Life's a Picnic

Exploring the Creole Nature trail's one-of-a-kind beaches

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In the early days of parenthood, when our children were not long out of diapers, my wife and I would take them on picnics, usually to the beach—where forever etched in our minds were their chants as we drew close to our destination. They would shout, “The beach, the beach, the beach!” Ahh, picnics with small children. Our kids would sit on an ice chest and eat sandwiches that would inevitably become slightly peppered with sand transferred by little fingers, to be washed down without fuss with a sippy drink.

Years have passed, our children have grown. And now, I am able to use our picnic tradition instead as a romantic outing.

For these amorous beach excursions, our favorite place to go is the Southwest Louisiana coast—finding ourselves a spot along the twenty-six miles of beach that line the Creole Nature Trail. Here, on both Holly and Rutherford beaches, there are no high-rise hotels, no beach front condominiums. And most of the time, there is hardly anyone around. You can simply pull off on the side of the Gulf Beach Highway (LA-82) or authorized seaside parking area, and step directly onto the beach—where there is ample opportunity for shelling, bird watching, or just sitting under an umbrella listening to the waves as fingers of rushing water stretch out over the sand.

[Read this: The Secrets of Shark Tooth Hunting]

When we visit, we’ll often pick up sandwiches, drinks, ice, chips, and desert at a reasonable cost from the nearby Rouses Supermarket deli. (Note: drinks in glass bottles are not allowed on these coastal beaches, so you’ll have to bring drinks that are in plastic bottles or cans.) Besides lunch, things to consider packing for your beach picnic might include a wheeled ice chest or a wagon to tote fold-up chairs, beach bags, and camera gear, if that’s your thing. And don’t forget your sunscreen and sunglasses.

In past springs and summers, I have watched my wife slowly stroll these beaches in her bare feet, the Gulf breeze blowing through her hair, eyes peeled until she suddenly stops, then bends over to pick up something the surf has to offer. One of the pillars of a strong marriage is having good communication, and you can’t be a good communicator without listening. What can be more wonderful than hearing about a unique shell your spouse discovered on the beach?

As far as your eye can see, up and down the Holly-Rutherford shorelines, is a distinct rack line that the surf replenishes with shelling treasures. Popular shells one might find here include whelks, which look like a top, or a tornado-shaped funnel cloud. There’s also the iconic cockle shell—if you’ve stopped in for gas at a Shell station, you’ve seen the classic symbol. Angel wing shells live up to their name when you find two roughly the same size that fit together. Other shells you’ll find on these two beaches are cat’s eyes, shark eyes, olives, wentletraps, coquinas, and periwinkles. The cool thing about shelling on these lightly trodden southwestern beaches is you are permitted to keep them all.

Which beach is better for shelling? Kathryn Shea Duncan, who is the Director of Social Media at the Lake Charles Southwest Louisiana Convention and Visitors Bureau, says she prefers Rutherford. “I like to walk east along the coast and have found the shelling is more abundant there,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of visitors who are so excited to show me what shells, or sometimes even shark teeth, they’ve found. I even have a small collection of my favorite shells from along the Gulf, specifically Rutherford, that decorate my office and living room.”

A couple years back, I met a beachcombing family, Darren Alcock and his daughters Abby and Anna, who were scurrying about on Holly Beach filling buckets with shell treasures of all shapes and sizes. It was something Alcock says he and the two girls do frequently as a family.

A math professor at McNeese State University, Alcock says the best time to go shelling is right after it storms, when the winds are hard out of the south.

“The storms wash the shells up on the beach and we’ll come down here and pick them up,” he said. “We polish them up and use them for artwork and things like that.”

In addition to these sea treasures, Southwest Louisiana’s beaches are teeming with shore birds. Gulls, terns, plovers, sanderlings, and avocets feed and rest along Holly and Rutherford Beaches.

On our most recent picnic, American avocets cautiously walked in the surf along the beach while we ate, no more than twenty yards from them. The rusty orange of their heads showed them to be in full mating plumage.

Since our travel time from home to Holly and Rutherford Beaches is the better part of three hours, we occasionally elect to stay overnight in Lake Charles—which is about thirty to forty minutes down the Nature Trail from the beaches. There are plenty of accommodations for overnight stays in this city, particularly along Prien Lake Road, as well as plenty of excellent eating establishments.