Fairview-Riverside State Park

We arrived at the next destination in Madisonville, LA. This is a Louisiana State Park who honored my 50% off Senior Pass. So, FHU back-in sites on pavement were only $19/night.

Note the partial flooding in the park ... more on this later.

From here, the plan was to drive over the longest causeway in the US (23.8 miles) across Lake Pontchartrain to spend the day in New Orleans. This route currently holds a Guinness World Record for the longest continuous bridge over water.

Unfortunately, the weather across the lake was very, very bad; cross-winds and heavy rain, so pictures were almost impossible. We did manage a few on the way back. I'll post those here, so you can get the idea of driving over seemingly endless water, sans the rain, wind, and white knuckles!

One of the first visible landmarks pulling into New Orleans is the Super Dome Stadium. I'm sure you've seen a few football games broadcast from inside this arena.

Navigating into the French Quarter proved to be challenging with much street construction, closed and one-way streets, and work traffic having to re-route due to the street closures. We eventually arrived at Royal Street and drove a few blocks, then came back on the parallel, famous Bourbon Street. There wasn't much going on at this time of day, but the architecture and shops reminded us a little of Old Town Sacramento.

Our next stop was the famous Cafe Du Monde to sample the also famous French pastry called a Beignet. The Beignet is a square piece of dough, fried and covered with powdered sugar. They are served in orders of three and are DELICIOUS! I dropped Louise in front of the Cafe while I searched for parking. I found a large public lot for $6/hour only a block away, and walked back. We entered a fast-moving line at the sidewalk and had coffee and Beignets in-hand in about 8 minutes ... well worth the wait! Yum!

Also famous in the French Quarter, and virtually across the street from Cafe du Monde, is the St. Louis Cathedral; the oldest cathedral in continuous use in the United States. Pictures hardly do it justice.

Other sites in the area included the Old Miss (Mississippi River), a beautiful paddle wheeler, and the Jax Brewery shops.

So, about two hours into our visit I received a call from the RV park with a request to return immediately ... and evacuate!! Remember that flooded road? Well, the rest of the park was going under water as well. We made haste to the car and headed back. By the time we pulled in 40 minutes later, the main entrance road was almost a foot deep in water; our campsite was still dry, however, so we pulled anchor, hooked-up the car and left, with full refund for remaining prepaid nights. We were advised that nearby parks were full due to the mass exit from Fairview-Riverside and other flooding in the area.

Pulling over as soon as we could find a clear spot, I fired up the computer and quickly found another park, using RV Trip Wizard, about 15 miles away. Sun Roamers RV Resort turned out to be a Good Sam park with pull-through and FHU, for $38/night. We booked two nights and plan to visit the NASA rocket engine testing facility nearby. The adventure continues ... more to come!