Southern Rain

Miko and I spend our last day in Natchitoches in the Kisatchie National Forest. It looked like there were some nice trails, not to mention that there was a Scenic Vista Byways – a 17 mile super scenic drive. The trail I picked was supposed to have a waterfall which was reason enough to go, but also some scenic overlooks. It turned out to be easy rolling hills, no scenic overlooks and a tiny little waterfall. All is ok, at least we were outside and we were not knee deep in snow.

Waterfall ( I guess) - even Miko looks a little underwhelmed

It is time to move on. The problem is that it is Saturday on a holiday weekend (President's Day) and I'm planning on moving to Sam Houston Jones State Park down at Lake Charles. I checked the online reservations for the park and there are only two sites available. The whole campground is full beyond that. The other part of the equation though is that it is raining. It was supposed to rain all day and all night. It started on Friday night and I'm not talking a light little drizzle, we are talking a continual downpour. The good part about that is that maybe some of those weekend campers are going to throw in the towel and leave early. The bad part is that I will have to drive in this downpour. Oh, did I mention that there was a lot of fog and my route is down a pretty rural road which means Louisiana probably hasn't spent a lot of dollars on road maintenance. Never you mind, I'm heading down the road, hoping to score one of the last remaining campsites.

When I got to the park, I was able to snag the last site and set up in the pouring rain. We walked once around the campground and even though I was wearing my rain gear, I got a little damp. Mostly we just hung out in the RV, drinking Hot Chocolate and playing video games.

Miko gets a weird coat pattern when her fur gets wet

See the satellite dish on the left? 

The water was so deep during the downpour that it was almost up to the white part of the satellite

The main reason I had come to the Lake Charles area was to go to the Mardi Gras Museum of the Imperial Calcacieu. Being as how it is Mardi Gras season, I thought it would be especially appropriate to check something like this out. With all my advance planning, I seemed to have neglected finding out what the hours were for the museum. Turns out that the museum is closed for all of the days that I was going to be in the area. Oh well. Next time.

The next day, it did stop raining. The soil here seems to drain pretty quick so we decided to hit a trail.

The trail I picked did not have any alligator signs posted so that was good. It wandered between the Calcacieu river and a swamp ( I guess you are supposed to call a swamp a bayou). It was a little muddy and a little dreary, but not too bad. Again, it was pleasant to be outside after our forced rain out.

Nope - not going down this trail

You say Bayou, I say swamp

Some color