Ryan and Bernadette Morgan work in LA’s tech scene, some of the lucky ones, with creative professions in fields they love. Ryan is a designer, photographer and illustrator for Media Temple, a designer-focused hosting company. And Bernadette does marketing for the health food start-up, Thrive Market. While it sounds like the beginning to some cowboy Gibson-eque scifi, it’s their desk jobs that amplify wanderlust for the wild. We want to see things we’ve never seen before. Driving across California’s vast and unique landscapes makes you realize how much more there is to explore. If we have beaches, deserts, canyons and mountains in just one state, what else is out there in the world? All adventures captured on a Fujifilm X-E2, with a shattered screen from scrambling over Hawaiian volcanic rock.
We were no less giddy the third time we took the pontoon out into the Atchafalaya River. It was after dark. The best view of the Milky Way was up the river, away from the light of the wedding reception. Unable to see any sand banks or submerged logs, we tugged along at minimum speed. So slow, in fact, the bride’s 5-year-old nephew took a turn steering the vessel. Attending a good friend’s wedding was an opportunity for us to take a swamp-centric tour of south central Louisiana. We drove the back way to New Orleans to get a taste of the true bayou.
The wedding reception took place at a Gothic Revival styled lodge on the Atchafalaya River in Breaux Bridge. The area is bordered on both sides by swampland, the Henderson Swamp and the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge. After seeing the expanse of half submerged cypress trees from the highway, we were desperate to get out on the water. In addition to the pontoon, we took out their 2-person kayak. We missed the speeches and the cutting of the cake, but it was worth it to see the sunset from the river.
The island is actually a huge rock salt dome surrounded on all sides by bayou and swampland. Tabasco founder, Edmund McIlhenny, married into the family and used this salt in the original versions of his famous sauce.
Next, we headed south down the US 90 freeway towards Avery Island. 140 miles west of New Orleans, Avery Island is both a nature sanctuary and home to the Tabasco sauce headquarters. The island is actually a huge rock salt dome surrounded on all sides by bayou and swampland. Tabasco founder, Edmund McIlhenny, married into the family and used this salt in the original versions of his famous sauce. On the island, you can visit the factory and the nature preserve, the Jungle Gardens, created by the founder’s son. The grounds are lush with mossy live oaks, palms and bamboo. We walked the paths through the ponds to spot turtles, baby alligators and snowy egrets. Then, stopped by the Tabasco’s cafe for local delicacies: pepper jelly boudin and other sausages.
We took the old-school approach, picking a road from a paper map that seemed to lead all the way to the water…bordered by sugarcane farms, broken up only by small batches of swamps, abandoned shacks and oil refineries.
We’d continued east to our next destination: a place to see the Gulf of Mexico. It’s strange knowing the ocean is next to you, but not if it is a handful or dozens of miles away. We took the old-school approach, picking a road from a paper map that seemed to lead all the way to the water. From the highway, it’s 17 miles down Route 138 to Burns Point Park on the Gulf of Mexico. The road is bordered by sugarcane farms, broken up only by small batches of swamps, abandoned shacks and oil refineries. Watch the road for sunning gators. At Burns Point, there’s a boat launch and campground. The scene was pretty local, fisherman chatting and casting lines while sitting off the backs of their pickup trucks. We snapped some photos, dipped our toes the murky ocean water to compare it to the Pacific and then hightailed it to the car when a thick, brown snake slid up between the rocks we were standing on. Yep, on to the next one.
From there, we cruised through the mossy oaks, fed a 10-foot alligator some raw chicken and zoomed through the pond lilies and water hyacinth while bald eagles and roseate spoonbills flew overhead.
After getting hooked on nature tours during our trip to Alaska, the first thing we booked for this trip was an airboat swamp tour. Just outside New Orleans, in the town of Des Allemands is the highly rated Airboat Tours by Arthur. We traveled down the Bayou De Allemands fast. Apparently, airboats are the best vessels ever because they glide over water and land. In fact, to get into the swamp, our captain drove our boat up and over a 15-foot high levee. From there, we cruised through the mossy oaks, fed a 10-foot alligator some raw chicken and zoomed through the pond lilies and water hyacinth while bald eagles and roseate spoonbills flew overhead.
Words by Ryan and Bernadette Morgan from Los Adventures
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