A New Orleans Semiquincentennial://Leg 3~Gator's Got Your Finger?

                           Date:7/3/2026-7/8/2026

Destination: New Orleans, Louisiana

Goal: New Orleans Culture, Myrtles Plantation

Distance: 866 Miles

Means of Travel: Flying

Potential Credits: 0

I woke up early to go to MSY and snag our rental vehicle for the remainder of the trip. We now had plans to leave the city and do two more activities in rural Louisiana. I got dressed, headed down to meet my Lyft to the airport…and the guy crushes my fingers in the open window! Upon arriving, I’m greeted to another rude surprise: Keely’s mother had sent me the screenshots out of order, and while the first one said MSY, that was our drop off airport, and I had to pick up from one downtown that was a short walk from the hotel. So I took the bus back, got our minivan, and picked up Keely as we checked out.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett and Keely smile aboard a pontoon boat on a swamp, holding a baby alligator.

After quite a lot of needless runaround and and crushing my finger in a Lyft I didn't even need to take, Keely and I got on the road out of the city to the next two legs of the trip. Today was slated to be the shortest, as we stopped just outside the outskirts of the Big Easy for a slow, steamy morning on the bayou before continuing to The Myrtles.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A complex on the banks of a muddy bayou with several pontoon boats moored on the banks.

The plan this morning was to don hearing protection and take a fan boat tour around Manchac Bayou, but when I messaged them about accessibility, I was told that they recommended the pontoon boats for people in wheelchairs. So I rebooked us, a little disappointing we wouldn't be zipping around the swamp on a huge cookie sheet powered by a window fan, but this kept us dry, had shade, and probably would get us even closer to the wildlife.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett kisses Keely just off the gangplank of a pontoon boat on the bayou.

I got off on the wrong exit ramp, not usually an issue, but here in the most inhospitable swathes of American nature I'd ever seen, this adds 20 minutes to your ETA, and we were seconds from missing the boat when we arrived. Fortunately, we got there, and just in time for this Cajun man in Crocs to let us on the boat last so that the boat would ride lower and the gangplank would be at a flatter angle.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A shot out at a Louisiana bayou, with thick foliage surrounding muddy water.

Our captain had the thickest Cajun accent, probably little to no formal education, and an unfathomable wealth of knowledge about life, flora, and fauna on the bayou. I could tell we were in for a good time the second he opened his mouth. First thing he did was give us a parents' warning that nature is not always fuzzy and gentle like you see in films like Bambi and Lion King. "Earlia' 'dis week, I'da famly git orn'ry 'cause we had a gator rowlin' ona pyig 'nd they're kids saw." 

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A small 3-4 foot alligator swims along the banks of a muddy bayou.

My family had visited Magnolia Plantation in Charleston and seen their litle swamp nature preserve, which was a beautiful foggy morning during which we saw maybe five alligators. And I was hoping we'd see that many for Keely, as she loves animals and that was kinda the reason I planned this. But just around the corner, we saw our first alligator, which we were told was a juvenile. 

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A muddy bank with several furry razorback pigs eating corn.

As I said, Keely adores all animals, but was not feeling an other species that shares these swamps: feral hogs. These razorback pigs are descendants from domesticated ones that have escaped to the wild, and while they're just as smart and open to eating anything as livestock hogs, they have stumpy tusks, wiry hair, and a nasty personality. Captain Billiot threw some corn onto the banks and these guys came running, they made this bloodcurdling cacophony of screeching and it was actually scary.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A small furry raccoon on a wooden perch nailed to a tree.

We'd been told in the cooking class that a lot of "roadkill" type mammals met their ends in gumbo, jambalaya, and etouffee at the hands of backwater Cajun chefs, as it was one of the proteins most accessible to them. Manchac Bayou was also home to a population of raccoons, which I'm afraid of but Keely and her best friend love.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett smiles in a purple shirt and matching purple Survivor buff on his head, with his arm on a metal boat railing and the banks of a bayou in the background.

How could I not bust out the Survivor buff??? I'm on a boat into the Louisiana bayou surrounded by wildlife that wants to eat me!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A secluded cemetery with white wooden crosses and offerings has a fence labeled "1915" as several feral hogs eat corn at its base.

This cemetery, labeled 1915, holds the victims of a flood that killed lots of people nearby. It's secluded, old, and reminds me of those odd little places you discover in the corners of Red Dead Redemption 2's map.

"How do these two species coexist?" I asked Captain Billiot, throwing corn on the banks while gators and raccoons alike devoured it from every nook and cranny. "Sho't answa: dey don't. Dem raccoons is one wrong move away from gittin' eaten bya pig." 

