Extended New Year's Party - Part III: Paddliing the Canoe Trails Around Lake Fausse Point State Park

Our last full day at Lake Fausse Point State Park was mostly cloudy but warmed up as the day progressed. We paddled right out of our site, a point just south of the Bridge leading to the park.

Bill putting in behind our camp site

Paddling under the bridge that leads to the park entrance from the Levee Road

 There is a system of bayous and canals that allow you to circumnavigate the park. We paddled  on the bayou that runs along the west side of the Levee Road. After we arrived in Lake Dauterive, we paddled in it for a while and then took a little cut back to a canal.

Map of the canoe trails

 The houses along the Levee Road (named because it runs along the man-made levee along most of the Atachfalaya Basin.) all have docks and boats. In the old times, the bayous and canals were the streets for the Cajun  people who settled here after being driven from Acadia by the British.

A party barge along our route

A very old vehicle

Oil or Gas storage in Lake Dauterive

Bill

Bill and Bob in the lake

 The park has several primitive camps. One of them, site 5, is a canoe site but can be reached by a trail that also has backpacking campsites along it. The other primitive canoe sites can only be reached by water. The water is very low - it usually is close to the top step. This made it almost impossible to get out of our boats.  Bob struggled up the stairs, and I found a place I could land and pull myself up the steep bank for our lunch stop. Bill chose to remain in his kayak.

We met the park hosts as we were eating breakfast our first day in the park. We asked about buying firewood. John told us that there wasn't any wood for sale, but he collected left-over fire wood and had some we could come get.  Later, his wife,  Pat, invited us to supper, the evening of our last day in the park. These park hosts are from Michigan, but have the graciousness and party attitude of the Cajuns.  They have been hosting here for several years.

John took this picture. Pat is 2nd from left. Hazel- at left and Kelly - at right are locals who have also been park hosts here.

Each year, the park has a Mardi Gras Festival.  Click on the link for details. This would be a great time to find out how present day Cajuns Laissez les Bon Temps Roulez! (Let the good times roll.) But this park is always very family friendly and at any given time, you will find lots of people who live  less than 100 miles away.  And many of them will have friends and relatives staying in the park at other sites. You are very likely to be invited to join one of the extended families for a truly delicious meal and entertaining stories. Our meal with John and Pqt was also delicious. We had both pork and  ham, a wonderful potato casserole, green beans, salad, and cake.

Another wonderful holiday period with the gift of new friends while enjoying old ones. Bill was also a new friend but I think he'll be a keeper.

Party Time in South Louisiana

I raised my children in north Louisiana but, due to working at the state level in the Sierra club and going on lots of trips down there, made lots of friends in South Louisiana.  Currently, I'm visiting my dear friend, Hulin who lives in Hammond, Louisiana.  I had had to postpone my visit by a day because Natalie and I had invited the neighbor to supper on Monday before Natalie remembered she had another engagement.  I had already agreed to cook for it so I had to tell Hulin I was detained to cook.

I barely got my greeting hug in before Hulin informed me I was cooking for six on Sunday.  (When he edited this, he said his words were "We're putting on a party." ) So a few days ago, I started planning the food and making lists of what we needed and scheduling everything so, hopefully,  it would all come out together. We did our shopping before we went paddling Saturday.  That evening,  I made the broccoli slaw - there are NO bags of broccoli slaw in Hammond. I also marinated the pork loin in a mix of honey, Dijon mustard, and apricot preserves and baked the sweet potatoes and a rum cake. Early Sunday. morning I made the glaze for the rum cake, (with only a few licks of the brush when I was basting the cake) made a batch of chipotle sweet potatoes then made sweet potato biscuits to take to a friend of Hulin'a  who had invited us for a late  breakfast to enjoy orange jucie that, moments earlier, had been in oranges hanging on a tree.

