April 11, 2018

Last evening we had the pleasure of being the guests of the Merryville, Louisiana Historical Society and they rolled out the red carpet for us. We were allowed to set up our tents on their museum grounds with easy access to their showers and other facilities. They are part of the Warm Showers network and they make these services available to all bicyclists who pass through their community. However, they went all out for our group with a full dinner, history lecture and a hot breakfast this morning.

Their museum has a wide collection of artifacts from the pioneer past right up to fairly modern times. Sitting next to an old stereoscope from the 19th century is a movie projector the was recently used in the local school to show 16mm movies. The proud military history of this community is also prominently displayed.

Dinner was a collection of local dishes such as cornbread, boudin, corn pudding, meatballs and too many desserts to calorie count. All were prepared by museum members. While we ate, Eddie gave us a history overview of the community starting with how it came to be called Merryville. It seems that the next parish over was a dry parish while their community allowed the sale of intoxicating spirits. Folks would routinely make the trip across the parish line when they wanted to make merry. Eventually local leaders decided to capitalize on this boost to the economy and changed the name of the town to cash in on the trend.

Eddie is married to Rene who is also an essential leader of the historical society. There’s is a mixed marriage: He is a fan of Nebraska State football while she supports LSU. Somehow they make it work. Both were generous hosts and entertaining speakers.

This morning they repeated their generosity of the previous by feeding us all the breakfast that we were willing to stuff inside ourselves. It was far and away the best display of local hospitality that we have have encountered on our cross country journey. It was with reluctance that we mounted our bikes and said so long, hoping to return again some day.

April 12, 2018

What a contrast from farming out west where water is drafted, ducted and ditched hundreds of miles from source to field. Here it rolls right up to your doorstep and at times, over it. Back in Merryville our host Eddie told us how the Sabine River recently flooded above the 500 year flood level spilling into his home. They had removed as many of their belongings as time allowed for and had left the dining room table setting on concrete blocks with their glassware sitting on top. The waters that spilled into their home was far higher than predicted and floated the table off the blocks to near the ceiling only to return to the exact same spot gently as a baby’s kiss, when the waters receded. Not a glass was out of place.

There appears to be two primary crops in this part of Louisiana, crayfish and rice. Both require plenty of water and thousands of acres are flooded to make this work. Airplanes appear to be used for some purpose unknown to me on the crayfish farms and i watched the yellow prop plane make numerous passes over the ponds. Manual and machine labour were also used to tend these habitats. The one machine which I think of as a water tractor seems to be a shallow draft paddle boat that is useful in harvesting the tasty Cajun treats.

When your community is at or below sea level digging graves is a problem as is keeping the dead in the ground. Even a concrete vault will float when the water table is high. The solution is to go above ground as shown in the two photos below.

My family will be surprised to see the two photos just below which show me trying a local favourite at the Karzy Kajun Kitchen. I am well know for my intolerance of spicy foods but I also believe that when in Rome, shoot Roman candles. I have never had Jambalaya before but now that I have I must agree that it is worth braving a little heat to enjoy those savoury flavours. This will not be my one and only time to try this. Gumbo will be next.

April 13, 2013

With the weather sunny and warm we had a shorter ride today that allowed time to linger and soak in some of the local landscape. We camped at Louisiana’s Chicot State Park last evening and spent one of the most pleasant nights of our journey. No train whistles, no traffic, just the soft hum of nature around us. The sites were large and level; the sanitary facilities spacious and clean. Chicot is located surrounding a shallow cypress rimmed lake and is well worth visiting even if you are not after one of their legendary largemouth bass. Its cypress groves appear interesting places to canoe or kayak with the chance of glimpsing a lazy alligator sunning itself on a log.

Our next stop was only a relatively short ride of under around 50 miles, a bit shorted than scheduled due to some nasty weather coming in. To get there we passed through the small towns of Evergreen and Cottonport. Both were lush and green with a lazy stream meandering along the roadway through both. It was a pleasant and scenic day to be on a bicycle.

