Ken crosses into Mississippi. Not expecting a welcoming party, but a sign would have been good…
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Mississippi burning
January 19th, 2012Beyond the Mississippi
January 18th, 2012Dixon Correctional Facility. Long line of prisoners shuffling inside the wire. Not shackled but most wearing bright orange woollen hats. Fifty or so. Not a single Caucasian. Later passed by a minibus marked Prisoner Transportation. It stopped by a Baptist Church, small groups in the parking lot assembled for a funeral. On the shoulder two of the Sheriff’s patrol cars, the officers gathered around one. Chatting.
I’d left Lep and Perry’s home earlier. Breakfasting on fresh fruit and grits – coarsely ground corn. Almost immediately gentle rolling hills replacing flat, featureless plains. Gradients perceptible but not unpleasant. Little, bar the prison, to return my thoughts to the road. Instead mulling over what I might do when I returned home. Just a single truck sitting on my tail for a while. Pressing on the horn. Impatient imbecile. Arrogant. He could wait.
Colonial Clinton
January 18th, 2012Ken makes a brief stop in Clinton, Eastern Louisiana. Looks a bit Colonial…
Grand Designs
January 17th, 2012Grand Designs. Explaining it was a television programme about innovative house building and renovation projects. Exactly the sort of thing they’d just finished doing. For the second time. Lep and Perry having built a similar property on another lot. This time a few additions and modifications. Fine tuning. Open plan living area a little broader. Generous kitchen island. And little details. Shower embedded with smooth pebbles. Desk lamp base a model Penny Farthing. Biker Soap dispenser in the bathroom. Journal for fellow riders to share thoughts with other travellers.
I’d felt a bit jaded when I’d arrived. Irritated. A series of minor incidents. Cafe I’d been recommended. About to leave before my coffee finally arrived. Twenty minutes. But remarkably good food. When it eventually turned up. Even if it wasn’t quite what I’d ordered. Club sandwich rather than salad. "Our menu is somewhat large. Our kitchen and staff are not" said the sign.
Cracked asphalt, major highways rather than minor roads, eventually giving way to better shoulders. Later approached by a man in a gas station. Had someone been "******* with me?" he’d asked. A few uplifting glimmers. Smart new bridge across the Mississippi. Brief encounter with German rider Stefan, heading for California.
Back in the cafe I watched two women enter. Shuffling past uncleared tables. Into the single female restroom. Mother and daughter. Perhaps. Emerging five minutes later. Sidling off out the door. But good conversation over dinner. Huckleberry Finn. Fermented mare’s milk. The works of John Steinbeck. Restorative.
Cajun pedalers
January 17th, 2012Ken reaches his stop for the night, staying with fellow cyclists Lep and Perry, as the light fades… Quietly confident he’s got the right place..
Crossing the Mississippi
January 17th, 2012Ken reaches the Mississippi…. but no sign of Huckleberry Finn…
Gas stations and Post Offices
January 17th, 2012Ken continues to find little in Western and Central Louisiana pleasing on the eye….
Bridge over the Mississippi
January 17th, 2012
Bridge over the Mississippi river, near New Roads, Louisiana. Big bridge. Big river. Pretty much brand new, opened a few months earlier. No sign of Huckleberry Finn… Or alligators…
Cypress swamp
January 16th, 2012
I’d thought this to be Mangrove swamp – something about the roots – but have been wisely informed that as this is inland, it’s Cypress. Mangrove coastal apparently… Now you know! Just as bad with my birdwatching..
Cajun spices
January 16th, 2012I’d breakfasted in a small cafe in Mamou. As much intrigued by the mish-mash of French and English on the radio in the background as the server’s name. Boniquica. I’d had to ask her how to spell it. Her sister-in-law’s similarly obscure but I forgot it almost as quickly as I’d been told it. She was from out of State. Struggling to conceive what might draw her to Louisiana, and Mamou at that.
Pondering the map. French influence – Ville Platte, Plaucheville – with a teasing German presence. Hamburg. Mostly unkempt. Suburbs often little more than shanty towns. Tired single storey wooden shacks, paint blistered by the summer sun. Children’s toys scattered amongst the junk outside. Old cars. Often hard to distinguished the abandoned from those still struggling along. Just bright white water towers bearing the town’s name offering the merest glimmer of civic pride.
Past the occasional stack of crawfish pots besides the rice fields. Barely more than subsistence farming. Into Bunkie and another cafe. Bright and friendly affair belonging to Kelly, Tommy and their daughter Miranda. Names I could spell. Chicken salad with some complimentary funnel cake fries. Resembled pancakes rolled up like cigarillos, deep fried and dusted with icing sugar. They too were from out of State. Florida. Lots of English friends.
The road out of town mostly shattered tarmac. Crazed. Uncomfortable. Made more so by a driver who steadfastly refused to pass, despite ample opportunity to do so. Instead the occasional burst of her horn. I watched the queue of cars grow, knowing they’d blame me for the hold-up. But to pull over would plainly encourage her to expect the same in the future, cementing her inadequacies. And that I couldn’t do. Firm believer that you should never reward stupidity. Goes against Darwin’s concept of natural selection.
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