Rolling On The River

On Saturday morning, we assembled at Houssiere Park in Jennings on the banks of Bayou Nezpique for our Second (Not so Annual) Boat trip down Bayou Nezpique into the Mermentau River and on into Lake Arthur.  I'll share the sights and adventure in photos and narration below.

Image Credit

Tricia's brother, Orlando, and his son, Vincent, came in from Spring, Texas with their boat for the trip.  My Mom and Dad brought their boat.  Russ, Laura, and Benjamin joined Tricia and me, too.  We put the boats in the water and then drove the trucks and boat trailers to the boat ramp at the end point of the trip in Lake Arthur.

And we're off!  At about 11:15 am we struck out for a "three hour tour."  This time we had two boats!

Tricia had commemorative t-shirts made up for the event!

It was a beautiful day, but it was HOT!  The water level was down about four feet from previous highs that we gauged from the water line on trees lining the bayou.  The water depth in the center of the bayou ranged from 34 feet to 43 feet.

We mostly took it slow, but sometimes it would get so hot that we had to speed it up to get the wind moving.

Beautiful cypress trees with cypress knees lined the bayou.  We kept a watchful eye in the tupelo gums as wasp nests as big as your head hung from the limbs!

Egrets sat in the shade and picked fish out of the shallows to snack on.  Turtles sunbathed on logs and fish jumped out of the water.

Shade!  That seemed like a good idea.  We pulled up to someone's dock and enjoyed the nice shade.

They had a nice arched bridge.  What a picturesque spot!

Bayou Nezpique flows into the Mermentau River.  Here we are going under the Mermentau River Bridge in Mermentau, Louisiana.

There is a ship building operation on the southern side of the bridge.

We jumped in a swam for a bit - with an open eye for alligators.  We saw small ones on this trip - no "tree shakers."

Although it is not really visible due to thick tree cover, we saw the Le Petit Castle in Mermentau.  You can see a photo of it and learn about it's interesting history BY CLICKING HERE.

Soon we were approaching the Lake Arthur Bridge.

And into the Lake!

And our destination was in sight!  The Regatta Restaurant on the shores of Lake Arthur.  The restaurant has a dock and is accessible by boat.  It took us about four hours to make the trip.

We got a table and enjoyed a meal of crawfish cornbread, shrimp and oyster po-boys and good fellowship.

It was time to go and we slowly made our way back to the boats.

As the sun shined over the lake, we looked for the cut to lead us back to the boat ramp.

A big blue heron guided us in.

As we passed by, he bade us farewell and spread his wings and flew off.

We'll bid you farewell, too.  Until next time!