April 14, 2018

You might not think that riding a bicycle in the rain would be a pleasant experience. Sometimes, when the wind is strong, the rain hard and the temperature low, it may not be. But when the day is warm, the rain light and intermittent it can be nice to peddle along in the soft patter of raindrops and watch the world slow down. We peddled along a levy holding back the Mississippi Diver, part of a massive flood control project undertaken by the Army Corp of Engineers back in the 1930s. The Mississippi was a wild and unruly beast that would leap out of its banks and carve new channels on a regular basis before this project. Even with the hand of man to guide it, the Mississippi still manages to make changes but far less so now than in the past. The massive levies, dams, control gates and catchment areas have mostly tamed the Mother of Rivers allowing it to become a highway for barges and ships. Wildlife flourishes in these areas with eagles, waterfowl and other critters finding habitat in the man made lakes, marshes and swamps.

Quite literally, the high point of the day was crossing the Mississippi over the John Audubon Memorial Bridge. This golden strung, high arch suspension bridge is more than just a carrier of vehicles, it is majestic. However, this experience was shortly followed by the low point of my day when a wrong turn took me 45 minutes off route but compensated with a chance to glimpse a container manufacturing plant where my wrong turn dead ended. Then it began to rain harder. Smile Bob, this is fun.

April 15, 2018

As I travel across the continent I have come to wonder about the fate of many of the small towns I have passed through. It has brought to mind my own home town of Eganville, Ontario and many others like it in both Canada and the USA. Are these towns locked into some sort of death spiral fated to become the ghost towns of tomorrow? There are similar signs pointing to this process; closed and deteriorating store fronts, frequent “for sale” signs and a lack of people on the sidewalks. Some seem nearly dead already with a lone gas station as the only business apparently still operating.

There is a beauty and intimacy that will disappear from the landscape once they are gone. Something that does not and can not exist in the suburban bedroom communities that seem to spread like ivy runners from major population centres. Gone will be the corner store where the owner or a member of the owner’s family provided personal service, knew your name and likely knew what you want before you asked. Even where the town still appear somewhat more prosperous these locally owned and operated business have been replace by chains such as Dollar General and Family dollar stores that appear exactly the same in California and they do in Mississippi. Gone will be the ability to buy the essentials for day to day life without having to drive 50 miles and stand in line to make you purchase from an employee who likely works for minimum wage and who care little to not at all if you continue to shop there.

Some blame Walmart and its big box cousins for this decline but that can not be the entire or even the primary reason. It is true that Walmart and others did operate on a business model that targeted such communities and may still do so. It is also true that these major retailing chains now have their own dedicated chains of supply and distribution that have squeezed out the wholesalers who sold to small individual merchants. Those independent convenience stores that do continue to exist usually have to source their merchandise from Costco or from the big chain stores that they must compete against.

However, if you look a bit deeper you can see other, more serious causes for the downward spiral. Industries that have not shifted manufacturing off shore now are more mechanized in order to stay competitive in a global marketplace and this means fewer local jobs. Agriculture and logging now use machines to do the jobs that formerly employed hundreds of workers. Computer take orders online and fill them with little human involvement other than the driver of the truck who makes the deliveries. I could continue to give examples but if you think about it, you or a family member have already had first hand experiences with this process.

It is depressing when someone like a local priest who I met on my journey was so down on his town’s chances that he did not have a single positive thing to say about the community he ministered to. To him it was already dead and awaiting the funeral. Crime and drugs were how he described the local economy.

Morganza, a railroad strip type town, seemed quite depressed with the Spillway Cafe the only bright sign of activity. New Roads, a larger town just down the road on a cut off bend of the Mississippi, seemed to be doing better. Even here there are signs of the chronic wasting malaise. Riding in on Business Route 1 you pass the expected Walmart, Sonic and auto parts stores spread out along the wide commercial highway leading into town. There is a charming waterfront on the False River and what appears to be a nice waterfront restaurant or two but the signs of decay are still abundant in abandoned gas stations and a downtown main street that no longer seems to be main.

