Mouth of the Mississippi

Because It's There!  That would seem to be the main reason for traveling to the mouth of the Mississippi.  I'm glad to have made the trip, but it did not need to be a - two day spectacle.

After arriving mid-afternoon on the first in the day, it was too late to make to Fort Jackson and being that I was right there, Fort Jackson seemed too important to just pass up; and, therefore, a second trip became mandatory.

The entire area from Belle Chase to Venice, Louisiana (a suburb of the Greater New Orleans Metropolitan Area) is a sparely populated peninsula, save for the numerous oil refineries.  There are housing developments visible off the highway that appear to be largely of the up-scale variety, but the main roadway one passes through several communities along the way, which are - marked on the map - but could be easily passed by without ever knowing that you were ever there in the first place.

Riding along the highway, my impression was that there are no real towns at all - just settlements.  The houses along the highway are mostly either modular housing units or double and single wide mobile homes.  Then too most of them appear to newer units; an apparent testament to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.  In the space of only a little more than four years, it is now often hard to find evidence of the horrors wrought by Katrina to Louisiana; once again we see the incredible resilience of the human spirit.

Now, Louisiana is being threatened by yet another major disaster - the explosion on British Petroleum oil drilling rig.  With every passing day the slick grows ever larger and the possibility of another Katrina scale disaster grows more imminent.  

On the way down, I couldn't resist standing on the bank of the Mississippi and photographing the ships plying their way up and down and down the Mississippi.  Now, standing at the mouth of the Mississippi, I felt compelled to photograph a lone ship bound upstream at the mouth of the Mississippi.

It was surprising to me to find that, all along the stretch of land from Belle Chase to Venice, wherever there was an open field of land, there were often cattle grazing - this is serious cattle country!

The trip itself is a short 75 mile drive along Highway 23, and ends in Venice, where a congratulatory sign announces the arrival at the southern most point in the state of Louisiana - The Gateway to the Gulf of Mexico.

As the sun began to set I began snapping shots, hoping for the      "spectacular"      sunset that never came.  Turning back to east, and preparing to repack my camera on my bike, I noticed what entirely escaped before.  Above the horizon to the east, just beginning to make its presence known, was a glorious full moon.  Together with the cypress and decaying storm ravaged trees it was a very special scene.

As it turned out, I had little need to have been so concerned about the visiting Fort Jackson - the facility was closed!

Nonetheless, I was able the tour the grounds outside of the fort and take some photographs, but to my dismay, and despite my efforts, I was unable to find a location to scale walls and - raid the fort!  However, the moat surrounding the fort and high walls made it entirely impossible.

Fort Jackson was built in 1822 to protect the city of New Orleans from being attacked via traveling up the Mississippi.    

During the Civil War Fort Jackson and Fort St. Phillip (on the opposite bank of the Mississippi) withstood the Unions' attack for succumbing and thus the Union secured the city of New Orleans for the remainder of the war.