Drive Highway 1 to Grand Isle

This is, in our estimation, one in a list of thirty marvelous places, flavors, events, and experiences that anyone who lives in—or loves—our part of the world should experience at least once in his or her lifetime.

Past Houma, Louisiana Highway 1 South slowly becomes surrounded by water forming a precarious passageway that could easily be erased by a storm and leave its inhabitants completely cut off from the rest of civilization. Along the drive, radio stations fade, large trees disappear from the landscape, and houses begin to rise up on stilts. Eventually the road ends at the Gulf where offshore oilrigs dot the hazy horizon, looking like some kind of post-apocalyptic city on the water. They are man’s feeble monument to technology—a haphazard attempt to tackle the Gulf and the riches that lie far beneath. Despite the area’s ability to endure both natural and man-made disasters, there is something fleeting and fragile about it. Looking out at the water, there is a feeling that there is nowhere left to go.