Fontainebleau State Park LA

We loved our stay in southern Louisiana at Fontainebleau State Park, but the plan was to head on over to Mississippi for a week stay and then come right back to Louisiana. After a drive of 110 miles, we pulled into our campsite at Davis Bayou campground which is part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Campsites are nice and if campers use the senior lifetime pass it's only $11 per night for water and electricity!

Since the last time we stayed at this park, they have built a boardwalk adjacent to the marsh. We used to have to walk in the road to see the marsh and now with the boardwalk it's much more enjoyable. We walked this boardwalk every morning of our stay.  

 

Several things we saw or encountered while walking the boardwalk in the mornings were such critters as Clapper Rails and a Common Loon. Whenever Clapper Rails are in the area you will know it since they make quite the noise. One such morning I decided to use my phone's Merlin app to see if I could call one up so Sharon could see one up close. When I played the bird song to entice one, suddenly a Clapper Rail immediately called back and startled Sharon as it was just few feet away from us. After calming down, she did indeed see and photograph it!

The story behind the Common Loon is that we saw one sitting on the side of the marsh near the road and thought it had been injured. It couldn't seem to move. At first, we thought it may have been a baby Osprey as a nesting pair with offspring was close by and we had high winds during a storm the day before. It turned out to be a fledgling Loon and once a Game Warden we flagged down came by it abruptly scooted off into the water and started swimming away. We were about to call wildlife rescue to come save it, but we were glad it was just fine after all!

   

We found another fun thing to see located at the end of the boardwalk and across the street. There's a pond where we occasionally saw an alligator. We nicknamed the alligator who we spotted most mornings as Ollie. We were always happy to see and greet him on our walks. 

While here we also visited a lot of casinos, especially with it being my birthday week. We were hopeful that some of the casinos would give us some free birthday cash and a few did. However, the casinos on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi provide free adult beverages for those who are gambling. As you may know we don't gamble a lot, but we sure had fun playing the nickel video poker and drinking free libations.  Since it was raining a lot here during our stay this provided a nice indoor activity for some fun.

However, the main reason we came to this area was to visit Bozo's which is a Mississippi seafood market that also serves food. This is hands down the best and largest shrimp poor boy you will ever find for only $18. We bought one and shared it. Both of us were stuffed and we still took home enough shrimp for us to have a lunch another day. I can't recommend enough this excellent Mississippi establishment. Get the Shrimp Overload Po' boy. You will not be sorry! 

But as always, all good things come to an end as our time on the Mississippi Coast ended. We decided to leave a few days early because monsoonal rains were hitting the area and we wanted to avoid them so we will quickly return to Louisiana.

Eating our way through Louisiana

We both enjoyed our stay at Brazos Bend State Park more than we anticipated. The hiking trails and the scenic beauty at this time of the year were awesome. However, once again it became time to move on to our next stop down the road near Beaumont Texas.  

We pulled into Gulf Coast RV Resort, 126 miles away, in a nicely wooded site where we' planned to stay just a few nights. Knowing this we went out exploring the afternoon we arrived.  While we didn't do a long hike due to the weather we did hike a bit in the Cattail Marsh Scenic Wetlands. It was crazy how many Purple Gallinules we were able to see. Once we ventured onto the boardwalk they were everywhere. It's such a delight to watch them with their super long legs and really large feet as they delicately walk across the surface vegetation on the water in search of morsels and/or companionship. 

We even saw one scolding a nearby 4-ft alligator. While it kept its distance we were worried a couple of times that it was getting a bit too close and thought we were going to witness yet another National Geographic moment!

 Besides the gallinules, we also saw an assortment of other birds in the marsh. Luckily, we even managed to see the very elusive Least Bittern flying across the marsh and hiding in the cattails. 

Our second day in Beaumont was a washout as it rained off and on almost the entire afternoon.  The next morning it was sunny, so we headed on down the road to our next stop in Duson Louisiana.  This would be another short stay.

One hundred and twenty-three miles later we pulled into Frog City RV Park, a nice Passport America park we've stayed at several times before. Our plan for our visit here was to go to several of the Cajun specialty meat stores and sample boudin balls. A deep fried boudin ball is a type of rice and pork sausage made Cajun style, and it is indeed a Cajun treat. We stopped at three different stores for sampling and enjoyed each of them. Sharon like the one at Karchner's the best while my favorite was at Billy's.

 

We weren't in Duson only to sample boudin balls as we also stopped here to eat at our two favorite Louisiana eateries for shrimp po'boys. Our first place to eat at was the Old Thyme Grocery in Lafayette. They make an excellent shrimp po'boy on very light bread. The next afternoon we also stopped in New Iberia Louisiana at the Bon Creole restaurant to enjoy their shrimp po'boy. They had been our favorite the past two years, but Old Thyme was the best this year and returned to the top of our list for now.

We did get in one hike at the Cypress Island Preserve on our way over to Bon Creole. While it was a bit soggy there due to the rains, we did get to see lots of bird and even an alligator that startled me as it lurched off the levee we were walking on. Fortunately, I startled it too as it retreated back into the swamp.

As you can tell, our stop was  mainly a culinary stop. The morning we were supposed to leave we were invited to yet another culinary treat as the RV park was hosting a breakfast where we were treated to two freshly cooked eggs, hashbrowns, sausage and bacon as well as other breakfast choices which were all complimentary. What a great way to start the day heading on down the road of retirement to our next stop...