Living in a journey is fascinating. There are very few routines apart from the ones that are self imposed. Scenery and habitat never, ever repeat. And truly, one never knows what to next expect .

Rain splatter woke me up at 5:00. It didn’t amount to anything, but of course I didn’t know that, so to be prudent I thought it was best to get up and pack while everything was dry. By the time I finished the sun was up in a clear sky.

But then I noticed this:

Oh. That can't be good.

With hopeful excitement, the buzzards returned and sat around waiting to see if I would manage to get myself out of this one. It is fair to say I shared their curiosity. 

The Buzzard Boys are ever hopeful.

With no air pump and of course no spare tire I suddenly felt quite at the mercy of circumstance. After a tour of the campground I found that the caretaker had a pump to at least get me on the road. After doing a little leak test I determined that the leak was slow enough for an injection of air to last me until I got to town, so I pumped it up to 45 psi and made haste. Bridgeport (which is not a port, nor does it have a bridge) is a little town with no tire shop. Although it does have a muffler shop. So I says to the mechanic, “If you had a motorcycle with a flat tire, where would you take it to in this town?” And he says, “why, right here, sir”. And so he fixed it. He pulled a thorn out of The Bruiser’s foot that might have been imbedded for some time, just waiting for the tire to wear down far enough to puncture the inner tube. My guess is that it came from the landfill-style campsite that I enjoyed near El Paso.

So I’m back rollin’ thunder by 10:00 after wondering just a couple hours earlier how I was ever going to get on the road at all. Ya never know.

This epic journey was billed as a solo trip. You know I really thought I was traveling alone. But that, as it turns out, is quite impossible. Without the generous help of so many local people I have met along the way I would never have gotten this far. I am grateful to them all, including my dear family and friends who have been zapping me messages every day that keeps me feeling encouraged and cared about.  I thank you.

In due course The Bruiser and I got ourselves out of Texas and crossed into Oklahoma north on 44 (sort of). The landscape quickly changed to pastoral farmland with oceans of green pasture over which the wind whipped waves and ripples. Later in the day the sun reflecting off the tops of the grass gave the impression of whitecaps on stormy seas. Emerald grasses are broken with patches of brick red soil and creek beds and with dense carpets of yellow flowers.

The Bruiser arrives in Oklahoma

Rocks and mountains! I missed them.

And mountains! And Rocks! Hwy 49 leads through the Witchita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. My motive was to break up the flat and straight highway travel that has made driving feel more like aiming than steering for most of the last week or two. But I wasn’t prepared for buffalo!

These prairie towns are small and don’t always offer much for services. All too frequently they have shrunk to nearly nothing. Roosevelt is a classic example of commercial atrophy. Every single store along the main drag is closed and rotting, even although the surrounding area has quite a number of healthy looking homes and ranches. Curiously, road crews were repaving the main street! There is a story here, I am certain of it.

Downtown Roosevelt, Oklahoma

I was stopped at the roadside checking my maps as I so frequently do, when a truck pulled alongside and a fellow asked if I needed help. His useful advice on the local geography also came with a colour commentary.

“There is a Rattlesnake Festival at Magnum this weekend”, he says. 

“Is that good?” I asked.

“You bet! I’m bringing Billy!” And with that he holds his pet boa constrictor aloft that had been resting in a cage on his front seat.

This is an event that should not be missed. Apparently there are also flea markets and corn dogs.

We’re camping tonight at the State Park on Lake Tom Steed and were fortunate to have scored waterfront property on the lake. Water level is low in the lake following an extended period of drought and it is predicted to continue through the summer. Unseasonably hot and humid weather prevails in this part of Oklahoma this week and the bugs have all filed flight plans for here. Bird sounds are continuous and quite delightful. Wrens have a distinctive sound that someone pointed out to me when I was in Big Bend, and I have since noticed that their songs have slightly different dialects in each place that I have been. As do the checkout clerks at the convenience stores!

Lookin' out my back door

As I am sitting at my little picnic table writing this draft in the dark, my neighbour came over with a plate of dinner for me. It was as delicious as it was gracious! Thank you Tracy! Much has been said about southern hospitality, but not nearly enough!

Everybody I have ever asked remembers exactly what they were doing at the moment they were told about it.

And so it is with many defining moments of history within our lifetimes—Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon, Henderson’s winning goal in the Canada-Russia series, and November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was shot.

