OK, I'm finally getting somewhere with this blog!
As I said, we arrived at our winter 'digs', and set up shop once again. We're getting quite good at it, but it still takes a while ... ...

TV and phone connections are fine, Internet, as usual, not so much. We can't 'get' the office/campground signal over here but Mary, the owner's sister who works at the front desk, let's us piggy-back off of hers and together with our Wilson amplifiers (we have two now, one for each laptop), we've got two bars and medium to slow speed.

The campground is huge, a pathway takes you around a left and right 'loop', on each side of the office, probably about 1 1/2 mile in total. Perfect for my walks/hikes I like to take for exercise.

The south is always much later for Fall and the temperatures had been mild so far, so the trees were still showing their fall colors.

There's lots of Liquid Ambers, Pines, Bald Cypress and Life Oaks around Crystal Lake/Bayou that, as you can see in the next picture, divides the campground in two.



At the top right of the pic you can just see a little part of the road and the bridge over the Tangipahoa River.
The campground lays around the lake and there's even a beach area along the river (bottom right) that's accessible from the campground only.

So far I've seen lots of birds flitting through the trees,

A Belted Kingfisher!

 ....  and a bunch of turtles in the pond.

I think these are Common Cooters or Sliders, they're hard to tell apart (for me, at least).

Just a couple of days after we'd settled in, a fluke storm hit overnight, dumping an enormous load of rain in a short couple of hours in the area (and the river) just North of us.
According to the owners, Nita and Roy, it happens only a couple of times a year but there you had it ... the river started to rise real quick, and with it the lake behind us, and eventually .... we flooded!

When I said, I was looking forward to see Bayous and such, I didn't mean I wanted to be literary IN one!

    

Soon we were sloshing through a foot of water. Time to make sure the electrical plugs are above water!




The area left of the office flooded first and the few people who were staying there, were moved to the other side.

We could still come and go but we all kept a close eye on this website that posts the river stages in Louisiana ...




There's an emergency-plan in place for the campground that takes effect when the river comes above 18 foot but fortunately it crested at 17.7 and slowly went down from there.

Maybe we should get serious about buying that canoe we've been thinking about getting ...

When the water was down enough to be able to go on my daily walks again I made my way over to the 'beach' area along the river.

        
             

During the hot and humid summer lots of locals come down here in the weekends, and for a day-use fee, they can spent the day relaxing, trying to cool off a little and swim in the river.

Foot prints along the river's edge show there's lots of wildlife 'night' traffic ...

Deer ...

Bobcat!

..... and .... these prints made pretty much made my hair stand on end ... Gator!!!
 Eeeeekes!

        

Talking about alligators  ... since the weather was so nice, we decided to take a closer look at one of the swamps (as if we had not seen enough water lately) and booked ourselves on a Honey Island Swamp Tour.

 

There's numerous tour companies around who offer a wild variety of tours you can choose from, morning or evening, air-boats or flatboats and some more expensive than others.
We went for the (cheaper) slow-boats. These shallow flatboats can go deep into the swamps and a tour guide delivers a running commentary about the wildlife and nature that you come across.

It was an awesome experience to glide through these beautiful, quiet, Bald Cypress forests ....

This a an, aptly named, Southern Watersnake, they like to sun themselves on branches that are hanging over the water ...

And this is a pair of Chicken Turtles ...

 
Now, one of the reasons, besides the good water, to take the tour that day, was that the alligators, one of the main 'attractions' of the swamps, would soon go into hibernation for the winter, around when the weather get's colder in November/December.

Unfortunately, we still weren't very lucky seeing them during this tour either, due to the high water levels, caused by the recent floods!
Since there was almost no dry land for them to rest on and warm up in the sun,   they (especially the larger ones) stayed deeper into the swamps and mainly under water. 

We did see some smaller ones though ....

They weren't easy to spot ...  talking about camouflage!

Lots and lots of Spanish moss is hanging from the Cypresses ....






Giant Cuttgrass bordered most waterways and, although late in the season, a few yellow Spatterdocks were still flowering ...

Such a beautiful scenery ....

This beautiful Blue Heron got lucky! And me too, lucky to get a shot like this!

(Yes, he did swallow it whole!)

A couple of hawks were watching us from the tree-tops:

 

And, believe it or not, this is a Swamp Rabbit. They swim often, and well, and even dive!

Sorry, I just couldn't stop taking pictures ....

Some people, think 'Duck-Dynasty', live in these swamps and make a living fishing and crabbing (ducking?). 

Most of the cabins are pretty 'rustic', but they do have a certain appeal, don't you think ...?

 

OK, I'm starting to feel a little 'waterlogged' ... time to post a few dry-er shots.

This Thanksgiving (actually, the 14th of November) marked the 5th anniversary of our full-time RV-ing adventures!
Can you believe it? Five years! Wow!

And still loving it!

I think we're about half-way, so here's to another five!

No Thanksgiving without FOOD of course, so I made our favorite apple-cranberry pie and James' staple .. deviled eggs.. and James Mom's Overnight Salad for the potluck of the RV-Park ...

While I took care of the cooking (no stereo-typing here), James did the yearly 'clean-up and toss-out' of our storage areas ...

As always, we watched the Macy's Parade and the Eukanuba dog show:

And attempted to work on a jigsaw puzzle ....

At 1 pm we went over to the 'pavilion' for the Campground's yearly Thanksgiving Potluck.

Nita and Roy roasted 12 (twelve) turkeys (!) and the rest of us brought the side dishes. 

We'd been to quite some potlucks by now but I'd never seen so much food as this time!! Holy smoke!

Afterwards, we were all urged to take a plate of leftovers home with us. Ha, you don't have to tell US twice!


All-right, that'll do for this post, I think. Next up, Christmas!