Rainbow Canyon, Near Barstow CA

Camel footprint fossils 

You can't go to bird in Brownsville without stopping at South Padre Island.
Not

Sick of birds yet?  Most of the trip was so I could bird, so after we left Fulton we drove to Brownsville and my first stop was one of my old favorite birding places, Sabal Palms.

I love Green Jays and like always they were prolific

This is an Altamira. Another old friend

Northern Cardinals are so red, except this one. 

Sabal Palms was an old Plantation. If your interested you can read more about it below

Lots of trails thru the spanish moss

We just about had the place to ourselves. 

This tells all about Rabb, 

Our next stop was eastern Texas, we spent a couple days at Fulton Tx which is a little town on the gulf.  We stayed at a retro hotel that was really pretty nice and spent two days birding.

White Pelicans. 

Turkey Vulture

Black Skimmer (Lifer)

Tern

Red Head (Lifer)

After checking out Avery we went to New Iberia and toured the Conrad Rice mill which has been in business since the early 1900s. Not only did they give us a tour, but we also saw a video about rice production in Louisiana. You can't talk about rice without talking gumbo and by the time the video was over I wanted a bowl, bad.  The tour guide told us to check out Bon Creole and said it was right after the RV dealer. I am so glad she mentioned that little detail because the restaurant sign had faded out many years ago and it didn't look much like anything.  OMG THE best gumbo I've ever had.

The following day we drove to Avery Island, home of Tabasco. Unfortunately the factory was closed for repairs but we took a tour of the Island and the Tabasco gift shop which showed us a video about the Island and tabasco.

The Tabasco factory

Auto or walking tour. I don't think I would have walked the 3 miles because there were "beware of alligator signs all over the place.  But it was a beautiful drive.

Anhinga, (Lifer)

I thought this was going to be the only alligator I would get to see

From New Hampshire we headed south as quick as we could to avoid any bad weather. Again, while it was cool, mornings cold, we never hit anything really bad.  Our first stop was Lafayette LA as I had never spent more than a day in the bayou and wanted to see and taste more.

We took a swamp tour and it was wonderful Not only did we see lots of birds and alligators , but the scenery was amazing

Barred Owl (Lifer two)

White Ibis. They flew overhead in a huge flock