Louisiana: "Union. Justice. Confidence."

I take many many ubers in and around the towns I visit on tour, and in the car I always ask, "Is there anything I need to do or see while I'm in town?" In Louisiana every driver said the same thing, "Go to New Orleans...or the casino." My company had plans to do that already, so we had to really dig deep to find things to do. We visited the Bluebonnet Swamp Nature Center in Baton Rouge to see some wildlife. Because of mall construction, the gators were gone and most owls were hidden. The wildlife I did see was yellow:  the gasteracantha cancriformis, the web of the golden orb weaver, and this yellow flower:

The Old State Capitol looks like this:

And we got to see our old friend, the Mississippi River:

Lyra class at TWRL

The wall of our first LA greenroom read, “'If you want to sing the Blues, you’ve got to come to Baton Rouge.' - Larry Garner, Blues Singer."

A group of us paddled out onto Prien Lake in Lake Charles. This was my first venture in paddle boarding, and it was very peaceful. I fell one time but only Jess saw and she didn't tell.

Life wisdom:
“You should never try to shove yourself in a cubby.”
-Dianne 10/10/18

Dianne and I went to the Mardi Gras Museum to see the history of the local crews. Gumbo Gator, the city mascot, was present and animatronic. He told us about the local Fat Tuesday celebration while shifting his eyes back and forth. You can hire him to come to your parties and ribbon cutting ceremonies. I don't know what kind of ribbon cutting ceremonies happen in Lake Charles because the only businesses I saw were law firms. There were a lot of law firms. I don't know if Lake Charles is ok.

Bossier has some neat street art:

Art

I had a candy corn macaron from Rhino Coffee. I thought it was just candy corn flavored but surprise there was a piece of candy corn inside.

An important thing to note about Bossier City is that there aren’t trashcans anywhere. Also the water tastes really bad? Everywhere?

I played my first round of disc golf at the Clyde Fant Memorial Disc Golf Course with Jess as the sun set on our last night in Bossier. NOLA was on the horizon.

Then we spent a week in New Orleans, and so much happened that there is a separate post about all of it here.

Our last stop in Louisiana was Lafayette. There is a downtown area I didn't visit, but I did go to the Fright Trail and walked/ran/screamed through twenty acres of haunts in the woods. This was my first haunted attraction since I was five I think? Not including the fifth grade haunted house and pancake breakfast at my elementary school.

After the Fright Trail/three weeks in Louisiana

Goodbye, happiest city in America.