Today my friend Cynthia and I had planned to go eat lunch with Heather and her friend, Linda. Heather and Linda work in Mandeville which is also considered the North shore of Lake Ponchartrain. Pronounced 'Punch a train'

Anyway, just as Cynt and I met up and got ready to leave to go there, Heather called and said she was sick and had to leave work to go home. Bummer…… for Heather ....and for me & Cynt. After thinking about other things we could do around Baton Rouge, we decided to go ahead to Mandeville anyway. And we were glad we did.

First of all the little town of Mandeville, is a quaint little place with old homes with huge porches and beautiful flowers in the yards. There is very little trash lying around and the people are friendly. Just a little small town America place to go.

Anyway, we went to a restaurant called Rip’s that sits on the side of Lake Ponchartrain and ended up sitting out on the 2nd story porch overlooking the edge of the lake. There was a nice sea breeze coming off the Lake and even though it was hot temp wise, sitting on the porch with the breeze blowing made it very comfortable to be out there. The food was excellent and the view was great.

Here are some the pics we took while just hanging out.

This is Cynthia totally into watching what is going on on the Lake. Notice the huge porch behind and around her.This is the Causeway Bridge that crosses the Lake and takes you into New Orleans on the other side of the lake. I think the bridge is 24 or so miles long. You can't see the end of it from where we were.This is Mr. Blue Heron that frequent the area. There are a lot of sea birds around here as the Lake actually opens into the Gulf of Mexico. The lake itself is not completely salt water, it is brackish (part salt, part fresh). It is a very shallow lake too. You can stand up in most of it although there are some deep holes in it.

This old oak tree is dead now and probably was killed by Hurricane Katrina, but it still has moss growing on it and it made for a very interesting picture. I loved the tree. I am sure it has seen a lot of stuff happen over the years.And here is Mr. Heron again. They stand about 3 feet tall. Interesting birds. In this photo, he was walking toward me watching for fish in the water next to him.

I hope you enjoyed our trip with us as much as we enjoyed it. It was nice weather and turned out to be a very nice outing.