This was the fourth 'highpoint' of the day, although this one, like neighboring Jefferson Davis Parish, only reaches up to 57 feet above sea level, give or take a few millimeters. Today had been a long drive, coming in from Houston, and somewhat difficult mentally due to the incessant driving rain, which (a) made driving go slow, for obvious reasons, among them we couldn't see more than 50 feet some times, and (b) pounded on the truck's roof making for quite a din. Our destination was Lafayette, just about 20 miles further, but I couldn't resist visiting the highspots of Acadia Parish along the way. Beth, bless her patient heart, could have very easily given this one a miss, but she allowed me to indulge in my silly hobby and even helped with the map navigation. Extra neck rub for her!

The skinny on Acadia Parish: eleven separate areas reach 55 feet above sea level, clustered in the parish's northeastern corner near the towns of Pitreville and Church Point. Two areas near Pitreville are very large, covering many square miles and include three separate spot elevations of 57 feet: one at the northeast corner, another about a quarter-mile to the west, and another about two miles to the southwest. The remaining areas are much smaller and some, I suspect, are man-made, or man-enhanced, by road building over the years. However, numerous county roads and state highways criss-cross over these areas so it's just a matter of driving all over the place and making as reasonable a determination of the high areas by visual inpection and map reading. I imposed a rule for us to visit each of the 57-foot spot elevations, drive as much as possible and call it good.

We came into the area along eastbound US-190 to the community of Swords, and followed state routes LA-752 and LA-751 south to where LA-751 junctioned with LA-358. This is the northeast corner of the parish and one of the 57-foot spot elevations. We got out and looked around. Totally, completely flat. We obviously were placing our trust in the surveyors here! The second 57-foot spot elevation was visited a few moments later, westbound along LA-358. About a mile later we came to the junction with LA-1103 at Pitreville, which is tiny and has no services - not really a town as just a locale. South along 1103 put us inside one of the bigger areas. At a corner in the road I shot the photo (thumbnail, left).

We went south some more then started the process of picking off the various areas. The third 57-foot spot elevation is found along Wagon Road just south of a thicket of natural woods, which was higher by about a foot than the road, so in my opinion, this one area is the likeliest natural highpoint of the parish. We also toured Pamela and Gobert Roads and got back out onto LA-1103. For future visitors following my report, pick your own route and make your own determinations; there are literally dozens of ways to tour these back roads.

Next, we proceeded to Church Point and hit the smallish areas scattered about the town and the immediate area. They are all fairly small and probably not the highpoint, but we visited them easily enough. We got slightly turned around on the road net and made some unplanned detours, but finally we found ourselves north of town along LA-35. A re-route of the highway confused us a bit, since our map was apparently not up-to-date, but we finally found the various areas. The last one was the pair along Plaquemines Road near the parish boundary. The rain sort of stayed light for most of this journey, which took a total of about an hour to complete. From here we drove into Opelousas and Lafayette and treated ourselves a fine Cajun dinner at Prejean's, a famous restaurant and music hangout along Interstate-49 north of Lafayette. I dug into some gumbo while the both of us ate alligator for the first time ever!