I have been wandering around southern Mississippi and Louisiana, kind of here-and-there and nowhere in particular. But one of the places I wandered to was the Mississippi Sandhill Crane Preserve. I didn’t get to see any cranes, however. It’s mating season, so the do-not-disturb sign is out while they’re raising their young. Something about only a little over 100 of the birds left, they need every one possible to survive and all that jazz. I mean, there’s over 100, so what’s the big deal? Just kidding!
I did get to take a nice stroll on their nature trail. It’s a little early for most of the flowers to be out. Few are in bloom yet and many plants haven’t emerged from their short winter sleep. But there were still plenty of plants around that don’t disappear during the winter and a few early bloomers had made the scene.
One of the most interesting plants I saw was the Spoonleaf Sundew. This is a tiny little plant. I didn’t see a single one that was over two inches across. They are carnivorous little critters. Think Venus Flytrap. They have sticky hairs on their leaves that trap small insects that they then digest. They’re quite pretty little things. I also saw some yellow butterwarts. Apparently they are just starting to bloom and have only come out in the past couple of days.
yellow butterwort
spoonleaf sundew
I also saw several pitcher-plant blossom buds. I’ve seen many pictures of pitcher plants, but I didn’t realize that they had a flower before the pitcher formed. So in amongst the dried pitchers from last years plants there were several buds on long, slender stems, a couple of which were large enough that they probably opened the next day….after I was gone. Sigh. But it was nice to see spring so well sprung down here. I know that won’t be the case once I’m back in St. Louis. I’ll also miss seeing all the azaleas. Down here there are huge. Often more than six feet tall and ten feet across. And completely covered in blossoms. Azalea hedges forming living fences across entire yards. Sure, St. Louis has azaleas. And they will be pretty when they bloom, but I’ve never seen any that reach the size of the ones down here.
just a view from the trail
After Mississippi, I moved on across Louisiana. I didn’t spend much time there unfortunately. I did spend a couple of days in Broussard at Maxie’s Campground. Since I am an Escapees member, full hook-up was only $15 per night. It’s right on the highway, but I thought that it might quiet down in the evening, that maybe traffic would slack off at night. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. It was a nice enough place and located near several interesting places to see, but, like I said, pretty noisy at night. Still, if you don’t mind the traffic noise, it’s a good place to spend a few days. (Full price is $24 if you aren’t a member of something that gives you a discount–there are several.) I had a fibro/chronic fatigue flare-up and ended up sleeping for two days, so I never saw anything but my pillow. Bummer.
After I left there, I headed up toward Shreveport but stopped to gas up in Alexandria, LA and decided to cut across to Natchez, MS and drive north on the Natchez trace. I had driven part of it three years ago and vowed that if I was ever back down this way I would drive the whole thing. Well, I was too close to pass it up. So I left Alexandria, temperature 87 degrees, and drove toward Natchez, less than two hours away. There were some crazy looking clouds on the horizon than got darker as I got closer to them. The exception was a hole in the middle of them that was like a window on some bright white clouds that were obviously higher up than the dark ones. It created a lovely picture. The cars coming towards me all had their lights on, so I figured there might be some rain in my future. Plus the temperature was dropping fast.
I was right. Turned out to be heavy rain, high winds too. I heard that there were also tornado warnings, as well as some hail. Fortunately I didn’t see anything serious. I did, however, see a WalMart parking lot just as the rain got really, really heavy and the wind gusts were really starting to rock the RV. I took the opportunity to call it quits for the night. By then the temperature had already dropped to 67 and was still on the way down. Why push it? The drive to this point had been really, really pretty. No sense in spoiling a nice day. I wasn’t far from Natchez. No problem hitting the trace tomorrow.
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