March 10, 2016 - New Iberia, LA to Sulphur, LA

It was still very windy when we were up at 7 am.  It must have rained all night long.  It was very cloudy and the clouds were moving too fast.

We were nestled between one 18 wheeler semi and 20’ Roadtrek camper van. There is plenty of room for few more RVs. Not much noise here except for the rain pounding on the roof. 

Edith decided to check weather.com for forecasts on cities/towns west of New Iberia, LA after she saw weather alerts while reading USAToday e-newspapers.  The destination for tomorrow is Lake Charles, LA and there was a warning of coastal flooding there. We were skeptical about continuing our journey to Lake Charles this afternoon.  We checked weather channel app on IPhone and the weather doppler showed a large swath of heavy rain continuing to move between New Iberia and Lake Charles. Because of this we felt it best to stay put and wait until after the storm.

We were planning on visiting Konriko Rice and other attractions in New Iberia and Abbeville, but they are put on hold until another time because of the weather.

Numerous lightning strikes and thunders.  Finally there was a sky break in the distance around 12:45 pm. We waited until 1 pm before we left Walmart to hit the road to Lake Charles, LA.

Instead of staying on US 90 we elected to get on I-10 W because we felt it might be safer with the ongoing rainstorm. Wow, bad road condition to I-10 connector. The side roads (feeders) looked to be smoother. We should have stayed on the feeder :-(

We chose not to visit Lafayette this time because of the weather and time constraint. We needed to be in Lake Charles by tomorrow.  Got on I-10 W at 1:40 pm and the road condition was finally better.  The sky was still very grey, but it was not raining at all.

We had to get off I-10W due to traffic jam that went on for more than a mile. We detoured to US 90, went for several miles before getting back to I-10 at the next exit and there was clear sailing.

We arrived Lake Charles at 3:15 pm. The weather was sunny, but there were still plenty of clouds although not as grey. Lots of oil refineries along the interstate. 

Approaching Lake Charles, LA

We took Exit #21 to get on LA 27 to check into Hidden Ponds RV Park in Sulphur, LA for overnight camping. There were not many vacant sites left at Hidden Ponds RV Park and there was one site #53 for $26 a night (after Good Sam discount).  The concrete pad was in poor shape, but good enough to park the LH on.  After setting up the LH Erwin mentioned that the 50 amps was not set properly, so we went to the office to let the manager know.  Soon after two electricians showed up bringing a new circuit breaker.  It did not work the first time after replacing it and they needed to reverse the wirings.  Viola! It worked...

Mr and Mrs AFLAC

After the repair was done we left in the Jeep to go to Kroger Grocery store to get few items.  With the size of our refrigerator and what we consume we tend to shop for foods every 4-5 days.

Kroger is across I-10 from the campground.  A very nice and huge store.  Lots of produce and meats.  There were lots of Wasbai and Cajun stuff that we don’t normally see in Florida grocery stores.  After leaving Kroger with two bags we continued trekking to see what else is out there.  There is a Walmart and a Raising Cane’s by the interestate.

The sky after nightfall was eerie.  The colors reminded us like wildfire in the sky.  That is from oil refineries nearby.  The sky will never be dark unless the refineries are shut down and not in operation.  Impossible to get pictures of the Milky Way here!

A restful night was interrupted with two mysterious starts by the generator!  Each occurrence rocked the LH and it really scared us.  We just could not figure out how and why the generator started without us pushing a button.  We were afraid that it might start up again during our sleep, so Erwin manually shut down the generator. Whew! Erwin checked the electricity box and found no abnormalities that he could see.