March 18 – 2018 New Orleans, Louisiana

The New Orleans area is more than just a big city. Today, we decided to see some of the nature in this part of the country.

 

We went to Jean Lafitte National Park at the Barataria Preserve. We went to see the swamp and the plants and animals, that live there. The park offers guided tours with park rangers, so we took one of them. It was very interesting, and we learned a lot about life in the swamp.

The swamp is formed by the flood waters of the Mississippi River. Because the ground level here, is lower than the banks of the river, all the water, that floods over the banks of the river, is trapped. This creates the swamp.

In the areas of high ground, there are different types of trees. Especially the oak trees grow very large here (up to 200 feet (60 m)). And once again, we encountered Spanish moss hanging on the trees.



Cypress

Oak

In the swamp, the only trees that grow are cypress. These trees can get up to 100 feet (30 m) tall, and they are very resistant to rot.

In the areas between high ground and the swamp, palmettos grow (they are like miniature palm trees).

The roots  of the cypress don’t have much to hang on to, so they grow smaller “anchor” roots, to help them stay standing.

As for animals, we saw:

Alligators - at least 20 on the walk

Non venomous water snake

Venomous (gifttig) water moccasin

 



A barred owl

And some frogs and turtles, that we couldn’t get good pictures of.

Because we were very close to the end of the Mississippi River, and because we hope to see the beginning of it, when we get back to Minnesota (neither of us has seen it), we decided to get a look at it. We didn’t make it quite to the end of it, but close enough.
We were about 30 miles from the place where the river runs into the Gulf of Mexico. Mostly for the Danes 😊: The mighty Mississippi River is the largest river in the USA. It runs 2300 miles (3700 km) from Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota to New Orleans

On our way back we stopped at a cemetery (One of our habits when travelling :-)).This one looked fairly new. In this area people are buried above ground. A big difference between the US and Denmark is, that here it is not at all uncommon to put the name on the surviving spouse (den overlevende ægtefælle) on the stone just leaving an open space for the date of that persons death!!  (Like Pellegrin, last row in the middle).

Also, it is not uncommon to be prepared.

The weather has been nice. Almost too nice. 80F (25C) but with a high humidity (luftfugtighed).

Written by Mary