Unusual Dinner Companions

Considering the lavish Mardi Gras parades, the indigenous food, and the pure madness that is a Louisiana football season, it’s easy for city folk like me to think we’ve got it made right where we stand. That logic, perhaps, is why I’ve lived in South Louisiana my entire life; yet I’ve only recently begun to explore the breathtaking Louisiana State Parks system.

On a sunny Wednesday in early January, my husband Josh and I decided the temperature was right to test out our wedding gift to ourselves: a double-sized, zero-degree sleeping bag. It promised to keep us warm in the coldest weather we’d dare pitch a tent in, so we loaded it in the car along with our humble canoe and headed out to Palmetto Island State Park.

On Google Maps, Palmetto Island looks to be a squared-off expanse of nothing noteworthy near what I had always assumed to be a no-man’s marshland lying southwest of Morgan City. Before I had ventured that far down the state, I had determined, based on no research whatsoever, that the Cajun Coast was likely the source of all the mosquitoes in Louisiana. Besides the obligatory amazing local cuisine, what else could be down there but hordes of ‘skeeters?

Lucky for us, mosquitoes don’t fare well in mid-January; but there’s a lot else down there. Palmetto Island is exactly that: an expanse occupying the west bank of the Vermilion River, and it is positively bristling with native palmettos. A few hours after the sun went to bed our first night there, we discovered that it’s also infested with a surprising and bold array of wildlife; but we’ll get to that soon enough.

On our way into the park, we passed a man on a bicycle with two waterproof saddlebags hanging from either side of the bike. Josh has the same pair of saddlebags from his own long-distance bicycle tour, so he assumed the man was on some lengthy mission and was probably heading to the park for a cheap night’s sleep.

Once inside the gates, we skipped past the cabins and the RV hookup areas, opting for the five-minute hike around Lake LeFleur instead. Arguably, four of the best things about Palmetto Island State Park are the primitive campsites surrounding the far end of the lake, mostly due to the fact that they’re not accessible to motor vehicles. Getting there wasn’t much of a challenge, but it lent just enough distance from the modern world for me not to care when my iPhone battery died.

When we got to the trailhead, the guy we’d seen on the bicycle earlier happened to walk up behind us. In the five minutes it took to walk to our campsite, we learned a lot about him: his name was Dan; he was from New Haven, Connecticut; he was four months into a cross-country bicycle tour; and he was planning on eating with us that night over our campfire.

“I’ll pop on by a little later for some dinner,” he said, just like that, before he took his fork in the trail. Even if we had wanted to decline his self-invitation, he had left us no way to do it.

After the first round of hauling stuff from the car to the campsite with Dan’s company, Josh spared no argument in convincing me to pack the rest of our gear into the canoe so we could simply paddle it across the lake. The concept terrified me.

A few minutes later, as we pushed off from the bank, I remembered that thing about canoeing that’s so easy to forget between paddles: that being in the middle of a lake carries all the awe and wonder of exploring the world for the first time, buried deep in an insatiable childhood urge to be somewhere you’re not supposed to be. As far as I can tell, it’s the sort of thrill that is only compounded by adulthood.

Palmetto Island is one of those state parks that must warn guests about certain things at the gate. The Louisiana black bear, which is federally listed as a threatened species, is a reality here, as illustrated by the photo collage of bear sightings and incidents at the ranger’s office. There are no “bear boxes” for tent campers to stash their food safely; so to decrease our odds of running into another dinner guest, we were advised to carry all of our food back to the car before closing the tent for the night.

In addition to bears, the area is also prone to raccoons, armadillos, and wild hogs. Josh saw a few hogs near the dumping station as we drove in; the armadillos went about their digging business every hundred feet; and later, the raccoons arrived, right on time.

Someone else arrived in a timely fashion that night, as well. Bearing a battery-powered hotplate and a pried-open can of something unidentifiable, Dan appeared at our campsite shortly after sunset. He gladly accepted a bottle of IPA, offering travel stories in return.

“People are really nice in the South,” he said between sporkfuls of lukewarm sustenance. “It’s really weird to be somewhere so beautiful, and with so much history, surrounded by refineries.” He was a graceful traveler and didn’t overstay his welcome; so after Dan’s departure, Josh was awake enough to paddle the ice chest across the moonlit lake to the parking lot. We forgot to throw our dirty dishes in with the load, however, so while Josh cruised across the lake, I found myself defending our campsite against a metropolitan population of adorable, meddling raccoons. I wondered how Dan was faring, because he had no car to put his food in, and the raccoons were everywhere. By my estimates, I was outnumbered by at least forty to one in the time it took Josh to paddle back with the empty canoe.

The rest of our chilly winter night started off surprisingly quiet; but when the last of our firewood turned to smoky carbon, the silent night outside of our tent burst into a full-on ruckus. We heard leaves rustling, sticks breaking, and tiny claws scuttling around our picnic table. Owls hooted, armadillos burrowed, and oh, how the raccoons must have feasted on our spatula that night. There may have been hogs and bears sniffing around within ten feet of us as we slept, but I’ll never know. Swaddled in that cozy wedding gift, I was able to find beauty in the noise (and the unknown) before it lulled me to sleep.

After breakfast the next morning, we hopped in the boat to explore a feature that Palmetto Island is known for: its well-maintained collection of canoe trails. The trail that leads to the Vermilion River isn’t a lazy one—it’s 2500 feet of sharp twists and turns with a handful of low-hanging branches and woody vines. The bright greens of the palmetto infestation covered the banks on either side, contrasting sharply with the bare trees towering overhead.

Every hundred feet or so, a handmade wooden sign told us how much closer we were to the river. As we got closer, I began to think about my status as a paddling novice, and I started to wonder if taking a canoe to a river—one that empties into a bay on the Gulf of Mexico, no less—was a bad idea. I didn’t want to wimp out on my husband again, so every time I felt like bringing it up, I shoved another LaraBar into my mouth.

Lucky for me we hit the end of the trail before I ran out of LaraBars; and I was relieved to find that it dead-ended at a public green space, with a quaint wooden barrier that seemed to serve as a lock system. Even if we had been able to glide straight into the Vermilion River from the trail, the Gulf of Mexico was clearly nowhere in sight, and wouldn’t threaten dangerous conditions for many miles ahead.

If you can stand the cold, the winter months turn out to be a great time of year to rough it at Palmetto Island; no bears bothered us, and the wild hogs didn’t seem grumpy enough to charge. The raccoons make a valiant effort to wait until you’re asleep to investigate your crumbs; and, as I found out, even when you pitch your tent next to vast amounts of standing water in the heart of West Nile country, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single mosquito hungry enough to keep you indoors.

Details. Details. Details.

Palmetto Island State Park 19501 Pleasant Road Abbeville, La. (337) 893-3930 or (888) 677-0094 toll free.

lastateparks.com