An outing in Louisiana - Fontainebleu and Abita Springs

TPP can only stand being in a big city for so long, like maybe five days.  Today's outing required us to cross the 25 mile causeway across Lake Pontchartrain. Quite near the north end of the causeway is a state park that occupies the grounds of the old Fontainebleau plantation; the double row of live oaks that must have lined the road in are still present, but strangely they aren't labeled as such.  The idea was to do a bit of birding/botanizing on a not very long hike, and we liked the sound of their marsh board walk.  However it appears that it wasn't just damaged by Katrina, the boardwalk was wiped out.  A piece of boardwalk was spotted in debris under some live oaks at least 400 yards from the marsh.  Although a hot, humid, near oppressive day, our nature walk was fine.  Glad to have had a dew rag.  The drive over and the walk consumed the AM so drove a bit further to Abita Springs and had lunch at the Abita Springs Brew-pub and visited the Abita Brewery.  If you haven't yet discovered their beers, well, you be missing some very good beer.  TPP is especially fond of their Turbodog Abita Beer (once voted the best dark beer in the USA) and their Amber Ale (image shows four glasses of Amber).  You can tell this is Louisiana by the condiments to the right: hot sauce, ketchup, and mayo.  If you visit their web page you can download an app for your iphone or ipad that will tell you how to get to the nearest place that sells their beer.  Hope it isn't more than a state or country or two away.  However, judging by the brewery expansion underway, a lot more Abita beer will be coming our way.  No bad news there.