Marila and her home  were both  truly wonderful surprises..  I found Maria was a kindred soul who lives in the blue house I most covet in Hammond.  She is also the author of the book Hulin gave me for Christmas. For years I've schemed to sneak in and look at her beautiful wooded property. Inside she had a kitchen painted dark red, another favorite,  and a HUGE back porch type room the size of a ballroom.  But wait, there's more! We took our eggs, juice, biscuits and Mayhaw jelly (the finest kind) to a patio by an old pool she has converted into a little swamp. This was surrounded by all kinds of flowers in pots. She lets water hyacinths grow there and then feeds whole plants to her chickens who love them. She is a landscaper by trade and a gardener by heart and has a wonderful collection of interesting plants on her five acres. She also has paths to other places on her property, where she is developing their different personalities.   I could have spent the day there, and now have a standing invitation to come stay with her any time and garden to my heart's desire. Hulin was getting worried because I wasn't working on dinner so we sent him homebefore Maria and I went off to the LSU Experimental gardens.  We decided to provide data on how some of their camellias last as cut flowers. I brought some back and decorated the table with holly, walnuts, pine cones, and the camellias, much to Hulin's chagrin. I told him it was my charge for cooking.

The table with guests in background

 After a few more hours of chopping and cooking, dinner was finished, our guests, including Maria, were here, and the party was underway. I think this may have been my first time when everything was ready on time and there were no catastrophes. I had a wonderful time with old and new friends. Hulin is at his best in company and quoted a lovely poem on love to us. And the best part was that Daryl and Martina washed all the dishes so our kitchen is nice and clean. And we even have leftovers to use in wraps for lunch tomorrow. Monday evening, Maria is going to bring me an onion and then stay for sweet potato soup.  So I DID learn from my Thanksgiving mistake - ALWAYS cook a bigger  batch of sweet potatoes than you immediately need. . I cooked seven large ones and have used 4 cups to make biscuits and will make a big batch of sweet potato soup.

Martina washed the dishes and Daryl dried.

 I meant to take pictures of all the food but I got so interested in the conversation, I forgot. But we had broccoli slaw salad, green beans with shallots and mushrooms,  pork loin, sweet potato biscuits, and rum cake.

The rum cake

By the way, notice anything about these pictures?  I took all of them in natural light and Hulin's kitchen is very dim. Santa just sent me a Cannon SX40 is.  I was pretty amazed by these pictures. Can't wait to try it on landscapes, flowers, birds, and butterflies.

A Week With Friends, Part II

After spending a second night in Santa Rosa at Leslie, Natalie's cousin's house, we managed to get ourselves up early, eat a quick breakfast, pack up the van and point it towards Point Reyes. We drove through the lovely rounded hills of the Coastal Range under cloudy skies, enjoying glimpses of  raptors and a coyote,  and then found a place to hike to the beach. We all enjoyed the winding trail, wildflowers, huge surf and wandering around on the small beach. As we approached the trail head, we found several groups of Tule elk.

There were several groups of these animals but none with horns

Lichens growing on a fence rail

Going down to the beach

Almost to the beach

Beach landscape

Thistle flowers at the beach

A pile of kelp showing the hollow tubes

The gang- Bob is hiding behind Tracy

Birds, rocks, surf and fog

After we got back to the car, we traveled on to Point Reyes over winding roads with beautiful views. Point Reyes Lighthouse is not open on the early days of the week so we didn't get to climb down the thirty flights worth of stairs to visit the inside of the light house. The day was cloudy and getting foggier and we could not find any whales, although they were supposed to be passing by. We did get find a few puffins and had a peregrine falcon land very close to us on the cliff. The brants, however, continued to elude us.

Camomile flowers near the Point Reyes Lighthouse

The Point Reyes Conglomerate with a whale bone in front

Surf at the beach of Point Reyes Lighthouse - dots are seals or sea lions

The Point Reyes Lighthouse - I've never been here when I could climb down to see it inside

From the Lighthouse, we continued through the fields of dairy cattle towards the Point Reyes Visitor Center. We enjoyed the exhibits and the California quail that greeted us in the parking lot with excited calls of "chi CA go, chi CA  go. And we spent some time enjoying the Acorn woodpeckers that had been high on Dutch's list to see, but who had stayed in hiding on previous hunts.

Then as the sun set, we set off over the mountains on a really winding road.  Dutch drove slowly so Natalie wouldn't throw up on anyone and we had glimpses of the ocean between areas where we drove in a tunnel of trees. 

After arriving at San Francisco a little after dark, we checked into our hotel and then walked uphill a few blocks to Natalie's brother's little condo.  He and his wife went with us to supper. We had a a list of restaurants that we want to eat, but several of them were closed so we ended up walking about three miles before we finally found a good Chinese restaurant.  The best dishes among those we ordered and shared were a duck dish and an eggplant dish.

By the time we reached our motel, a mostly downhill walk,  we were all ready to crash.

To be continued.