I was not quite 11 on that day and remember drawing an alligator in a moat around an English castle. (I now know better). Our principal came into our classroom to tell us the news, then sent us home. Imagine that.

For some reason the particular events and the intrigue surrounding the assassination of JFK has always interested me. I remember when the Warren Commission offered their conclusions following exhaustive research, forensic analysis and simulations. The Commission stated that as unlikely as it may seem given the many apparent inconsistencies, they believe that there was a single gunman and he acted on his own accord. For years I had a difficult time believing it. Hundreds of volumes have been written accusing the FBI, CIA, Soviets, Mafia and many others, all of whom had something to gain with Kennedy’s demise, and I must admit that I gave credence to some of those theories. That is, until my neighbour suggested I read “Case Closed” by Gerald Posner. And I did. It is an exhaustive and impeccably documented work that chronicles the terribly troubled life of Lee Harvey Oswald in minute detail and the author reaches the same conclusion as the Warren Commission. One needs to read nothing else.

Still, we find it so very difficult to accept. Why? Because big, human precipitated events that have had a profound impact (either positively or negatively) on the course of our history must logically be initiated by big and influential people such as the Hitlers. Alexander the Greats. or Julius Caesars. There is something quite unpalatable about the notion that an event as pivotal as this could be perpetrated by a character as insignificant and pathetic as Lee Harvey Oswald.

Today I stood at the window of the Sixth Floor of the Texas Book Depository where Oswald pulled the trigger and I peered along the same line of sight to the street below. I stood on the grassy knoll where the non-existent accomplices are alleged to have stood but from where Zapruder filmed the entire episode with his 8 mm movie camera. And as macabre as it sounds I stood at the very spot in the middle of Elm Street where the fatal shot hit its mark on that awful day.

This was a significant event for me. today, albeit creepy.

The Book Depository is in the background. Oswald was perched at the window on the far right, second floor from the top. Kennedy's limo was roughly in the position of the grey car on the left when the first shot was fired.

Oswald hid himself behind a barricade of boxes and was at the window at the centre of the picture.

View from the window. Kennedy's limo was in the position of the car to the right.

Note the X on the pavement. The grassy knoll is behind me.

Dallas/Fort Worth is another one of those megacities that takes most of a day to drill through despite the high speed freeway system. It was a hot, muggy day and I spent quite a long time walking the streets in my full leathers trying to locate The Bruiser’s parking place after I got myself completely disoriented as I went in one building and out another. Road construction throttled us back to a crawl on the way out of the city. And when we set sights on a state park 50 miles outside the city, we found that it was completely unmarked until we were almost right on it. Thank goodness for the several helpful people that guided me into it. (North Texans are actually quite friendly!)

OK, I’m tired of Texas now. We have a plan to get to Oklahoma tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

A Texas sunset. And as a matter of fact, I am riding off into it!

The Bruiser and I have an agreement that we would never put the other on the ground. Regrettably, I let The Bruiser down today. In a mindless moment in a parking lot I lowered the bike to the kickstand which was not down properly and down we went in a slow motion fall. Most of the impact was absorbed by yours truly so it was a soft drop and there was no damage done; still, it was an unhappy sight to see my faithful steed on the ground. There was no humanly way I could set it upright again on my own. At 600 lb unloaded I just don’t have the strength.

Peeling off my jacket and helmet that were suddenly getting very warm I looked around for help. A big white pickup with a very large man pulled up within moments, and as I babbled a bit about the circumstances, this Man Mountain wordlessly picked The Bruiser off the ground like it was a bicycle, acknowledged my inadequate words of appreciation with a simple nod, and drove off.

Foolishness and gratitude swirled about me as we carried on our way. I heard myself apologizing to this big piece of machinery that has been my companion.

Poverty Point is a designated National Monument 15 miles up the road (on Hwy 17 if you are following this). Roughly 4000 years ago in a time before the North American Indian as we know them, there were prehistoric tribes who build huge earthen mounds similar to the Emerald Mound I saw yesterday. Poverty Point is one of the largest on the continent, and it is monstrous when one considers that it was built from endless baskets of dirt. The earliest of these people date back 10,000 years. I was waiting to go on a guided shuttle tour at 10:00, but when a school bus loaded with kids arrived and one that I heard coming long before it pulled into the parking lot, I opted for a tour of the self-guided variety.

