Lake Pontchartrain Circuit

We continue to tour along the Gulf. This included a couple of day trips into Louisiana from our base on the Mississippi Coast. I’ve developed from those odysseys what I think is a great itinerary for any beer-loving aficionado of geographic oddities who needs to entertain the kids.

I’ll admit that it’s a very small demographic. So perhaps only the readers of Twelve Mile Circle will be able to appreciate this in its proper context. Anyone choosing to replicate the circuit can, of course, add or subtract destinations to suit one’s tastes.


Global Wildlife Center

The day starts at the Global Wildlife Center near Folsom, Louisiana. Drill down on a map and you’ll notice that the closest named-place is actually “Cranky Corner” which amused me to no end. Nonetheless, I suppose that it wouldn’t look so good in their promotional material.

They loaded everyone onto modified wagons pulled by a tractor for an hour-and-a-half ride through a Louisiana version of the African plains. Of course, herds of animals followed along in hopes of handouts and a quick meal. The kids loved it, and I have to admit that I enjoyed it as well.

Abita Springs Brewpub, Louisiana. Photo by howderfamily.com; (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

From here it’s an easy jaunt to Abita Springs, home of the Abita Brewery. With proper timing, one can eat lunch at their brewpub in the quaint downtown area of Abita Springs, and then head over to the actual brewery a mile further along the road for a 2:00 tour.


The Causeway

I’ve been wanting to drive across the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway — supposedly the world’s longest continuous bridge over water — for ages. In fact I whined about it during my last visit to the area a couple of years ago. This time I drove it, all 24 miles (38 kilometres) straight across the lake from Mandeville on the north shore to Metarie on the outskirts of New Orleans.

It’s surprisingly less boring than one would imagine. Sure, it’s incredibly straight, but there are a number of elevation changes that allow ships to pass beneath it. Those add some some hilly variety to the drive.


Belle Chasse Ferry

New Orleans is defined by the Mississippi River. I’ve been here many time so I didn’t stop to tour around the city. Certainly most “normal” tourists would want to include some time there during their itinerary. No, I had more important things to do. I wanted to take a ride on the Belle Chasse ferry (map).

The two portions of Plaquemines Parish split by the Mississippi River have no natural land route between them. The nearest bridge is all the way up in New Orleans, and that can become horribly inconvenient given the traffic of the city. The natural solution is a short ride across on a ferry lasting all of about five minutes. Loading and unloading actually took much longer than the ride itself. This was also my first visit to Plaquemines Parish so score one more on my County Counting list.

I’ll focus on some of the sites in Mississippi in my next post.

Comments

2 responses to “Lake Pontchartrain Circuit”

  1. FS Avatar

    So…why don’t they build a bridge there?

    1. Twelve Mile Circle Avatar

      It’s extremely rural on the other side of the river. Maybe they’ve decided to use the river as a barrier — if there was a bridge across then this area would quickly become yet another New Orleans suburb.

      Thought of one other possible reason: this is a major shipping channel so the bridge would have to be constructed high enough to let freighters pass beneath it, which would be extremely expensive. I guess they could try a drawbridge but it would be going up-and-down all day long.

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