Every day is Earth Day!

Because I treat pretty much every day like Earth Day, I decided to treat April 22 like a holiday. I didn't work from home, I didn't take my work to another place, I didn't work in the evening... I just took a whole day to enjoy the beautiful world around me.


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I drove east on Highway 90 until I found a beach. That took me through some wetlands, pine forests, and small towns. I also saw one of the best signs of all time, that I regret not stopping to take a picture of: "Scenic Bypass to Space". It's referring to the NASA Stennis Space Center, but I still thought it was funny.


I drove into Mississippi and discovered Pass Christian, a small beach town. There was hardly anyone on the beach, so I parked, and I planted myself by the warm, shallow, quiet water of the Gulf of Mexico. I explored a little further in the afternoon to check out Gulfport and Biloxi, but Pass Christian wins. I'll go back.

The next, I got back to celebrating Earth Day Every Day with a grass planting with NRCS. We planted cord grass in several badly eroded areas in St. Louis Canal in the Pointe-au-Chenes Wildlife Management Area. This was the thickest, sickest mud I've been in so far. Smells varied from methane (farts) to sulfur (rotten eggs), and the bottom was so soft that I spent most of the day wading around waist deep in swirling, dark, murky boue pourrie.

It was awesome.

This project is especially exciting because there's a good chance that I'll have the opportunity to go back and check on its progress in July, before I'm done here.

The funny part about spending the entire day in the water and being totally soaked in mud, is that I had a presentation to give back in New Orleans East, and had no time to stop and change, much less shower. The good news was that it was a fairly informal talk about the wetlands, so the group was pretty amused that I was wearing the very environment that I was teaching them about. Thank goodness the talk was outside, so no one had to smell me too much.

I just love the world around me, and I'm glad I get to enjoy it in so many different places and ways.

(These were the first 350ish or so miles of 900+ that I would drive in the past week, but more on my Lafayette adventures next time!)