Vermillionville to Grand Isle

Location: Grand Isle State Park (El. 5 ft); Grand Isle, Louisiana

all pictures taken with Nokia Lumia Icon 929 cell phone
(click pictures to enlarge)

I arrived in Grand Isle a couple days ago but am still getting caught up on the blog posts. Hopefully this will get me caught up and I'll try to stay on top of it better. 

While in Lafayette, I visited "Vermillionville" which is the original name of Lafayette. It is a collection of old buildings brought in from around the area. Some dating back a couple hundred years. There are also people dressed in clothing from the early 1800's and are knowledgeable in their field. They were pleasant, polite and answered each question. I was there for about 2 hours and enjoyed the visit. As usual this time of year, there was very few people other than myself.

This was the boat shed with several variety of boats. I liked this picture because of the colors and the Spanish Moss in the trees

This was a nice lady who was born in the town of Henderson which is right next to the Atchafalaya Swamp. She showed me how to make yarn from raw cotton. I had seen spinning wheels before but never in action. It was fascinating.

This is one of several old houses. Notice the staircase on the porch going to the upstairs. It was located outside to avoid paying the "indoor staircase" taxes back in the day. Tax avoidance was also why most of the houses back then didn't have indoor closets because they were taxed as well. Armoires solved that problem. :) Early Tea Party?? LOL

This was the old school house. Notice the lines that were written on the blackboard,,, "I will not speak French". This obviously was after the 1922 law about English only in schools. 

This is their garden with the Blacksmith's shop in the background.

This is the blacksmith demonstrating his skills and wares.  

They even have an active church. I thought I got more of the pink doors for contrast, but didn't. Oh well, maybe next time.

An old 'two holer' with the lids/seats up. 

The drive to Grand Isle was terrible. I have towed Liberty over 20,000 miles all over this country. There have been some bad roads in Alabama and upper New York but nothing like the stretch of road between Lafayette and Raceland. It is an old concrete road with each joint being vaulted. Each joint is between 16 and 20 feet apart and the vault is about 1 inch. I could not find an acceptable speed where Freedom and Liberty was not bouncing. The sad thing is I know what caused the problem and how it could have been easily prevented. There are roads such as this all over the country, but this is by far the longest. Sadly, I also know why it has not been repaired. It is the future route of I-49 and will eventually be rebuilt using federal money. Spending state money on the road now would be a poor use of limited resources. However, there were some blown up joints that could and should be fixed. The condition of some of the roads in Louisiana and throughout the country saddens me greatly. It will take lots of money to correct and I don't see any changes on the horizon. The correction will only happen when the public starts rising up in anger.

The weather for the trip was great. I was worried the high winds we had been having during the last few days would continue but I got lucky and they slowed down considerably.

Grand Isle is a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico. It is where Louisiana Highway 1 begins. The highway district I was responsible for is the location where Highway 1 ended at the Texas state line. 

I have heard about it for a while and wanted to see it. Mostly it is block after block of beach houses.

One of the large lift bridges. Notice the size of the chain links.

The Highway runs parallel to the bayou

Open flat swampy wet land for miles

This is taken from the new bridge going to the oil/gas town of Port Fourchon

After getting off the bridge, you still have about 15 miles to the state park with the majority on a road that looks like this.

This house was located all by itself. I'm not sure if it is privately owned or possible a corporate house.

I took this one because of the strange looking clouds dead ahead. They were layered one on top of each other. I haven't seen clouds like that before and they only lasted about 30 minutes. 

After getting Liberty set up I walked onto the walkway that goes over the sand dunes towards the beach. 

The beach from the end of the walkway. Hello Gulf of Mexico. 

I will leave here next Tuesday. I plan to kick back and relax.  

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.