An historic pile of dirt.

The remainder of the day was spent on Hwy 2 crossing the top of Louisiana. Poncho approached me at a fuel stop in Mer Rouge. Has the same bike as The Bruiser. It is back in D.C. and he wants to go back to retrieve it as soon as he gets work and his health improves. I have heard many personal stories in parking lots in every state with folks generous of spirit and full of life but invariably tinged with pain and regrets. That is true of all of us, no? We always part with sincere blessings for whatever comes next in our lives.

Darwin said it best: "Adapt or die"! If you are a tree in Louisiana you'd better get used to swamp.

Little towns equally spaced like beads on a bracelet approach and recede. This area is rural, homespun, ordinary, green, content and untouched by tourism. For some reason the lines of one of my favourite old poems appeared across the screen of my mind  today (and anything that replaces Glenn Campbell lyrics is welcome!) American poet e.e.cummings wrote:

Anyone lived in a pretty how town

With up so floating, many bells down…

Someones married their everyones

Laughted their cryings and did their dance…

One day anyone died I guess

And noone stooped to kiss his face

Busy folk buried them side by side

Little by little and was by was

…

The whole, beautiful thing is at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15403

The poem is a cyclic tale of a little community of Everyman (Anyone and Noone are the names of two generic protagonists) who live, and love, and work and die, all the while the earth keeps circling the sun and so it goes. Only the place remains, together with the ever-changing artifacts of the life works of those who lived there. I saw that in these little towns. But of course it could be anywhere—grain farming communities in Saskatchewan or little hamlets in Hungary. Passing through them is a one-dimensional look at a four dimensional scene that changes and evolves but in some ways retain a certain identity. Notwithstanding the McDonald’s and WalMarts that eventually set up on the perimeters. The churches (there are an astonishing number of them here!) and homes and derelict old structures that I have been grousing about in previous monologues are the chronicles of this living poem. In my words, ordinary, green and content. Cummings said it so much better.

From Louisiana back to Texas. God help me! It took me a week to cross Texas the first time!

We are set up tonight at Daingerfield State Park off Hwy 49. After dinner I strolled down to the lake and chatted with an older couple who created a picture of serenity fishing off the dock as the sun casts that wonderful orange light late in the day.

I am sleeping these nights without a fly on the tent so I can see the planetarium show under the sky. Venus is in near conjunction with the moon and it is a truly glorious sight! Each of these objects is a symbol of love and beauty, and when they are nearly touching it is an awesome sight to behold for lovers and dreamers and poets. Even for grizzled bikers.

April 23

So let's go back to Natchez and check it out.

Natchez is proud of its rich and checkered history and they do an excellent job preserving it and profiling it and posting signs to apprise the tourists of what the features are and where they are found. The Spanish had it first in the early 1700’s. The British wrestled it away from them but didn’t work to hard to keep it, and then of course the Americans secured the territory in the War of Independence.

The first sign I encountered was at an intersection called “Fork in the Road”, a place where slave auctions were conducted.

The Mighty Mississippe at Natchez

At the overlook to the Great River (the best vantage point anywhere) a number of commemorative plaques were posted. The one you see below is a memorial to the hundreds of people who died in a terrible nightclub fire, trapped inside as the doors were locked in the interests of security.

Note that date, April 23, 1940 was 72 years ago to this day.

On the waterfront where the steamboats used to dock, the Blue Cat nightclub (now gone) where was Jerry Lee Lewis first performed. There is history here of every flavour!

It is a treat to drive around and gawk at these handsome southern homes, always with a front veranda and columns to support the overhanging roof. It just makes one hanker for a mint julep and a porch swing.

McDonald’s has public wifi and it is almost a daily routine for me to stop in one to check my mail and post my blog. In spite of the unique regional setting in which I find myself, the inside of this place is always exactly the same and it mutes the character of even the most unique of towns. However, the characters on this milquetoast stage are an ever changing cast of players that define each place. In Mississippi they are mostly black and cheerful and gregarious and everyone here greets me with a smile and a hello. It is hard to get out of a parking lot without a lengthy chat with someone.  Today there was a group of hearty souls on small scooters who are on a cross country rally. I spoke with one fellow who is riding a little 50 cc Honda (I think) with less than 5 horsepower, 1965 vintage, and they are all on their way to San Diego!

