After lunch, we continued on our drive, stopping at the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge Walking Trail, but the bugs chased us off in short order. There were hideous biting flies and mosquitoes – vicious! Insect repellent didn’t phase them. So away we went!
LA 27 leads down to Holly Beach on the coast. It and 26 miles of Gulf Coast beaches have been known to locals as “The Cajun Riviera”!! However, it was decimated by Hurricane Ike (2008); a good percentage of this community was simply washed away. Now, only concrete slabs remain as monuments. Mangled roofing is still trapped in fencing or in roadside ditches, along with entire vehicles and boats now rusting away. A surprising number of hearty souls are hanging on; houses have blue tarps for roofing; and small businesses cling to life with measured breaths. The post-hurricane debris has been transported to a centralized location, where it is sorted and gradually trucked away. Meanwhile, shreds of people’s former homes now lie there in huge mounds of wreckage. There are stories and heartbreak in those mounds. Just east of town were two ENORMOUS red buoys beached forever above the waterline.
Life perseveres here. Along the way, we’ve seen plenty of Red-winged Blackbirds. At a roadside fishing spot, we saw an enormous flock of Laughing Gulls. Their name is apt – they do indeed sound like they’re laughing! In addition, we’ve seen Black-necked Stilts, a Brown Pelican, Egrets, of course, Great Blue Herons, signs of raccoons, deer, and armadillos.
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