Bayous and Ferrys

We left Leesville and went south on Hwy 171 to Lake Charles and then set out on the Creole Nature Trail through the swamps and bayous south along the Gulf.  We had searched the internet and found a swamp tour in one of those airplane propeller boats and it was open all weekend in a little town called Grand Chenier.  The trusty GPS led us to the address but when we arrived we found only swampland = don't believe all you read on the internet!  We also had planned to visit the Mardi Gras Museum in Lake Charles only to discover it was only open Tuesday to Friday!!  Indeed the visitors' centre at the nature reserve and wild life refuge was closed on Saturdays and Sundays....a bit of a shock.
With failure to see any of the tourist activities that we had planned, we headed to Port Arthur Texas.
On the way we stopped and had gumbo in the little crossroad hamlet called Creole.  It was 92 degrees and wickedly humid.
On the road to Port Arthur we had to take a ferry at a town called Cameron; unfortunately it only held about 10 vehcles so we had to wait in the heat for 1 1/2 hours for a 5 minute crossing of the river.
After the ferry crossing the road followed a gorgeous white sandy Gulf beach for about 20 km. In this area all the houses, the schools, the admin municipal buildings are raised about a story above ground level on stilts due to flooding risks.  Most of the churches were built at ground level...we surmised they felt protected via divine intervention against flooding.....although the Catholic churches were on stilts.  We wondered what that meant??
Port Arthur was a maze of oil refineries and tanks also on stilts!
From Port Arthur we headed toward Galveston and are now staying in a little town called Winnie where Bev admired all the palm trees.