circumvent mouth of the mississippi river lakenstead, come through pontchetrain and up this little bayo disembark and take a two mile portage route to the mississippi river. you could get there without going up the mississippi river. new orleans was established at that point and that is today's french quarter. as we come up this overpass, you will see bayou st. john. if you draw a line from this water body in the foreground to justice to the left of the high-rises there, that marks the little two-mile trail. it was going through swap, but this particular route was just a couple of feet above the swamplands, and that made a dry portage. st. johning over bayou right now and we will be following it more closely here, making a right. -- after the founding of the city, this was an early plantation region here. small truck farms and dairies as well as some larger commodity plantations. we have a couple of examples of old colonial era plantation houses here. a 1788ment, we will see asation house that is known the old spanish customs house, which also embodies that great look -- it's right over