Shake, Rattle and Roll

Sunday, 18 Nov

Today’s 2018 tour/collection of golf courses was the Riverlands Golf & Country Club in Laplace, LA, about an hour from the campground and just west of New Orleans.  Sprinty got to cross Lake Pontchartrain via the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, paying an increased toll due to being over 7 feet tall.  Having lived in Mississippi in the 1990s and visited New Orleans several times, suffering bumpy roads along the way, we did not have to visit again - at least not this trip.  We got reminded of the bumpy roads as we crossed the causeway as the bridge joints, speed limit and Sprinty’s wheelbase and weight all teamed up to give everything in Sprinty a good shaking.  We consider ourselves fortunate, only one fan came loose from its mounting - which as a clip-on was obviously not secure enough.  Another project.

We selected Riverlands Golf Club as it was a public course and one of the less expensive ones.  Seems about half the courses along our way in Louisiana are private, and about a third of the public ones are only 9 holes.  Then we found a Hot Deal tee time via GolfNow, which was 70% off the regular rate.  Booked it for $14/person with a cart on-line for 10:30am tee time.

When we arrived, the parking lot was fairly empty.  A promising sign on how slow play might be.  Another surprise was that they included range balls to warm up with.  Very unexpected.

We started a little before our designated tee time.  We went back and forth, and were tied after 6 holes. Kris was up by a stroke at the turn.  But today, it was Darrell’s turn to play the back nine just a tad better, finishing 4 strokes up on the day.

Because it was not busy, we got off to an earlier than planned start, and finished earlier than expected.  So we scrubbed Plan A (and Plans B and C) for where to spend the night and went to Plan D, which was Cypress Bayou Casino RV Park in Baldwin, LA.  The reviews made it sound like it was a separate campground like we enjoyed in Joliet, IL, in August.  We enjoyed blue highways the rest of the afternoon, traveling through and around the bayous, and sugar cane fields.

When we arrived at the casino, we found it was just a section of the casino parking lot where they had installed hookups.  Although the price was attractive ($15/night with hookups for Sun-Thurs), it lacked toilet facilities (we knew in advance it lacked showers).  A good place to stay for one night passing through, especially if visiting the casino was an interest item.  As casinos are not one of our interest items, we elected to go to Plan E, a state park (Lake Fausse Pointe State Park) that was about 15 miles away as the crow flies.  Google maps said it would take 35 minutes, which should have been a clue to the next chapter in our adventure.  Exiting Baldwin on the east side, Google directed us to turn left onto levee road, a gravel road that ran along the levee - for 14 miles!  And while the posted speed limit was 30mph, we were only able to drive 10-15 mph for most of it (lucky to go 25 for short stretches), often having to go even slower due to pot holes.  Sprinty shook, rattled and rolled down the gravel road - perhaps good practice for Bureau of Land Management (BLM) boondocking in Arizona or traveling to and around Alaska?

Just as we got to the turn into the state park, the road became paved again.  We arrived at the park off at 4:57pm, just before they closed at 5pm.  The park staff gave us a list of available sites and suggested we pick one and come back in to register.  Monica said she would stay open for us.

Picked a level “improved” site, which is Louisiana State Park designation for water and electric site.  Premium include sewer, and were also waterfront.  Despite almost all the premium sites being occupied (premium sites are just across the road from the improved ones), it was a very quiet night until about 6:50am, when the air boats started running up and down the lake.