A Different Landscape

Just spent four days in New Orleans where we enjoyed exploring a very different landscape.

  We enjoyed the humidity after an extremely dry start to the new year here in Southwest Colorado. However, this morning I am looking at a foot and a half of new snow and spent a couple of hours shoveling out yesterday when we returned. 

Winter is back!

 At the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve

boardwalk trails guided you and actually allowed you to walk through the swamp.

The spiky Palmettos made wonderful graphic shadow shapes.

 The swamp floor was a tangle of moss covered roots with everything wet and decomposing.

 We have never seen anything like this before!

The Bald Cypress sends up woody projectiles throughout the swamp.

One theory is that because their roots are submerged underwater, these "tree's knees", as they are called, supply oxygen to the roots. Another possible reason is that they stabilize the trees that grow in very muddy conditions. 

We spent Sunday morning in Audubon Park. A great discovery was Ochsner Island or Bird Island.
It is one of the most prominent bird rookeries in the state, over a hundred years old.
To read more about the birds there: www.auduboninstitute.org/audubon-park/favorites/bird-island
The live oaks covered with moss gave you a real feeling of the old south.
Timeless nature!