Day 37: Waggaman to Lutcher: Old Man River

February 10, 2014

Dave and Marieanne are extremely knowledgeable about all things Louisiana, and many other topics as well. We passed a long and enjoyable evening talking and learning. Dave and Marieanne designed their house themselves, and it is wonderfully open and efficient, and beautifully finished. Just sitting in it was a real pleasure.

One of the many topics was an unusual one. Dave and Marieanne are serious collectors of antique irons - such as were used to press clothes, including collars and ruffles. They have hundreds, and each has a story as to how it works, where it came from, where they found it, etc. We got the mini tour. It could have been made into a TV documentary!

Dave and Marieanne and Dodie also pored over maps and guides last night, trying to plan a good route for us in the direction of Baton Rouge. They considered both sides of the river, and looked for motels and/or camping. They more or less drew a blank, and that is despite the great local knowledge of our hosts and the all seeing eye of Google, connected by fast internet.

The final consensus was that we would be better on the other side of the river. One way to do that would be to backtrack and go over the big bridge again. I had a minor tantrum about that. There are not really a lot of bridges over the river near here, and the next one is the Hale Boggs on Interstate I-310. Definitely illegal for cycles. So David offered to use his pickup to get us safely across. It was just one more considerate thing from what had been a wonderful and entertaining visit.

Marieanne and Dodie pore over maps and books to find the best route to Baton Rouge

Morning dove at one of Marieanne's feeders. Other birds proved too elusive for me to snap

David and Marieanne collect irons for clothes and ruffles. They have hundreds, this photo is just a sample!

Animated, interesting discussion with Dave and Marieanne

The bikes are ready for their brief ride to safety

We loaded up the bikes, after taking off all the gear and headed off. The bridge drops you at Destrehan Plantation, which is one of those that have been maintained and that offers tours. We did not have 90 minutes for the tour, but we almost had to make some time - In the flurry of loading all our gear bits onto the truck, my Merino hoodie got left behind. Now, we have refined our gear to a point where each bit is critical, and this one was critical. Poor Dave, left us at the plantation and drove all the way home and back for it!

As sometimes happens, there was a bit of a silver lining to this glitch. While we were waiting, Jeffrey drove by the parking lot, and asked some of the usual questions. It turned out that he is planning to cycle Paris to Brest and back next year. He is also very familiar with this region, being from here, and we even got to speak a little French together. We were still chatting with Jeffrey when Dave got back, with Marieanne. So now we all five had an entertaining chat. Relative strangers, in a parking lot, joined by an interest in the region and in cycle touring, having a great time!

Dave and I took a moment to admire the many hundreds of years old live oaks on the plantation grounds. They are hung with Spanish Moss, and decorated by Resurrection Ferns. These ferns go brown and dead when dry, but spring to green life when water comes.

Inside the plantation store, books about Louisiana cultural topics like cooking, voodoo, and slavery were on display. We could not really buy, transport, and mail any of these, but I did successfully beg for a very small bag of beignet mix!

The Interstate bridge- no way, for a cycle

In the plantation store, more info on local voodoo, cuisine, ghosts, slavery

In the plantation parking lot, a fun get togehter

This book is a little jokey, but looks like fun.

From this point we could get up on the levee and cycle the bike route there. To our left was the river, with boat traffic reminiscent for us of the Rhine. To our right we could spot some other historic houses. Soon though the landscape gave way to a highly industrialized series of refineries and chemical plants. These were using the river to load and unload product. We later learned that this whole area is considered part of the port of Louisiana.

The levee path, once so pleasant and paved now turned to gravel. We responded by dropping down onto the river road. The only thing, this has no shoulder and quite heavy traffic.Quite a few drivers honked at us. We also could not help noticing that the housing was poor and even the few churches often had no names and looked in need of repair.

We stopped at a handimart for a Snickers bar, and noticed a little black dog nosing around. Dodie thinks he was dropped off from a car, just as we were there. As we made to leave, he followed us. We tried to shoo him away, but he persisted.On the road he ran beside us, and we could see he would be killed within minutes. The road was dangerous enough, for us.

All we could do was to remount the levee and begin riding the gravel. At least up there "our" dog was safe. We do not yet know the end of this dog story, but I can say right then that he did us a favour. He forced us to leave a road that was far too dangerous for us. Up on the levee we encountered a lady driving (illegally, but slowly). I asked her for advice about whet to do with the dog - for example, is there a dog catcher in the Parish? The lady said there were many stray dogs here, and no provision for them. God would find a solution she assured me.

The dog followed us for 20km, and Dodie became concerned his paws would hurt. Soon enough, though, we ourselves stopped, with evening coming. There were certainly no motels in this area, and we already know campgrounds are not even a concept here. So we dropped down on the river side of the levee and pitched the tent. The dog curled up.

We cooked our pasta marinara and were sitting in the dark eating it when a police patrol truck spotted us from the levee top. Grampies are lousy stealth campers. Must be the bright orange tent!

The officer was not about to throw us out , agreeing instead that there isn't a darn thing for miles. He did warn us that this is a rough area, and that we easily could get run over in the tent or accosted, by people with ATVs. He advised us on

the best way to travel tomorrow, and we asked him or his other patrollers to keep an eye on us in the meantime. We could not convince him to take away our dog!

If you are reading this, then we found enough cell signal to upload it, obviously. We even found wifi, so photos are here too!