Circling the U.S. Chapter 73: Louisiana Part 1

Tuesday, February 18 - Friday, February 21, 2020

Our worries about riding on Interstate 10 across the Neches River turned out to be unfounded. We saw not a single sign saying "Bicycles Prohibited." It took us only one exit to get over the river, then were on our way to Louisiana.

Few cars passed us on quiet country roads, the peacefulness marred only by dogs coming out after us, looking for the fun of a chase. I noticed a smell like a vanilla cake baking. Magnolia trees were blooming, and trash littered the road - countless beer cans and a young child’s rain boot. (Did I see its mate several miles back?). We passed flooded marshland and tired homes surrounded by pickup trucks with rusted out engines, cars with flat tires, old bicycles, and several generations worth of random junk. The sound of birds singing and frogs chirping filled the air.

We'd heard countless stories from other cyclists about the friendliness of the people of Louisiana. But nobody told us about the dogs. In Texas, as much as I hated all the fencing around people’s property, at least when I heard a dog barking and saw it running toward me, I knew there was a fence protecting me from its teeth. Louisiana has Texas beat for dogs on the loose. Only a couple hours over the state line we'd already lost count. The owners didn’t even appear to be home, leaving their dogs free to roam. Free to chase bicyclists.

Rob complained to me, "You wake them up when you go by, then they come after me." That's probably true. Oftentimes I don't even see them, and then I hear barking and Rob yelling behind me.

I decided to try a new strategy. When two dogs, a big one and a little one, started barking and running towards me I immediately stopped and yelled, "Stay!" The little one, farther behind, gave up the chase right away. The bigger one kept coming, then slowed down, and stopped. Hanging its head, it turned around and walked back to the house. I imagined him thinking, "Darn, she doesn't want to play." By the time Rob caught up both dogs were out of sight.

Magnolias in bloom - signs of spring in February - greeted us in Louisiana.

What a difference a few days and a couple hundred miles makes. Where it was so dry in Texas, now there was water everywhere. When we checked into Niblett's Bluff Park the woman in the office wasn’t happy about us pitching a tent, saying the ground was too soggy. But we found a dry spot, so it worked out. But it was so humid the bathroom in the campground had water dripping down the walls and doors of the stalls.

And it’s hard to believe we were too cold to camp less than a week ago. This afternoon it felt hotter than any day the entire trip.

Wednesday, February 19, we had a bit of rain in the morning while the temperature dropped, then it was just overcast and cold. With only a short riding day - 31 miles - we took our time over breakfast, stopped in Vinton at the library to do some trip planning, then had lunch at Kathy's Place, a local cafe/bar. I like to try local foods and there were a lot to choose from. Rob came along with me on this adventure. Together we tried fried alligator, frog legs, jambalaya, chicken and sausage gumbo, and crawfish pie. 

The frog leg was very juicy and bigger than I expected. While eating it I couldn’t get the picture of an enormous frog out of my mind. How do you cook a frog? You must kill it first. How do you do that? How do you skin it? The alligator was like chicken nuggets but a little chewier. The taste of the crawfish in the pie was overwhelmed by the crust.

Frog legs and alligator look like they could be any kind of fried food. The frog leg was delicious, tender and juicy.

I didn't expect to see cattle in Louisiana.

These birds were sitting on a fence near a small local airport where we stopped for a snack. We saw a variety of birds in Louisiana, mostly large white ones that Rob thought were egrets. Rob has been saying he wants to get into birding, but hasn't really had the time. For now he just thinks every shore bird is either a snowy egret or a great blue heron. He could be right; I wouldn't know. But these birds were clearly neither. 

From here, and all along the Gulf Coast, we'd see houses up on stilts, protected from the storm surges brought by hurricanes.

Our route over the next several days would have us crossing the intracoastal waterway several times. We spent the night at the Intracoastal Park, on a road that would take us to the Gulf. I thought it was great. It only cost $4. The showers were hot and we had a covered picnic table, protection for the rain that was coming.

We enjoyed watching barges going back and forth, pushed by tugboats, as we ate dinner. It was a lot quieter than the night before when all night we had to listen to the water pump that processed all the RV sewage at the campground. Then again, I’m a heavy sleeper; once I fall asleep it takes a lot to wake me. In the middle of the night I did hear some ratcheting and banging, but I went back to sleep. Not Rob. In the morning he said he hadn’t slept at all, between the traffic going over the bridge and the barges going back and forth and then around one o’clock a tugboat broke down right in front of the campground and the guys on board were yelling at each other and banging tools. (That was what I heard.) The tugboat was still there in the morning.

Thursday, February 20, was rough. We kind of expected it. The forecast called for rain. It was correct. Add cold and windy.

We woke in the morning to light rain. Then as we got on the road it came down harder.

This part of Louisiana was completely destroyed by Hurricane Rita in 2005. That was the one that came directly on the heels of Katrina, but people here don’t talk about Katrina. That wasn’t their problem. Rita wiped them out. They rebuilt and then Ike did it again in 2008. The clerk in the small grocery store in Hackberry, when she found out we were from New Hampshire, told us how grateful they were to two Methodist Churches from New Hampshire who came down and helped them rebuild. Rob said he noticed tears in her eyes when she talked about it.

The riding was fine for 25 miles, even in the rain. We sailed along, 13, 14 miles per hour, heading south with a tail wind to Holly Beach, a small town on the Gulf Coast. 

