| Page 14 Day 68 - Friday 3-22-02 - mileage today 54.0 - climbed today 0 SL CRAWFISH PIZZA We had a wonderful night at the LADY STAR OF THE SEA CATHOLIC CHURCH. Thank you Father Louis Melancon for kindness. Let me introduce you to Louisiana. First of all, it has wonderful people. it is green and full of life. We have ridden past swamps and bayous. Both are full of life. We have seen turtles, many bird varieties including the laughing gull and pink flamingos. We have seen many alligators, and what I call swamp rats I'm not really sure what they are. In Louisiana they call their counties, parishes. There is a big French and Catholic influence here. As I ride I'm reminded of the movie Driving miss Daisy or Steel Magnolias. We ride thru small towns and down country roads with large plantation style houses. They all set back off the road with large front lawns and big live oak trees. It is simply beautiful, stepping into a bygone time of the slow simple life. The bayous are large areas of big willow trees with vines draping down from the branches to a carpet of water. You look at that and know that you could easily get lost. It has its own beauty. The drivers are a bit more aggressive than in Texas. It probably is not a fair statement because in Louisiana there aren’t any bike lanes or shoulders you have to ride in the road. In Texas we had big beautiful bike lanes. So were comparing apples and oranges. We had a god night sleep in Cameron. We started out early thinking we will ride about 15 miles and get breakfast in Oak Grove. The wind is terrible. Last night it blew all night long and today it is about 35 mph right at us. Myron is having a hard time with the wind today. We ride up to Oak Grove to find a Texaco gas station with its overhang blown over. We find only a handful of businesses and only two open, a thrift store and a hardware store. There is a cafe right in front of the hardware store but it is closed. That didn’t sit to well with Myron. He had his heart set on pancakes. I don’t blame him I did too. So we sat in front of the hardware store and pouted for a while before breaking out the beans and peanut butter. At about that time Trudy from the hardware store came out to see if we would like some coffee. We quickly jumped at the offer. Myron stayed outside and drank his coffee I went inside the store only to find that they have a large table set up for people to come in and visit while having there coffee. Myron soon came in and we had a great time visiting with Trudy, Perry and Diana. We took pictures and again on our way. We were about an hour out of Oak Grove we stopped in a small community called Grand Chanieur. This is where we met T-Mae and her granddaughter Stacie. T-Mae owned the general store. Stacie is a college student and also the Cameron Parish Farm Bureau Beauty Queen. Myron and I sat and talked with her for almost two hours. Stacie found out I had never had Crawfish pizza and jumped right up and brought me a slice. Crawfish pizza sounds weird to a California boy but I liked it. We really enjoyed the time we spent with T-Mae and Stacie. Just as we were about to leave T-Mae came out with a baggy of boiled crawfish and the rest of the pizza. Myron didn’t want any so I ate the all of it for dinner. We ended up in Pecan Island just before dark. We stopped at the local church to ask if we can set up our tents and to see if there was a cafe in town. We were told no on both questions. We took our chances and set up camp at the local high school, hoping we wont get kicked out. There isn’t any police station in Pecan to ask permission; at least that is what they said at the church. Day 69 - sat. 3-23-02 - mileage today 42.9 - climbed today 0 Sea Level THAT’S WORSE THAN A DAIRY FARM We spent the night at the local high school. We tried the local Catholic Church but were turned away. We asked if there was a cafe in town and we were we couldn’t get a straight answer. We were told that there was only a gas station market. As it turns out on our way out of Pecan Island we found the cafe. It is the only one in town. We sat down and had an omelet and then a stack of pancakes at the Pecan Island Food store and Cafe. We were at the cafe for over an hour. We met a lot of wonderful people there. Margaret can cook a mean omelet. Margaret is the cook at the cafe. She may own it I don’t know. We met Chamt Robert’s an old Cajun who had some good stories. Nikki Koch ran the store. She brought out some pictures of locally caught fist and gators. They sure grow them big. Noland Vincent is quite a character. Noland has done things in his youth, yah and most likely his old age too that I never would have thought of much less admit to. We really enjoyed meeting Noland. He took us to meet his mother, Madam Black. Madam Black is a remarkable woman and worthy of a special write up of her own. She is 108 years old. I will write soon about her. It was time for us to leave so Noland drove us back to the cafe so we could get our bikes. Noland told us to stop at the bar on our way out of town. They are BBQing a pig. It was at the bar we met several other people, their names escape me but they told us of a gator farm that we have to see. Phil gave me an alligator tooth necklace. We were told to stop off at the alligator farm and tell them who sent us. We rode up to the gator farm and asked for Ray Woods. Ray wasn’t there but his son Drew was there with a woman named Pizza. We told pizza who sent us and she gave us a look. The gators are kept in a large dark enclosed tank. Myron stuck his head in and came right back out gasping for air saying "that’s worse than a dairy farm". There were hundreds of small gators thrashing around in the dark. Oh boy did it stink! . We looked in another tank with much fewer gators but they were larger, about 4' long. That is about how large they let them get before they slaughter them. The meat and skins are sent to France. Alligator meat is a delicacy in France and the skins are made into shoes purses belts and the like. We road into Abbeville late in the afternoon. On the way in to Abbeville we had a real close call with an 18-wheeler. He passed us at the same time as an oncoming 18-wheeler passed. We didn’t have a bike lane just a small swampy shoulder. He ran me off the road. Most truckers are very good and courteous drivers and wait until it is safe to pass. I'm glad that jerks like him are few and far between. We road thru Abbeville, what a beautiful old town. We were really impressed with the old charm and how clean the Abbeville was. We found a large Catholic Church with a beautiful old world styled cathedral building. We introduced ourselves to the priest and told him what we were doing, and asked if he had room for us to set up our tents. He didn’t, he suggested we talk to the police department and sent us of with a may God Bless you. We went to the police department and asked Sgt. Lester Laquette if he could help us. He said that we could camp in the park and that he would check up on us during the night. The park was huge with 4 lighted baseball fields big picnic pavilions and bathrooms. We couldn’t ask for better facilities. Sgt. Laquette suggested Dupuy's Oyster Shop for dinner. We went in and were overwhelmed by all the good food on the menu. We ordered and the owner Tonya Hebert came over to ask who we were and what we were doing. She thought that our trip was so unique that she didn’t charge us for anything. We had a wonderful meal. We took pictures with Tonya and were on our way. For more about Dupuy's see special thank you. |
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