Day 6
May 20th 2004
"This can't be good". It was 6:00 AM and already I was sweating like a pig just putting the saddlebags back onto the bike, not exactly a gruelling task. My new perspiration woke up and rejuvenated the stench emanating from the Aerostitch suit as nauseating gasses cheerfully escaped their fabric prison. I'm not sure what the temperature outside was at that point because the 100 % humidity shorted out the thermometer on the bike. It would only come back to life several hours later.
Last night I spend some time with "Streets and Trips" debating what route to take. My original plan was to only do secondary highways and head generally northwest from Tallahassee. Because of my prior experiences in Florida I decided to get out of there via Interstate. What's more, I decided that if I'm going to go through Louisiana, I really can't do it without seeing the Bayou. On the Motorcycle Roads website they recommended a scenic one south of Lafayette that seemed tempting.
But before we get started, I just thought I'd share something, sort of a recurring theme I know...
This fell out or either my suit or my saddlebags this morning. It's one of those splatty bugs. I just thought I'd show it to you, especially tonight when I was talking to Hélène on the phone, she seemed to really want me to continue on with more "Stories With Splatty Flies In Them". Okay, that's enough. I promise I won't mention them again. I just wanted everyone to realize how impressive they were...
Okay, seriously now, let's get with the program. Nothing too special about the remainder of Florida. Everything looks the same from the interstate anyways... Started to hit Bayou country somewhere in Mississippi. This is the sort of thing that was to be seen.
Pretty impressive amounts of concrete I'm sure went into building these. They go on for miles and miles, sort of hovering 20 feet or so above either water or Bayous. Pretty mundane after a while though.
The big plan for today was to get some mileage in and then do some exploring. I chose to explore Louisiana because I heard it's a pretty cool place. My first stop in Louisiana was in New Orleans. I wasn't supposed to be there, but I took a wrong turn (Garmin was telling me to go the right way, but I was SURE that I was to stay on Interstate 10 all the way to Lafayette). I stopped for a bite to eat and engaged the cashier in conversation. I asked her if many people in Louisiana spoke French. She really wasn't sure, but she didn't think a lot of them did. I asked her if they teach it in school as a second language but no, Spanish was the official 'second language'. I said something to the effect that probably it was more worthwhile learning Spanish than French, but she said no, really she couldn't understand why it wasn't French that was taught in school, because when you go down to the Bayou, a lot of people only speak French. This seemed like a cool mission for the day - find out if people down there spoke French.
The loop I took was the furthest south, most Bayouesque area shown on the map. It was a 250 or so km loop through South-western Louisiana. I enjoyed that immensely. It was weird, I kind of felt at home there, with French names for places, French names for people and rickety houses like some that are not uncommon in New Brunswick.
On the map, it seemed like one of the main villages on my route was Grand Chenier. It is there that I decided to do my enquiries. The natural beauty of the place is somewhat overwhelming,
It is a mix of bayou and Oak trees. Just a majestic sort of place. The village of Grand Chenier stretched out for maybe 15 km, but probably had a population of about 500. I stopped at the first 'corner store' I saw, which was of the 'rickety' persuasion and went in. There was a 80-something year-old woman manning the cash register and 3 people standing at the cash and another guy sitting in a chair. Of the 3 people standing, one was a 40-something guy drinking Tequila with lemon juice, an early 40's woman (his wife ?) and a 12ish year old girl (isn't there school on Thursdays?). I'm pretty sure I was the most exciting thing to happen there today. They seemed surprised when I walked in. I bought an Ice Cream Sandwich and chatted with them for about 20 minutes or so. That's the beauty of travelling by motorcycle, complete strangers will talk to you and tell you stories.
I learned that very few people there speak French. In fact, only the old lady was willing to speak to me, it had been "très longtemps" since she had spoken it, but we managed a simple conversation about a trip she had taken to Canada last year, to Vancouver. Yes, they do teach French in school in these parts, Mme Thériault, who went to France, so she speaks French French, not like what they speak around here. The young girl could count to ten in French, but that was about it. The guy drinking Tequila was a Gaudin, and told me there are quite a few Daigles in a nearby town. They all wished me a safe trip and I was on my way.
About 5 km later, there was another store, this one made of brick, so I decided to stop to buy some water for the Camelback (yes, it was another one of those scorchers). I was in that store maybe another 10 to 15 minutes talking to the woman at the cash. She was telling me about all the oak trees. I guess I missed the place in Lafayette where "Évangeline" planted an oak seed. There is apparently a park there now. She also told me about how the state governor wanted a bunch of oak trees cut down a few years ago because they were too close to the road and too dangerous. They had marked a bunch of them with "X"'s but the town mayor and the doctor got together and made him reverse his decision. As I was riding in, I had seen a few of those trees with X's on them.
The ride itself was quite fun. No technical bits at all, just lazy curves with okay pavement, but the scenery was cool. I had been seeing white flamingos ( I don't know if that's what they're called, but they look just like a flamingo and they're white) since Florida, and I saw a few of them that had a pinkish hue to them. I wondered if those were "Pink Flamingos". They weren't. It became very clear what a Pink Flamingo was when I saw a couple lazily hovering maybe 40 feet over the road. They were beautiful. I wish I had time to get the camera out to take a picture. On second thought, I'm sure it would have been one of those crappy pictures where you have to point them out and say "you see those dots ? those are pink flamingos". I didn't see any more during the ride.
Roadkill was interesting too. There were armadillos (didn't see any live ones) and several of these
Yeah, I know, leave it to Bob to take pictures of roadkill... Unfortunately I didn't get to see some live ones. Poor little feller, sleeping on the side of the road like that. If he's not careful, he might get run over...
All in all, it was a pretty revitalising day. It was good to do some good secondary roads that weren't too congested with traffic. I think it gave me the energy to try my luck in Texas on secondary roads. Hopefully it will be better than what I experienced at the end of today; I decided to make it just past Houston Tx, to start tomorrow on a good note rather than start the day trying to cross a big city. It took me about 90 minutes of stop and go traffic to get across. The thermometer on the bike was registering 37.6 degrees Celsius. It was utterly miserable. But, better end a good day in a 'challenging' fashion than start into an unknown day with that kind of stuff.
Day Stats; * Second day with No Rain ! *
Total Mileage: 1 309 km (Tallahassee, Fla to Houston, Tx)
Total time: 13 h 13 minutes
Overall average: 98.88 km / h