I’ve written before in these pages about my love for the Mississippi and Louisiana Gulf Coast.
Consequently, for a good part of last month I had my eyes glued to the news reports from the New Orleans Times-Picayune and CNN, reporting on the rising tide of the Mississippi River and its resulting overflow into the Atchafalaya Swamp once the Morganza Spillway opened.
As I watched, I wrote this travelogue of the trip my husband, Steve Tomashefsky, and I took to the Atchafalaya and the Gulf Coast, which concluded the week before the Spillway opened.
Consider this Atchafalaya scrapbook something of a love letter from the two of us to beautiful, troubled Louisiana. Every year since 1989, we’ve made this trip. We love the place. We think everyone else who cares about nature and culture should care about it, too.
Where to start?
Emblematic of the beauty of Louisiana is the Atchafalaya Swamp, where the water from the Morganza Spillway flowed, flooding levee-side homes.
Here is a photo of a cypress grove in the Atchafalaya Swamp I took Saturday May 7th, the weekend before the Spillway opened. The swamp tour guide made a point of telling us that these cypress trees would look a lot different a week hence.
Here are a few of the birds that we saw during our trip.
As you no doubt know, the Mississippi River water that flows through the Atchafalaya Swamp ultimately flows into the Gulf of Mexico. Annually, as part of our Louisiana trip, we drive through the Rockefeller Refuge, along the Gulf Coast between Pecan Island and Cameron, destroyed by Hurricane Rita and now somewhat rebuilt.
Here is a picture of the Pecan Island marsh, beyond which are the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
This photo was taken from the deck of our friends’ camp there, built 16 feet high after Hurricane Rita destroyed their previous camp.
Here are a few of the birds that were nearby.
In my experience, the green of the Gulf Coast marsh, and the green of the new rice fields, as you head back north is unequaled in nature.
You’ll see what I mean in this photo of the ever-so-green rice fields in the Lacaissine Wildlife Refuge, north and east of Pecan Island and west of the Atchafalaya.
Earlier in our trip, we drove to Grand Isle, a center of the BP tragedy, to see what things looked like there, a year after the oil spill.
Here are a couple of signs that capture local sentiment about BP and the oil spill.
And here’s a photo recording one expression of what was lost last year, likely forever. This sign was in front of a home in Golden Marsh, which is on the way to Grand Isle.
Besides oysters, one of our favorite foods is Mississippi-made cane syrup.
Here is a sign advertising Philadelphia, Mississippi-made cane syrup, sold at a store on the way to Grand Isle.
Remember Philadelphia, Mississippi? Many of us first heard-of it during the Civil Rights era when Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman were murdered nearby. I know they loved this land, as I’m sure the maker of the cane syrup does. So should we all.
