Louisiana State Parks are AWESOME!

...city parks, maybe less so.  We just had two short-ish stops in Louisiana.  Our first stop was at Acadiana City Park in Lafayette.  I had reserved a specific site here months ago, but much to my dismay, when we pulled up to the campground, no one was in the campground office and someone was parked in our campsite.  There was a board with occupied sites out front, all filled out in the same (presumably park attendant's) handwriting...including someone occupying our space past our arrival date.  No one answered the phone and for the most part the park appeared to be first come first served, so we found a large pull-thru site (actually much nicer than what we had booked) and set up there.  Meanwhile I was anxious because I couldn't tell from the board whether someone was supposed to be on the site (the dates were cryptic).  Fortunately about an hour after we pulled in, the park attendant finally showed up, took our money, and confirmed we could stay where we were.  He seemed wholly unconcerned that the site we had reserved had been given to someone else, and given there were only about 7 sites out of the 100ish site campground where we could fit, this makes me not want to risk camping here again (what if all the sites were full??).   Now, once that situation was resolved, this was actually a lovely campground.  As I mentioned, the site we ended up with was nice and large, the whole campground was pretty shaded, and the campground backed up on a nature center with several boardwalk trails.  

Acadiana Park Campsite

Hiking on the boardwalk trail

While we were in Lafayette, we went to the Acadian Village, a living history style museum of Acadian culture.  We learned that the Acadian people originated in Canada (which I *think* we actually heard when we were in Montreal...) and were driven out by the Protestants.  A group of them settled in Louisiana, and the word 'Cajun' is a derivative of that name.

Acadian Village

While driving around the area, we noticed an abnormal number of drive-thru daquiri bars, so we decided we had to try this out.  After growing up with the open container law in Virginia, it was quite a strange thing to get the daquiris from the drive thru and just put them in the cupholder of the front seat!  (Of course we didn't partake until we got back to our campsite!)  If you look at Louisiana's open container law at that same site, it doesn't allow it either...so I'm not sure how this is supposed to work legally, but when we sent the photo around to our friends the general consensus seemed to be that a lot of places offer takeout drinks what with COVID, so maybe this is becoming something that's only enforced if you appear to be driving under the influence?

Drive-thru Daquiris!

Open containers!!

Our next stop and the reason for the title of this post was Bayou Segnette State Park.  This was rated best state park in Louisiana by Campendium in an article I read in 2020.  Much like Tickfaw State Park, where we stayed on the way to Texas, this park had lovely sites with wooden pads to keep you out of the mud, fire rings and grills at each site, a laundry facility, and the most absolutely gorgeous cabins.  During summer months this park boasts a wavepool!  I can only conclude from my EXTENSIVE two samples ;-) that all state parks in Louisiana are amazing.  I do think we need to come back to Louisiana and just do a trip that hops between each state park.

Bayou Segnette State Park Campsite

The wavepool (sadly, closed)

One of the beautiful cabins literally on the water

Another interesting thing to see here was the levee that ran through the park - you hear so much about Louisiana levees during any news coverage of a hurricane, it was interesting to see the massive structure up close.

Levee

While here we drove across the Lake Pontchartrain bridge, the longest continuous bridge over water in the world.  On the way out, it was so foggy we felt like we were driving through clouds.  On the way back, the clouds had mostly cleared out and we were able to experience one of its claims to fame - from the middle of the bridge, you can see the horizon and no land anywhere.  Because of the low clouds, we also got some really neat views of the low cloud bank.

View of the bridge from the far shore

Nothing but bridge and water as far as the eye can see

Crazy looking back-of-clouds

Across Lake Pontchartrain we walked along the park at Mandeville that bordered the lake.  One of the most curious things was a series of steps that went all the way to the bottom of the lake...I assume so that if you fall in you can easily get back out??  I saw a live and moving barnacle for the first time while sitting on the steps.

Steps to nowhere

A 300-year-old live oak

We didn't end up going into New Orleans proper this trip...we've been before, and we ran out of time and nice days to stroll around.  Guess we'll have to come back again!