Blogs from Lake Charles, Louisiana, United States, North America

The big change in plans? I decided I really wanted to be home on Saturday morning. So we made sure it was cool with the hotel to check out early . Packed up to head out. Breakfast of pastries & OJ again. Headed south and decided to scrap outdoor stuff as it was pouring rain. Found the USS Orleck but wasn't open just yet. We took the opportunity to gas up and stuff. Back at 10am opening. I want to tell you we loved our tour of the Orleck but it is in rough shape. Our tour guide a volunteer named Steve was awesome and no big deal that I asked so many questions and he answered each one best he could. The Orleck has a long history ending with the Turkish Navy - so if ... read more

Bonjour à tous. Traduction du titre la Louisiane profonde, ce n'est pas pour étaler mon peu d'anglais, mais je trouve que ca sonne et correspond mieux à ma journée. Aujourd'hui 4 juillet fête nationale des États-Unis. Déclaration d'indépendance de 1776. Je ne dois pas être dans la région la plus patriotique du pays, car je n'ai vu aucune manifestations pour l'occasion. Eux qui exposent de partout la bannière étoilée. Deux pickups dans la journée avec un grand drapeau. Mes excuses pour le blog d'hier, mais je crois que je l'ai un peu bâclé sur la fin, j'étais mort, la mauvaise nuit précédente et aussi un peu les 450km, plus les difficultés pour souper hier au soir. À 19h30 le centre de Lafayette était désert, pas un restaurants, j'ai du me rabattre sur la banlieue pour finir ... read more

Monday, February 11th It poured all night long and in the morning we were concerned about how high the lagoon had crept up to Rosie back bumper. Decided to be on the safe side and went to the ranger station and got assigned a new space on a bit higher ground near the laundry. With the rain continuing to come down hard and no parades scheduled, we decided to just hang out and endeavored to keep dry in the campground. We did manage to watch a pileated woodpecker and several other birds in the trees in our camp spot before we moved and some water fowl, egrets, and herons in the Lake and Calcasieu River as we drove by in our move. Tuesday, February 12th Drove by the local Micky D's for ... read more

Journey from hell for Mike leaving UK for the US. A 4.30am check-in time at Heathrow meant it wasn't worth staying with friends nearby or checking into a hotel, so spent a few hours sleeping on the floor of Terminal 1, along with a few other lost souls - thank goodness I had my sleeping bag with me. LHR to Frankfurt OK, but the Frankfurt to Houston flight left late because of mechanical problems (with the gate, not the plane), so it was always going to be a rush to make the connection to Lake Charles. US immigration was the usual laborious process, though I did manage to get a single smile from the officer - be thankful for small mercies. After traversing the airport on the shuttle train, I arrived just minutes after the (last) ... read more

Today our hosts picked us up early to go buy crabbing supplies and we went crabbing on the bayous of the Blue Crab Rec. Area. We caught a lot of crab using chicken necks on a string---easy tackle set up!! We ate the famous local boudin which was absolutely wonderful and spicy and the flavors were amazing. We went to the Wetlands Walkway in the Sabine Refuge but the huge deerflies and mosquitoes were bad so we cut our hike short. Then we went shelling at Holly Beach on the Gulf of Mexico and finally took a ferry to Cameron. There we went along the Cameron Prairie Refuge and Pintail Wildlife Drive where we saw lots of alligators in the wild sitting in the bayous---so very cool. We saw lots of turtles too and beautiful birds ... read more