Day 42 ( A Short Travel Day) Lafayette, LA - Denham Springs, LA (Baton Rouge) 74.3 miles, New Total miles = 8,390.6 miles
Our schedule was planned to be short today as we were moving to a campground near New Orleans.
I thought I wanted to see New Orleans for its festive atmosphere.  Our first choice was fully booked so we ended up at a KOA just outside of Baton Rouge.  This is only about 130 miles from Lafayette so only about 2 hours driving.

Given the lack of urgency in our schedule, we kind of hung around our campground and enjoyed the atmosphere and the pond.

Our campsite in Lafayette, LA

 As we were looking across we spotted what looked like an Anhinga back home (I'm not sure if that is right down here) sitting on a branch near the edge of the water.  I got my camera, took a picture, but before I could take a second picture, 6 more popped up out of the water around  the branch.

There was (1)

....and then there were (7)

Again the route was basically an Interstate.  When we began reading the descriptions of attractions in the area, we found references to Antebellum Mansions and Swamp Tours, etc..  This made me think about whether going to downtown New Orleans was really all that important to me.  I wasn't looking forward to Cajun food, and Dave and I kind of liked the idea of a Swamp Tour.  That's tomorrow, so let me get back to today.

Our route on I10 took us through Achafalaya National Wildlife Refuge.  As we drove along, we saw the sign for the visitors center and then we saw a sign saying Trucks restricted to Right Lane Only next 18 miles.  It was not obvious why.  We soon found out when we came on to a concrete elevated bridge on concrete legs over what appeared to be a river and its flood plain.

 It turned out to be an 18 mile bridge (yes continuous for 18 solid miles) (The internet says it is the 14th longest bridge in the world) over a very large swamp/river/bayou area.

Most all of the 18 miles, the feet of the bridge were in water. It was very impressive, and I can't imagine the issues that were confronted during its construction.



Our campground turned out to be next to a new Bass Pro Shops, so we stopped there to check it out as we were a bit too early to check in. So far the campground has been nice and we have made our reservations for the Swamp Tour tomorrow.  I should get some good critter pictures.