Day 8 - 3/31 - Houma, LA, New Orleans and Pascagoula, MS

Let's go do a swamp tour! We booked a boat tour with Alligator Annie's Sons tour seeing as how Alligator Annie was such an alligator lover. Yahoo!

Our guide took us down a countryside waterway where we saw some alligators, and where Juju spotted a HUGE dun colored snake in the river brush. The guide moved in for a closer look but it gave us that annoyed look snakes give and glided away, so no photo...
baby alligator!
Juju and Maya were rather alarmed to see a rope swing over the waterway where kids swing into the water, but were a little relieved to hear that the alligators aren't aggressive, like the crocodile, and tend to just swim away at the sound of splashes. They are also more interested in things that are easier to catch and eat.
Yum yum.
Before heading out into the larger waterways we had to go through a lock that can be shut to prevent the salt water from coming into the fresh water. Salt water intrusion is becoming more of a problem as demand for freshwater increases(water conservation is important everywhere!!). It is also killing stands of cypress trees.
From a larger waterway we went out onto the Gulf section of the intracoastal waterway. We learned that this waterway was supposed to provide a toll-free and safer means of sea transport from New York to Texas, but the canal across northern Florida was never created, so there are two sections now.
From there we went into different portions of the Mandalay Wildlife Refuge (I'm glad animals don't read because it's not really a refuge since alligators can still be hunted, nutria trapped and turtles speared).

How beautiful! Blue and white herons...
...baby bald eagles (it takes 5 years for them to get their white feathers)......cypress trees with spanish moss - which we were told isn't spanish nor moss - it's a bromeliad......and more alligators.


Here's the sort of little inlet where they really like to hang out...Once out on a larger waterway, Maya and Juju got to drive us home!

So how do you know if you're looking at an alligator or a crocodile? Check out their snouts - the alligator's is wide and U-shaped...powerful and perfect for crushing turtles. The crocodile's is longer, narrow and v-shaped...perfect for fish and mammals. And look at their teeth - at rest, you can see both the top and lower teeth on the crocodile, but only the bottom teeth on an alligator. If you are at the very tip of Florida, you might find a crocodile, but that's the only place in the U.S.

We had a lunch of red beans and rice, sausage and soup. Poor Maya. We ordered her the vegetable soup and she asked what the brown chunks were...hard to get anything without meat around there. Good fun hanging with the locals there. Now on to New Orleans.

We drove around a bit to see what we could see, and decided to walk around the French Quarter. We were delayed a bit by a large film crew filming a scene for some violent Bruce Willis movie. Bad mommy - we stood around and watched a monster (fake) AK-47 being shot at a vehicle. Apparently the crew had been setting up this 1 minute scene for hours. Lessons learned: No, you won't be seeing that movie before you move out of the house, and yes, making movies is very time-intensive and often boring.

Went to Jackson square and learned about Andrew Jackson's part in the War of 1812......visited St. Louis cathedral and talked about religion...
...and then just cruised around the French Quarter until we got hungry.

Cafe du Monde was way too packed, so we got the car and headed down Magazine Street toward Whole Foods. Now that is a great street. About 3 miles of cool houses, shops and so far, the nation's best bead shop! Maya was thrilled.


Where to camp for the night? We had gone off our planned route by going to Houma, but after much deliberation over the phone with Cece, we ended up at Shepard State Park a few miles outside of Pascagoula, MS. Camping under a full moon!