One of the things we wanted to do while camping at Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville, LA was to bike part of the Tammany Trace. Tammany Trace is a rails to trails conversion that runs around 30 miles from Covington to Slidell.
We had previously biked the Tanglefoot Trail in Mississippi so were familiar with the rails to trails concept. We didn't bike as much of this trail as we did the Tanglefoot, but I really liked the part of the trail we did use. The Tammany
Trace goes through Fontainebleau State Park, so we started there and biked to the Farmer's Market trailhead in Mandeville.
One of the things I really liked about this section was that it was mostly shaded. I also liked seeing the colorful and eclectic housing in Mandeville that borders the Trace. I was surprised to see how many bike trails there are in Mandeville. I would have to say that Mandeville, LA is the most bike-friendly city I have ever visited. There were trails all thoughout the older residential section that leads to the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
One of the things I noticed on the section that we rode is the 4-way stops at almost all of the intersections with vehicle traffic. I felt like this made for a safer ride across city streets. The other thing was that in sections were there is not a cross street, there are markers painted on the asphalt of the tail to let you know what to tell 911 dispatch if you need help so that they can find you.
I noticed, once we were on the trail with Sally Mae, that dogs are not supposed to be on the trail. We made sure that she stayed in her "chariot" and nobody said anything to us about having a dog on the trail.
It appears that the Tammany Trace gets plenty of use and biking the part that I did makes me wish we had a bike trail closer to where we live.
We had the opportunity to camp at Fontainebleau State Park in Mandeville, Louisiana on May 18 through May 21, 2018. Fontainebleau State Park is on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. This was the first time we could get away on a camping trip in 2018. We had an unusually cold winter in north MS and then it rained and rained and rained.
.Living in Mississippi, we are used to high humidity levels, but the humidity we experienced in Louisiana was even more than we are accustomed to. Once you get your mind wrapped around the fact that you are going to be in a perpetual state of wringing wet, you just get on with whatever you are doing. One way I guess Louisianans deal with it is to consume "snowballs". We saw shaved ice aka Snowball shops everywhere.
Fontainebleau State Park has history, walking trails, biking trails, swimming, playgrounds and beautiful live oaks with "Spanish moss". This state park is a very popular place for day use swimmers. We also saw the large pavillions being used for parties.
We didn't have time to do everything we wanted to. We were not able to explore many of the trails nor the nature areas close by; however, we did bike part of the Tammany Trace, visited the Mandeville Farmer's Market, the Mandeville Lakefront, rode across the Lake Pontchartrain Bridge, and picked up fresh shrimp from the Mandeville Seafood Market.
The Mandeville Lakefront is a large public park right on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain.
There is a paved trail throughout the park, large playground area, boat launch, and absolutely beautiful trees with Spanish moss. Right across the street from the park are fantastic "southern" homes.
We stayed at campsite #85 in Campground A. This site is a pull through with 30/50 amp electric and water. There is a picnic table, grill, fire ring and plenty of room on the living side of the camper. We were happy with this site but would have liked a little more shade. I think site #1 would be better for a hot weather visit as it had quite a bit of shade.
Some of the sites also had sewer hookups. We were in Campground A, which I thought had more space between the sites than Campground B.
Both my phone (Sprint) and hubby's phone (CSpire) had good service. Our over-the-air TV picked up quite a few stations from New Orleans.
There were 3 bath houses and 2 had washer/dryers. One of the bath houses was very old and not air conditioned but the other 2 were clean, well-lit and air conditioned.
This was a nice park to stay in and I would possibly come back to explore more of the area when the temps are cooler.
