Grand Isle State Park is located on the Louisiana Gulf Coast about 50 miles south of New Orleans, making it the southern-most state park in the state. Part of the drive south is over a 7-mile long toll bridge that is reminiscent of the drive to Key West, FL. There is a lot more water down this way than solid ground. The town of Grand Isle has two roles: it's a summer destination with lots of cottages, and it is also a major base for support of off-shore drilling operations. Every day helicopters fly over on their way to and from the rigs.
Grand Isle has an interesting history of piracy and privateering. In the late 1600's, pirate Henry Morgan lived here and supposedly hid some of his loot in the area. Later, in the early 1800's, privateer Jean Lafitte and his band of cutthroats had an outpost on Grand Isle. Lafitte also had a role in the War of 1812. The British recruited him to help them seize New Orleans, but Lafitte double-crossed them and joined forces with Gen Andrew Jackson to defend the city.
Greetings from
Grand Isle State Park
We had debated whether to make the trek down to Grand Isle or not, but finally decided to go for it. We did make a reservation about a week in advance of our visit, but it wasn't really necessary - there were lots of empty sites during our two-week stay. Sites are all quite similar, but in looking at the park map and Google Earth, we noticed that a few sites had some space on one side. We picked one of those, site 40. All the sites here are pull-throughs and those in the front row are designed so the rear of the rig is toward the shore. That's fine for the fifth-wheels with the living space in the rear, but for folks with the living area up front, it's backwards. I asked one of the campground hosts if it would be all right to park the opposite way; he hemmed and hawed a bit and pointed out that the utilities would be on the wrong side, but finally relented.
Ribbit! The WxToad