How is that for ambitious! (notice all the motor oil he is carrying! He burns more oil than gas!)

After all of this I finally got on the road north and followed the famous Natchez Trace. Originally a series of Indian trails, President Jefferson in 1801 had the military clear and enlarge the path from Nashville to Natchez so that the otherwise isolated District of Natchez could be secure from the bloody British. It was so well used that the track has eroded into a deep trench, and this can be seen in places near where the modern highway passes near.

The Natchez Trace. And some grizzled goober in the foreground for scale.

Hundreds of years of travel has entrenched the trail.

Other stops along this road included a roadhouse built in 1740 that supported the travelers of The Trace over the years. Elsewhere one could visit an enormous mound of earth that Indians of a thousand years ago built, one basket of soil at a time, atop of which they built temples. For me this is a bit reminiscent of the Mayans.

For a time I was “Goin’ to Jackson” as Johnny Cash would say, but I changed my mind about that and angled west for Vicksberg. In 1863 this was the site of a well known battle in the Civil War. The battlefield has been very nicely cleared and restored, the trenches where the Union soldiers holed up and the earthen mounds where the Confederate cannons were perched are still there—complete with cannons.

My old Dad was an amateur historian and a well studied and avid Civil War buff with a considerable library that he had assembled over the years and of which he was proud. In fact soon after he retired he and Mom drove across the continent on an epic journey and I remember him telling me how he rose early one morning to walk the battlefield at Gettysberg. I was certain that he could see and reconstruct in his mind’s eye the way the battle was acted out on those fields.  He would have loved seeing this scene in Vicksberg, and I dearly wished he was there to share this with me.

Dad passed away on this day, April 23, 1980.

Silent now.

The wind stole my favourite hat from my saddlebag as I crossed the Mississippi back to Louisiana. Arkansas was on my agenda, but as I thought more deeply about it, I really couldn’t think of a good reason to go there. Yes, I know—it is the birthplace of Bill Clinton, and that alone should be reason enough.

But no.

Before leaving New Orleans and starting the next 6000 miles back, I first needed to do an investigation.  When Katrina slammed into the coast and caused the Mississippi to breach the dikes the devastation to the low lying areas left us with horrifying images. Much of the city is below the level of the river and it filled up like a bathtub. Over the last five years the efforts to restore New Orleans to its former glory are nothing short of heroic. However, it has often been reported that the poor areas of the city are the last to be reconstructed, and I set out to see for myself the current status of restoration in those parts of the city.

"Dead End" says the sign.

I am unhappy to report that there are still hundreds of homes that have been boarded up and abandoned, their owners underinsured and too poor to put them back together. In some neighbourhoods such as the one called Lower Nine which I visited, roughly half of the homes have been restored while their neighbours relocated and left their houses to decay. With so much damage done and the population of the neighbourhoods so greatly reduced, some schools were closed, businesses shut down, and even a church was nailed shut. The gaiety of the downtown core and the French Quarter in particular is not wholly representative of the state of the city.

Yes, that is a For Sale sign on the church.

The pole banners read, "Breathe Life back into the Lower Nine"

Goodbye, southern Louisiana, I have other places yet to see.

The Garmin people sold me a magnificent little device clamped to my handlebars that is immeasurably helpful in helping me steer in and out of big cities through the labyrinth of overpasses and exits. Personal advice from many local people I meet is additionally useful as I plot my course on a daily—often hourly--basis. So up the west side of the Mississippi on Hwy 18 we go with the intention of checking out some of the old sugar plantations that were a mainstay of the economy in the mid 1800’s. Winding up that road with the big 30 foot levee beside me (the river was invisible to me) it was sort of cool to think that each big sweeping curve in the road reflected a parallel meander in the mighty river. Broad and fertile flood plain to my left is planted with lush fields that extend well past my horizon.

