The benefit of a motel room with wifi is that I can check
the WeatherNetwork and know precisely when the rain is going to stop. So when
it was time to saddle up late morning I had had some time to study the maps and
chart a course. Louisiana
is a large and varied state and it is a heck of a planning exercise to draw out
a route that gives a good flavour of the region without zigzagging too much.
And really, it is a crap shoot as to what is to be seen along any of the roads.
My nemesis the wind was there to taunt me for the first part
of the day; always, it seems, when I have a high speed highway leg planned. Driving through these gales
is rather like dancing with someone outweighing you by a substantial amount
and who has had quite a few drinks. Every half hour I needed to take a break.
The rain was violent all night, but it was dry and rather cool all day.
East on I-10 to Henderson,
then took a lazy loop down and around. This is rural Louisiana. The homes on big properties are
handsome, stately and invariably made of brick with pillars, big trees with
huge branches that reach across their broad, green and always well groomed lawns. Next door could be a
single-wide mobile home of any vintage, a modest wooden house, or perhaps an abandoned and
dilapidated shack. If there is a river
(bayou) across the road there might have a houseboat tied up on the bank.
Masses of ivy cloak the big oak trees. Cows graze indifferently in expansive
pastures.
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| Now isn't this something out of Mark Twain? |
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| Livin' on the bayou |
We passed through the town of Martinville which dates back to the 1700’s.
In a kind of feudal system, the property owners were obliged to pay the
Catholic church an annual sum. Buildings are very old and still in use,
although an old bank may have a restaurant in it, an old tinsmith’s shop is now
a barbershop, and a 150 year old store is now a Subway francise. This is what I
meant by my comments the other day about the notion of authenticity in the old cowboy
towns in Texas.
These buildings have not been dressed up, restored and commercially funkified, or torn
down and replaced by a 21st century version of the theme. These are
the real McCoy. Even the abandoned stores and houses have an unfinished antique
look and feel about them. They have not been vandalized, but rather left to
molder respectfully, still occupying a sacred place and allowed to lie fallow
without becoming architectural litter.
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| Moldering respectfully in the heart of a little town. |
On another loop down Hwy 77 at Grosse Tete we ended up
crossing the Mississippi on a ferry, landing
in the southern edge of Baton Rouge.
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| The Bruiser goes for a ride across the Mighty Mississippe |
174 to 61, south to 22 at Sorrento
which we followed northeast to a state park. The first part of this road
followed the bayou and it was the living image of what I had imagined much of
Lousiana to be. Houses lining the shore rather like beach front homes at a
lake, but with a bayou kind of flavour to it. Even although the homes have been
modernized and there are SUV’s parked outside, there is something quite unique
and charming about the scene.
865 bruiser on miss
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| This 120 year old building, once a tinshop is now a barbershop |
I am impressed with how the people of this place have
managed to live and thrive in a land which is substantially covered by swamp.
One would think there would be an epic mosquito problem, but I haven’t even seen one
yet. Constructing a freeway across swampland requires endless miles of raised roadbed
and even concrete bridging 10 miles long at a stretch at a cost I can’t
imagine. The roadways seem like long, skinny islands.
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| I-10 to Baton Rouge built across a flooded swamp. The raised highway is 10 miles long. |
I have a poor map of the state that lacks the kind of detail
I need to navigate off the big highways. Road numbers along the same route
change constantly and it is a real challenge for my short term memory to hold
the directions in my head as I can’t look at my map and drive simultaneously.
Consequently, I stop frequently and puddle jump from point to point. Very
frequently, helpful souls will pull alongside and offer their service to this
grizzled old fart obviously very far from home.
And he is nearly as far from home as he is going to get.
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| Around here when you are camping in the bayou you are camping IN the bayou! |
