back in New Orleans.
the banana-potato-beer-tire aisle inside piggly wiggly.
All of New Orleans and the surrounding area is full of these hybrid shops and stores that seem to sell a little bit of whatever the management is good at or thinks the surrounding area needs a supply of. Think of a shop that sells incense, but is primarily a brick museum, and is also where you can get passport photos taken. Or a hat store that also sells pet supplies and has free wi-fi. New Orleans is strange and beautiful like that.
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