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A slate blue bird with a long, pointy bill sits in a chaotic nest in some trees.

A "bird in a nest," we were shown, had picked some very bad real estate inches over the water within jumping height of an alligator!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Several alligators jump out of the muddy swampwater, two with jaws open, trying to get a piece of bacon on a metal hook attached to a wooden stick.

Speaking of gators, our guide chummed a hook with some bacon and held it out over the water and they just went into a frenzy. We had, kid you not, seven alligators circling this piece of pork jumping like sharks to get it.

NGL, it's lowkey terrifying.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: An old, rotted, wooden shack with a tin roof decomposing on the bayou, overgrown with palmetto fronds.

This was a model of a cottage in which a family may live in a Cajun settlement. A bit black moldy for my taste, but here on the bayou, every day is like survival I understand. It's better than the Motel 6 at least...

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A metal boat on the bayou has a few families sitting around looking at the banks.

A family aboard the boat, who looked no different than your average American family on vaycay, had been speaking some funny language the whole time. And while I’m far from a polyglot, I’m usually good enough to tell what family a language is in if I hear it. But this language sounded completely unintelligible to me. After listening for a few sentences, I saw them speak to our captain in this language, and heard the word “vous,” and realized this is French. My second language! This dialect is so screwed up it’s impossible to understand to a metropolitan French speaker.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A large alligator skims the surface of the water.

Bro was absolutely massive! These alligators are all over the place here, don't go swimming but they're beautiful creatures.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A swamp tree hanging a talisman bearing an alligator skull, with a tipi dwelling made with dry palmetto fronds.

And this dwelling is where the First Nations of the Louisiana Bayou may have lived. 

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A natural statue of the Rougarou with a humanoid figure with fangs and a smaller one beside it.

“The Rougarou, not the Loup-Garou,” our guide explained. This bayou dwelling werewolf-like cryptid has French origins, we were told, but was regionalized by Acadian settlers to the area, hence the name change. It’s also the name of two bad roller coasters!

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A wooded bayou inlet with muddy water.

The sights here on Manchac were cool and I appreciate them setting things up and having things to look at, but half the beauty of this place is natural.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Keely smiles in a pink wheelchair wearing a tank top and jean shorts with her sunglasses and pink hair bandana holding a small alligator in her hands with gauze wrapped around its mouth.

“Now I’m gon’ do a bitta show ‘n’ tell,” he told us, pulling from the live well the whole reason I wanted to take Keely here. I’d seen a lot of these bayou tours pass around a baby alligator, and this little guy was a pet of our Captain. “Don’t let dat band slipoff ‘is mouth or theyr’ll be blood,” he warned us.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett smiles and holds a baby alligator, wearing a purple Hawaiian shirt and matching purple Survivor buff with a camera and binoculars around his neck on a boat on the swamp.

He felt like a water balloon! I was not expecting a scaled reptile to feel this soft and squishy, so handling him caught me off guard, but he’s a good boy. "Merci, monsieur," I told Captain Billiot after he took our photo and the alligator. I have no idea what he said back to me but it wasn't "du rien."

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Jarrett smiles with his arm around Keely aboard a metal pontoon boat, she smiles as well wearing sunglasses and a pink bandana in her hair.

We puttered back into port, but man was that incredible. I’ve always loved how the Cajun aesthetic romanticized somewhere as muddy and inhospitable as the bayou, and now I see why. Minus the heat, bugs, possibility of getting eaten by an alligator, lack of dry land, and choking humidity, this place is beautiful.

Hats off to Cajun Pride Swamp Tours for showing us this amazing natural wonder! Definitely book with them if you plan to be in the area and want to experience cute, cuddly wildlife like gators and feral hogs. They offer transport to New Orleans, we didn't take it as we were already on the move and had a car, but this is an easy partial day trip (20 minute drive) from New Orleans for something incredible.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: Keely smiles at the lunch counter of a diner with her phone on the table.

And afterwards, Keely had never been to Waffle House, and with one right there you know what we did. Our waitress was Big Momma per her name tag and kept calling us “my baby” at the end of every sentence, so Keely got the full experience.

IMAGE DESCRIPTION: A Creole styled plantation with a gabled roof and two chimneys has a wraparound porch framed with jade colored wrought iron accents, a fire pit and Live Oak sit just off the porch.

UP NEXT: We end the trip at the place we came to see most of all: Myrtle’s Plantation. This beautiful Creole home has a dark past behind the wrought iron and Spanish Moss for two paranormal enthusiasts to unravel. Come back for the terrifying finale of this trip report, featuring my harrowing run in with the spirits that dwell here and Keely's with...Ivan the ableist turkey?