The first plantation I stopped to see was occupied by a Hollywood film crew, using the site as a location for an upcoming movie on the life of slaves on these old plantations. I presented myself as the replacement for Mel Gibson who I understand has disgraced himself again, although the actual star is a name everyone else but me would recognize. (I lost track of them all after Robert Redford). Needless to say, there were no tours for the tourists today, and neither was there a call for my acting talents such as they are, so I was asked to move along.  Just down the road, dozens of cars were squeezed into the entrance to an old farm, a sure sign that something interesting was going on. Sure enough, a neighbouring plantation, not open to the public, was being commandeered for the same movie. As I cruised in and around the property I met and chatted with the superintendent of the plantation who told me what was up. Unfortunately I was not quick enough on the draw to get a shot of all the extras, dressed up in their period costumes as slave workers climbing out of vans sipping on soft drinks and texting their friends as they walked on to the set. Priceless.

Oak Alley was the one fully restored plantation that I did tour around. As an aside, the Bette Davis movie "Hush Hush Swet Charlotte" was filmed here in 1965. But that was fantasy. There is a very dark history that these places symbolize  and the contrast between the corpulent mansions and the slave shacks made me feel a bit sick. I just couldn’t stomach touring through the interior of the mansion and gave it a bye. ‘ Nuff said.

Shacks for the slave labourers

Interior of one of these shacks

Lavish mansion on the Oak Alley plantation.

False River is an oxbow lake--a piece of the Mississippi left behind when the river carved a shortcut through one of its meander loops, leaving a crescent-shaped lake in its place. New Road is a prosperous little resort community built up around the shores of this lovely lake.

The Bruiser and I crossed the Mississippi River on a bridge that recently replaced the ferry, drove up the east side on Hwy 61 (named “The Blues Highway”) and soon crossed into the state of Mississippi. This is a new one for me.

The Bruiser arrives in Mississippi, Home of The Blues

Another 35 miles north and we ran through the historic town of Natchez destined for a nicely forested state park a few miles bit beyond it where I set up camp. We’ll have to backtrack tomorrow and study Natchez more carefully.

The evening is cool and quiet, apart from a noisy and persistent owl and a really weird call by something that sounds like a person badly imitating a crow.

Off to New Orleans today!

I intended to take a more scenic and circuitous route, but ended up on a main thoroughfare that took me to a bridge across Lake Ponchartrain, a large and shallow lake that marks the north edge of the city. I didn’t know they could make a bridge that long! This monster is almost 24 miles long and is the longest continuous bridge over water in the world! That’s a day’s travel by stagecoach. I wanted to stop half way along and have lunch.  The thing is colossal!

The thing is so long that when I entered it I thought we were heading out to sea.

And it spit me right into the city of New Orleans. We managed to navigate our way to the famous French Quarter and check into the New Orleans Courtyard Hotel, just four blocks up from Bourbon St. But not until The Bruiser had a chance to pose on Bourbon St before getting the rest of the day off.

The Bruiser on Bourbon Street

I spent a couple of hours walking the streets and soaking up the ambiance of this most wonderful place. The residences are all stuck together like pieces of a puzzle and have the most wonderful architecture that shows both Spanish and French influence. Some of the buildings date back to the 1700’s. Most of them are alive and well. They have been ‘repurposed’ many times over the past couple of centuries, and I suppose the founders are spinning like lathes in their graves to know what these old structures are used for now!

Bourbon St is an endless street party. Bars, shops, restaurants and more bars. Drinking on the street is legal, and one can saunter up to the window at a sidewalk storefront, order a "Big Ass Beer", and carry on your way.

When a Big Ass beer just ain't big enough

Musicians were set up on sidewalks, alleyways and even in the middle of the streets.

I came back to the hotel for a nap and a snack, then ventured out again. As darkness fell the neon took over and the street was closed to traffic. Partygoers and curious onlookers alike filled the streets, most with a drink of some kind in their hands. Most bars had live music, but I had to look hard to find real jazz or blues.Oh, but I did!  There was everything from 80’s schmultz to cowboy music to hip hop. (That would really make the pioneers spin!) It just seemed wrong to me! But the blues was very satisfying and I filled my ears with it.

Some of the locals posing with the biker from Vancouver

On the occasion of my granddaughter’s arrival last year, a dear old buddy presented me with a splendid Cuban cigar. I carried it with me on this trip and lit that baby up to mark my arrival at New Orleans and the turnaround point for my journey. Had a Big Ass beer as a chaser. Sublime!

Thanks, Spide!

Cheers!

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.

Now isn't this something out of Mark Twain?

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 21^st 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.

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. 

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

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.

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.

Around here when you are camping in the bayou you are camping IN the bayou!