Heading for Texas!

We leave New Orleans on Sunday 20 January.

It takes us some time to get out of the city. We missed the turn for Hwy 90 Business and stayed on Hwy 90 W with a few 'shits' ... which took us through lots of road works and stop/start driving. We finally find some countryside.

We are heading southwest around the gulf rather than a straight run on I-10. It will take longer and we will miss Baton Rouge and Lafayette. However we are probably ready for a quiet road and less traffic.

Crossing the mighty Mississippi River!

Same train??

Cypress trees - I think?

Is that a bear?

Now we are travelling on  less well maintained highways. It's a bit bumpy. A lot of the road is  raised above  ground level on concrete pillars; the ground is swampy with stands of bare looking trees - cypress and oak - growing in water. It's all a bit desolate looking. The towns we are driving through look as if they are struggling economically.
We cross a number of  bridges. Some of them appear quite daunting; they are raised very high to allow large ships to pass underneath. I don't have time to worry about the height as I am taking photos, but  the side walls are very low.

We are driving through 'cajun country'. The Arcadians - or cajuns - were originally French immigrants who had founded a colony in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1604 naming it l'Arcadie. Exiled by the British in 1755 they finally settled along the isolated bayous of Louisiana, west of New Orleans, working as farmers to make a living from the swamps and marshes.
Lafayette evolved from such a settlement - the unofficial capital of French Louisiana. So we are driving through  significant historic areas, some of the history captured by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poetry. We also drive by New Iberia and Avery Island, home of the McIlhenny Tabasco Company!!

We stop for the night at the Abbeville RV Resort.
Although a bit of a misnomer at this time of the year, the couple who are managing it are very friendly and helpful - as most are. They tell us a bit about the area.  It is a beautiful afternoon! We can hear a woodpecker in the trees.

We have a pizza which we bought at a Walmart down the road.