Bragg Family South

After our first day's coastal adventure, we stayed much closer to our campsite on Day 2...the early Red River community of Natchitoches, Louisiana.  Pronounced "NAC-a-tish", this community was one of the earliest in Louisiana, settled by the French in 1714 to guard the border between French and Spanish claims in the New World.  A reconstruction of an early French fort, St. Jean Baptiste, was our first stop of the day.  The original fort was washed away long ago, but they have recreated much of the original plan, including a store with representative goods for that period: Here is an image of the Catholic chapel the French soldiers would have experienced: Here is a picture of the interior of the wood palisade walled fort, with its multitude of soldier and officer quarters: This is probably a pretty realistic depiction of the hard life these soldiers had on the far fringes of the French empire at the time.  The Spanish had a similar fort (which we...

The picture above is not quite Bragg Family South spring break, but represents one of the "adventures" we attempted this spring...remember that comet that was supposed to be visible just after dusk?  Well, we went looking for it one evening (unsuccessfully, I might add--too many high clouds).  Our spring break adventure this year involved camping in western Louisiana, along the shores of Toledo Bend Reservoir.  We stayed in a nice state park, North Toledo Bend State Park (http://www.crt.state.la.us/parks/intoledo.aspx): Toledo Bend is one of many large reservoirs in this area, and actually lies between Louisiana and Texas.  Below is a picture of the shoreline not far from our campsite.  The tree in the right foreground is a baldcypress, and is usually submerged at the base, but give the recent severe droughts of the region, the lake level is noticeably down: Something we really noticed on this trip to the piney woods of Louis...