Rob took these photos. We'd looked into staying here but any affordable accommodations here had shut down after the hurricanes and never came back. 

We only caught a glimpse of the Gulf before turning due east. The wind got fierce, a crosswind coming from the north that kept trying to push me off the road. We had no choice but to keep going. There were no accommodations before our Warm Showers host, still 40 miles away, a priest who offered us a place to pitch our tent. I prayed he'd be willing to let us sleep inside the church.

We were hoping to see alligators crossing the road but when we stopped at the Holly Beach fire station to use the bathroom they told us that they don’t come out until it warms up in the spring.

We turned north, directly into the wind, to catch a ferry over the Calcesiu River. On the other side was the town of Cameron where I was sure we'd find a restaurant where we could get warm and have something hot for lunch. Then I began to worry that the wind would shut down the ferry. I tried to second guess the cars that passed us. Were they coming from or going to the ferry? I knew the road ended at the ferry crossing, so that was a good bet. But then we passed a plant of some kind so maybe that's where the cars were going to and coming from. I worried. If the ferry wasn't running, we were screwed. 

The ferry was running. The ride took only about ten minutes, thankfully, because there was no cozy cabin where we could escape the rain. 

An online review said, "We saw so many birds and dolphins jumping out of the water while on the ferry." We saw not a single dolphin. Why would they want to be out in weather like this?

No dolphins, but lots of pelicans.

Someone in Cameron told us the town used to have lots of great restaurants but they haven’t come back. We were wet and cold and the only place with indoor seating was a bar and grill with a couple pool tables, two picnic tables, a bar, and a strong smell of smoke. I waited inside while Rob locked up the bikes but as soon as he came in I said, "We can't stay." I could feel the smoke burning my throat. I knew with his asthma there was no way he could tolerate it.

The only other choice was an outdoor grill with seating enclosed by a tent. It wasn't warm but at least it was dry and out of the wind. I had fried catfish. Rob had the lunch plate special, beef with gravy and rice and blackeyed peas. It all came in styrofoam containers. Recycling has not come to this part of Louisiana.

We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere with nothing but wildlife refuges and liquid natural gas plants. We passed lots of marsh grass and cows sometimes up to their bellies in mud.

We had no choice but to persevere through the wind and cold. The rain had stopped and the dogs had the sense to stay inside and left us alone. We had a destination, a church several miles past the town of Grand Chenier. There was nothing in Grand Chenier but a library, that was closed. But, like many buildings, it was built way up high, and underneath was a picnic table where we stopped for a brief rest and a snack. I said to Rob, "This would be a terrible place to live if you had to use a wheelchair. Even if you had an elevator in your home, how could you visit friends? How do old people stay in their homes?" The library had an elevator and a ramp. The ramp was longer than any I had ever seen, with at least two turns to it.

I wanted to get to the church around 4:30 or 5 because Father Thomas had said he would be saying mass at 4:30. I would be more than happy to attend mass if it meant being warm and dry. But when we arrived at St. Eugene Catholic Church after 66 miles of hard riding, the mass was over. We found the Father in his rectory, surprised to see us, not expecting we would have ridden in the foul weather.

Father Thomas was a kind and generous soul. As he offered to show us where we could pitch our tent I asked if there was any way we could sleep inside. He didn't even hesitate to think about it and took us inside the parish hall where there were couches we could sleep on and a kitchen for cooking our dinner. We were beyond thrilled.

The Father was busy during the evening with a meeting but around 8:30 brought us some gumbo and talked to us about Mardi Gras, and Cajun and Creole history. In the morning he brought us cups of hot tea, grits and sausage, and a pastry. He sent us off with a bag of food, including his own venison jerky,

St. Eugene Catholic Church was destroyed by one of the hurricanes and when Father Thomas came on board they had already begun rebuilding a church far too big for a parish of only 25 families. Many families who lost their homes will never be able to return as the cost of rebuilding to the new codes is prohibitive for those with limited means.

We were curious about the church being rebuilt on ground level but for some reason it was able to pass code.

Looking at the pictures I took on Friday, February 21, you might think it was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. But the day has to go on the list of our most challenging days. After I checked the weather forecast we knew it was coming. Temps in the low fifties and wind from the north at 15 mph. We were heading east and north.

We were truly in Louisiana's outback.

We stopped here for lunch. It was just a pull off on the side of the road. The wooden bridge was blocked by a locked fence. After passing a Confederate flag, I was struck by the condition of the American flag.

At least we had flat riding on quiet well-maintained roads until about the last 15 miles or so. The sun was shining and Rob was able to keep up and draft off me. Although I had the harder job, we kept each other company.

We changed our plan from camping to heading to a town with an affordable motel that would get us 10 miles closer to the next day's destination. It was definitely too cold and windy to camp. After 63 miserable miles (and over seven hours of riding time) we checked into a Days Inn in Abbeville.

We were on the cusp of the final weekend before Mardi Gras, which would fall on February 25. We had already realized that we couldn't make it to New Orleans by then, not if we wanted to spend time exploring the backroads and small towns of Louisiana. And we weren't even sure we wanted to deal with all the crowds that would be flooding New Orleans.

We found out that every town marks the celebration with at least one parade scheduled in the days leading up to Mardi Gras. We did some research online to figure out where we could see one or two parades and asked people where they thought we would get the best experience. No one had the same answer.