After Texas we headed East to Louisiana then onto Mississippi. Due to weather our trip through the two states was shorter than most. We stayed two nights in Kistachi National forest, which had a lot of free or cheap primitive campgrounds throughout the forest. We found a drive up site right by a beautiful river and set up camp for two nights. During the first night, we had our worst thunderstorm to date. We both got notifications around 9:00pm that our area was under severe thunderstorm threat. Within an hour a tornado watch was also issued for our area. When we pulled out our weather app, Clime, we could see that we were on the southern edge of the storm so we decided to stay up late and monitor the storm, and if it looked like it was going to become more severe for our area, we would leave. Around midnight the storm had stayed mainly to the north so we reset up our tent and went to bed. Although we didn’t get hit with the worst of the storm, it was a big reminder that we must stay on top of the weather before finding a place to set up camp.

Our next day and night were much less eventful and we spent the day hiking a trail by the campsite and just relaxing.

The following day we headed south to Atchafalaya National Heritage Area spent one night here. We spent the day looking for a primitive campground but our car was swarmed by aggressive bees. We thought they would go away as we continued to drive but they followed us about 10 miles until we got onto a highway. It was crazy, they just kept bombarding our windows then would hang onto the truck as we drove around the area. It was starting to get late so we just found an open spot at an RV park and paid the money to spend one night. We aren’t the biggest fans of RV parks since the sites are always super close together, but the spots around us were empty and the other people in the park were super friendly. We used the opportunity to refill our waters and charge our portable power bank. The park did have a live band that night so we went to the barn and watched some live music which turned out to be a lot of fun.

We couldn’t leave Louisiana without visiting New Orleans, so we spent our last two nights in the city. We had such a fun time walking around the French District and Bourbon street, watching street performances and enjoying all the city had to offer. We also spent some time at the Vue, which is an interactive museum at the top of the name hotel. It was a great way to learn more about the history, food, music and culture of this unique city. After the exhibits you take an elevator to the top which provides a 360 degree view of the city. This area also had interactive screen displays that showed you the neighborhoods and landmarks of the part of the city you were looking out at. Overall this was one of our favorite activities we have done and would definitely recommend visiting the Vue to learn more about New Orleans. After the museum we wanted to try all of the unique foods in the area. We got Bignets from Cafe De Mont, which definitely live up to the hype. Then we went out for dinner and started the meal with fried alligator bites. Then we each got a sampler at dinner where we were able to try crawfish etouffee, gumbo, and jambalaya.

Now if you know me, you know trying different foods is way out of my comfort zone, but wow was it worth it. We both loved the crawfish etouffee and gumbo, and although the alligator bites were better than we expected, I don’t think we’ll be getting them again.

Mississippi

On our way to Florida we stayed one night in Mississippi. We originally were looking for a primitive campground in a national forest, but the campsites we found were super populated by trash like beer cans, plastic and bullet shells, so we found a pay for campground to spend the night. After one night we continued our drive east and into Florida.