Luckily, not everybody or every town is ready to declare defeat. Some like my home town of Eganville are trying to fight the good fight by being creative and by looking for boutique ideas to attract new businesses. Some try farmer’s markets or specially themed events to help create a positive atmosphere of pleasant living and prosperity. These have varying chances of succeeding and may even succeed in postponing or eliminating the day of reckoning. Rather or not they can do so will depend upon luck in the form of a major employer remaining or choosing to locate nearby or innovation in the form of the community reinventing itself in a way that is attractive and economical for people to want to live there. Some may need a combination of both but one thing is certain, just giving up will be a self fulfilling prophecy. Even the successful ones will likely have a different look than before and different ways of doing business. It is my hope that they will find a way to retain the charm and intimacy that make them special place to those who remember what they once were.

April 16, 2018

After a week a Cajun country we are done with Louisiana, almost. We rolled our wheels out of the Sportsman’s Paradise into Mississippi but only barely and temporarily. We will camp there tonight and park our bikes for the next two days in order to take a van ride into New Orleans for our last big city visit before ending our journey in St. Augustine. Everyone is looking forward to the music, the cuisine and a bit of drinking but not too much, we still have a lot of miles to cover in a couple of days.

April 17 & 18, 2018

After another week or so on the road it was time for a little R & R. What better place for exactly that then New Orleans. We all hopped into the ACA van for the one and a half hour ride into the Big Easy and two days of non-bicycling fun. Rather than write at length about this, I will let some pictures do the explaining.

April 19 – ?,2018

I managed to destroy the computer I am using to write this blog so I must suspend updates until I can replace it. I will have posts for the rest of the ride as soon as I can. I hope I can do so by Monday. Please check back then.

I have my new computer and new updates now being posted.

April 19, 2018

My day did not start off very good. The charger on my laptop computer became damaged while recharging at a campground. I ordered a replacement through Amazon that was listed as a replacement only to learn that the plug connection on the computer was just slightly larger. My mistake was trying to rig up a work around using some wire and tape. The result was southern fried computer.

We were riding some quiet rural roads and having a wonderful ride when we came upon a detour sign. Usually a detour can be worked around with a little walking and creative effort; however, in this case there was a bridge missing a 10 foot section over a small stream. Fortunately, the workers had placed a double I beam across the gap to allow them to go back and forth between sides. Luckily, there were no workers or official type persons around to tell us we were doing something risky. With a little balance and a lot of helping hands we managed to get everyone across. At one point the local police showed up causing us to retreat to the far side but they were only interested in making sure we were not bothering any of the construction equipment.

Once back into the groove and a good ride I had two final treats. The first was a drive by visit from The Ice Cream Angel, Cammie, one of our ACA leaders bringing life sustaining ice cream. A few miles later, coming the other way was a couple in a pioneer type wagon being pulled by a team of three mules. It was a scenic interlude into a great riding day.

April 20, 2018

We are cruising through states fairly quickly these days since we are going through the narrow parts of Mississippi and Alabama. This will change when we hit Florida. However, today we entered Alabama and our good weather is holding.

Yesterday I noticed my derailleur was not changing gears properly so before going to bed I decided to make an adjustment or two. Unfortunately, when I looked further, I noticed I had about an eighth of an inch play in my crankshaft. Since this could cause my bearings to fail before reaching St. Augustine and since I did not have the parts or tools to fix it, I needed a bicycle shop. There were none on route during the next day and I did not want to take a chance that the one shop we would go near the following day might not be able or willing to do the repair right away. Mobile, Alabama was about 10 miles off our route but it had 3 bike shops. Kelly, one of our ACA leaders who was driving our van that day offered to ride me to one but I have been determined to bicycle every single inch of the trip. A compromise was reached whereby I left at daylight to get a head start with Kelly meeting me at the point where the route to Mobile departed from the route we were traveling. There we loaded my bike into the van and drove to the Trek Store where an off duty bike mechanic just happened to be in. He had a shim installed and everything put right within an hour. Kelly then returned me to the exact point where I had left the route so that I could continue to ride every fabulous inch of the route.

Bayou country in Alabama is quite beautiful. This was especially true of the little town called Bayou la Batre. If that name sounds familiar, it is the town that Bubba came from in the movie Forrest Gump. It is also where Disney secretly launched the Black Pearl for The Pirates of the Caribbean.