The Huge Mississippi Swamps And Some Weird Bridges

 We did not go gambling last night, though the security guy really made it sound tempting: A players card of $20value for free. But we didn't do it. Had other things to do, like going to bed early as snowbirds most often do.

And today we were in the slow lane, as it was almost 8am before we left the parking lot. Filled up gas first, then out to the highway I-10.

We did not follow it through New Orleans, but continued on the I-12, which is a bypass to the Cajun city. 

We passed the huge Mississippi and were pleased to see that the river still had considerable amounts of water, though that could be due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico. 

A paddle-wheeler on the river

Big barges were heading up the river.

I had never seen the vast expanses of the Mississippi river delta before.

Miles upon miles of swamp land is stretching out on both sides of the road. But my hopes of seeing a big gator down there were crushed. A few fishermen and a few birds was all I could make out from behind the wheel.

Louisiana was next. Down here the state is pretty broad and it took hours before we reached the Texas State Line. Louisiana has many oil refineries, and it looked like they were producing for full power. American cars are thirsty and people want to be mobile.

As we went on west we noticed a huge dark spread-out cloud in the south. What could it be. Bea went online and found that there was a huge fire going on from a fuel tank on Galveston Island. The smoke had spread over a huge area and had come down onto the road. We were glad that it didn't follow us over to the Houston area, where we are camped in a Walmart tonight.

I shall not finish this posting before I have shown you the weird-looking bridges we went across. One of them, called "The Rainbow Bridge" is 230ft high and was built from 1936 - 1938. 

 Above: The Rainbow Bridge below: 2 pretty steep bridges, the one to the left being the newer one 

 

Tomorrow we have only 3hrs to drive to arrive at Magnolia Beach, where we are gonna stay for a few days, before moving on out west. (this is a hint)

Way back in 2006 we have stayed in the coastal area between Port Lavaca and Brownsville. A special campground we stayed at for a full month was the "Beacon 7 RV Park in the village of Seadrift. We will go visit the village again soon, but won't stay there this time, though the RV-park was excellent.

Over the past period of the pandemic you may have read about that RV-dealers were running out of stock and that RVs all-of-sudden got much more expensive. Well, we have passed along many RV-dealerships on this trip and all of them were stocked to the top with all kind of RVs. So according to previous selling points, the prices should have come down to pre-pandemic levels. You can check that out yourself and let me know.

You probably also heard the talk about a huge recession hitting the US. We think that there is absolutely no recession. Otherwise, why would shopping center parking lots be filled from one end to the other? You can check that out as well.