South Louisiana Trip begins Tomorrow

 Location: Heart of Haynesville RV Park; Mansfield, Louisiana

This post will be a short one and used to document the beginning of my next trip. Some of my memory demons have been catching up to me lately so I guess it is time to travel and try to outrun them. When I'm traveling, they have a hard time finding room to play in my head since I'm usually seeing lots of new things that takes up a lot of the empty space up there. I guess it's true,,,,,,"Idle minds are the ,,,,,,,,,".

My trip to the marshes/swamps of South Louisiana begins tomorrow. I guess it is important to know the difference between marshes and swamps. To me, swamps are wetlands with trees and marshes are wetlands without or only a few trees. You can also think of marshes as "wet deserts". That will become clearer once I post some pictures. 

A general rule of thumb in Louisiana is that all of the areas south of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) are marshes. For those that aren't familiar with the ICW, it is a 3,000 mile water route between Boston, Massachusetts and Brownsville, Texas. It roughly parallels the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It's purpose is to provide an inland waterway to transport goods around the country without having to get in the open ocean. Think of it as a man-made river full of barge traffic. It was built and is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It is one of the major infrastructures in the country and usually overlooked.

The Green Line is Interstate 10 which crosses Louisiana east-west. The Purple Line is the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). A good rule of thumb is anything south of the ICW is either a marsh or swamp. 

Tomorrow's tow will be about 160 miles on mainly 4-lane divided highways. My first campground will be located on the banks of the ICW, so I should get some good views of the barge traffic when I'm in the campground. The campground will be used to explore the marshes/wetlands in southwest Louisiana south of the ICW. 

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