Texas Road trip

"Smack dab in the center of the Atchafalaya Basin" is a very welcoming site for those traveling on Interstate 10, all destinations east or west bound!

The Atchafalaya Welcome Center is open to all - seven days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The center is located off Interstate 10 at exit 121.

This first-class facility has much more to offer than a restroom visit or quick stop for coffee. The center is quite impressive with plenty of historical information within the walls of this beautifully designed Acadian-style cottage and museum. On the outside, wildlife and natural will take you back in time. Come take a tour, it's a place that all ages can enjoy and experience.

The state departments of Natural Resources (DNR), Culture, Recreation and Tourism (CRT), and Transportation and Development (DOTD) are partners in this project completed in June 2004.

For additional information at the Louisiana Atchafalaya Basin Welcome Center in Butte LaRose, call 337-228-1094.
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That place where the gators are located is a great place to put your buddy that passed out...

... then take a pic of the look on his face before he figures out the gators aren't real

Wow, that's pretty neat, HG! I looked up the area on Wikipedia (lots of great info there) and found this BEAUTIFUL panoramic photo of the Atchafalaya Basin (click for large after you get there):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/AtchafalayaBasinPanorama.jpg

There is also a really cool time-lapsed animation of basin @Wikipedia from 1956 to 1993... ehh, what the heck, I might as well just link you to the whole Wikipedia site. There's tons of neat information there:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchafalaya_Basin

Thanks for sharing that, HG. Mama likey!

Beautiful!

It is really a neat place. You exit right off the bridge into it. I think it is almost in the center of the Henderson bridge that is 18 miles long. They have a small movie room that they show a short 10 mins or so movie about the swamp. Very friendly people, Fresh coffee, maps, Etc. Great place to take a break. But you need to plan to stop when you get on the bridge the exit comes up pretty quick and the first time you are not sure if you really want to get off.
I like the giant turtle

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Ooooh! That reminds me of the giant Desert Tortoise that me and my Uncle Jack got for my granny for Mother's Day about ten years ago. It looked real similar to that except the neck wasn't all stretched up like that. She LOVES Desert Tortoises and put it in the flower bed by her front porch.

A couple years ago someone backed their pickup into her yard in the middle of the night and STOLE it!

We should see if we can find another one for her this year.... put it in the BACK yard this time. :/

There must be a good market for statuary. A few years ago, someone drove through Hoover and liberated about fifty lawn ornaments... Got our 3' statue of the Virgin Mary too.

When I lived in Seminole, my brother and I had 12 acres. Part of it had been a field but there were a couple of trees set way off the road. My brother scored the most realistic Pit bull statue you have ever seen. It was very very life like. We built him a dog house to complete the effect that he was real and chained him under the tree. He really looked life like. One day my brother came over and said "Have you been messing with the dog?" I said No. "Well" he said. I swear the damn thing is moving. He was facing south and now he is looking west and this is not the first time I have noticed it. A real mystery. We kept a eye out and sure enough the damn dog was moving..............................Then early one morning we saw the guy that lived down the road, stop and run over and moved the dog just a few inches. LOL Best joke ever. He really had us going.

Side note. He looked so real that later on someone called the Humane society and said we had a dog chained under the tree and was abusing him. LOL

We had in inspector friend that got a new VW bug when they were just starting to get popular. While the guy was inside doing paperwork, somebody would pour a gallon of gas into the bug. The bug owner kept detailed mileage records and raved about his mileage.

Then the bug owner took the bug to the dealer for it's first service. We quit pouring gas into the car. The owner took the car back to the dealer and raised hell with them.

"Put it back like it was." He said.

LOL, too funny about the VW.

Not funny about the thieves though.

People will steal any-darned-thing.

I used to plant a gorgeous garden in the front yard close to the road, but I stopped doing that last year. Two years ago, right after my gloriosa daisies came into full bloom, some jerk came by and cut them. He also cut the blooms off a bush that was close to the house. In addition to that, he stole another entire bush. Ripped it out by the roots.

We're 99% certain who did it, but we had no way to prove it.

I thought about installing those nail-filled things that LEO puts in the road to stop cars they're chasing, but I figured I'd step on them myself.

I'm sure if somebody stepped on them they would sue you for the injuries..