Exploring the Louisiana Coastline
September 14, 2006:
This last weekend I took a day off and spent a long weekend exploring the Louisiana Coastline. I won't go into too much detail, because most of it was pretty repetative.
The drive there was all about the birding. I wanted to get as many "county ticks" as I possibly could. A county tick is just a method to keep birding interesting; even though you're seeing very common birds, you still get a "tick" for them because you have never seen them in that county. In Louisiana, I ended up finding 47 species of birds, but 109 county ticks. The new birds that I found on the way to Denham Springs (where my parents and their friends were RVing for the weekend) were: Whimbrel, Prothonary Warbler, Inca Dove, Greater Yellowlegs and Pine Warbler. My favorite of these was the Prothonary Warbler, which was a magnificent bright yellow.
There really was not very much to see in far southern Louisiana. It's a scenic drive, but that's about it. There is marshland as far as the eye can see, with a very small town every 80 miles or so. I did get to ride a ferry over a modestly-sized river (about 200 feet). If it wasn't for the birding stops to get county ticks, I would probably of been pretty bored. I did get to see some of the Hurricane Rita rebuilding; every house along the way either looked brand new or torn down. I even saw a few "Welcome Back!" signs. I made one stop for a geocache about 10 miles out of my way in Cameron Parish, but I couldn't find it. Further down the line I did manage to find one in Abbeville, which is a delightfully clean and historic little town.
After getting set up in the RV, my dad wanted to check his email, so we went to McDonald's for soft serve. He had trouble connecting and even called tech support before he found out that he was an "other" subscriber instead of "AT&T" (which is what he had). And even after that he realized he didn't have the right password to even check the right email account. At least the ice cream was good.
The following morning, I took a walk around the adjacent park with my mom. I picked up two new lifers: Brown Thrasher and Wood Duck. We also saw literally dozens of red-headed woodpeckers, which was pretty cool in itself, even if the bird wasn't new to me. After hours of debating what to do in Baton Rouge and coming to no conclusion, we just headed to "Death Valley," or the LSU Tiger Stadium. When we drove up to the stadium, I saw some Canadian Geese. I wasn't sure whether I could count them, because I wasn't sure if they were "wild" (a requisite of the American Birding Association). I'm going to have to check the LSU website and see if they're released or year-round residents. If they are, I can't count them. (as I wrote this, I checked out a Louisiana birding mailing list, and a birder wrote that he surprised to see 25 canadian geese flying overhead in southern Louisiana, so I think I'll consider it counted)
Going to an LSU game is something else. I would suggest everyone try it at least once in your life, because it's one of those things that you can't believe it until you see it for yourself. The stadium holds 91,600 and is in a city that has a population of 227,818 (2000 census). Not only that, every game completely sells out! We got there 4-5 hours before the game started, and the entire college campus was flooded with LSU tents, with some of the natives shouting "look at the Tiger bait!" because we were wearing the colors of their opponent, the University of Arizona. Every Arizona fan I met couldn't believe the extravaganza for a game that was supposed to be a complete blowout. I can't even begin to comprenend what the campus would be like for a bigger game. Oddly, both of their big games are away games... at Auburn and at Florida. We had catered Cajun food for the tailgate party, and left before the game ended when it was 38-0. I later found out that the final score was 45-3, so it wasn't a complete shutout.
On the way back, we stopped at a local fast food chain whose name escapes me. They had specialty burgers and cobbler. I got a hawaiian chicken burger and a milkshake which were both pretty good.
The following day I left early and decided to take the very long way to Lafyette by way of the coast. I made a lot of birding stops, but didn't see anything new. I did, however, go to four more counties that I had never been to before (on top of the two on the way to Baton Rouge). It was fairly wet and pretty hot and humid for most of the trip back, so I didn't stay at any one place for every long. But I did find a geocache at a baseball park just outside of Baton Rouge.
Once I got to Lafyette, it was already afternoon, so I decided to just speed home via I-10. I did make one stop past Lake Charles at a casino to lose $40, but that was my only stop after that. Overall it was an OK trip; just interesting enough to make it worth it. I think I'll have to drag Pam or Conan along the next time I want to do a road trip like this.
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