While in New Orleans we stayed in the well known (to full time RVers) Bayou Segnette State Park. Its only 20 minutes to downtown and 10 minutes from Walmart, restaurants, fuel, etc. It had free wifi (but its pretty jankity…don’t count on it for work but at least they are trying). The sites were nice but beware of the “double site”…these are literately double wide sites and the hookups are both together. This would be great for two rigs wanting to camp together but not so much for us. The staff had no problem with us picking something different, so we did. Bathrooms were perfectly adequate and had nice hot water. AND….are you ready for this? FREE LAUNDRY! Its not like laundromats are that expensive but this sort of thing just warms my penny pinching heart! We had been so busy in New Orleans we hadn’t even checked out this state park where we were living so we decided to explore a bit one afternoon by bike.
We followed the map to the Nature Center and found a deserted parking lot. There is a wave pool that is open in the summer and a big old iron gate standing at the entrance to the pool. We were just about to give up on finding the nature center and then we spotted the little wood sign that said “Nature Center”. The iron gate was open a bit so I went in and down the hallway and saw the nature center door. It was unlocked so I went in and we met Ranger Josh. I won’t give you all the details because Steph covered it already. But let me just say this. THIS was what this trip was about: cool people and unexpected experiences. Josh seemed so pumped that somebody was even there. And he was so good with the kids. He was asking them questions and he was fun and energetic. He turned this otherwise plain piece of bayou into Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom crossed with the Crocodile Hunter. Bless you Ranger Josh!!
Our spot at site 95
Boardwalk through the park
I think these are Ibis
Salt the albino snake with Floyd knot on his head
Ranger Josh took us on a walk
Learning about wildlife in the area
Net full of goodies
Bringing in the catch
Checking out our find
Science lesson
At the bayou
At the bayou
Mud on white shorts
The other cool part of this day was when my computer lost connection to my hotspot. When I went to re-connect I saw several hotspots (as is usual in a campground) but usually they have very nondescript SSID’s that probably came with the device. So one stuck out….”bareneckers”. Wait a sec, I’ve heard of the bareneckers. I had read some of their blog posts before. I checked out their web page and saw they were indeed in New Orleans. I found a picture of their rig and looked out my window to see them just a couple sites away. They were not home so I left a note. Later they sent me a text and invited us over after dinner. Great family that is traveling with 4….FOUR…as in more than 3…kids!! Check out their web page…its much fancier than ours as Jonathan is in the web dev biz.