Tuesday 29 December 2009

Day 954 - Morgan City, Louisiana

I left Silsbee with just the intention of taking it easy and trying not to make myself feel worse. I plodded into a slight headwind but made reasonable progress. By the time I had passed through Mauriceville it was time to start looking for a place to camp, the road ahead looked good, plenty of pine trees, but the whole way along there were properties with large areas of land, it wasn’t looking so good after all, but it was getting dark. Things started to look a bit desperate so when I spotted a wrecked old mobile home with a junkyard around it I went in for a little look around. With all the recent rain the track was muddy and by the time I had gone just a short distance the tyres were all clogged up with mud so I got off and walked which just meant my shoes got muddy too. Despite it being totally unsuitable for camping I decided this was where I had to stay, I really had no time to carry on. I crossed over a little stream and found a small compacted mud area between the debris of cleared woodland. Water was all around, but it would be fine if it didn’t rain, I felt pretty sure it wouldn’t, it hadn’t really rained all day. Thankfully I was right for a change……for the first hour, then there was a thunder storm that resulted in heavy rain for half an hour leaving the vestibule under water, I would just have to cook with the stove in water. If it didn’t rain again at least I had a chance that it would drain away by morning.
At 5am I was awoken by another thunder storm, this one even worse. Lightening flashed overhead followed by deafening thunder, all assisted by strong wind and heavy rain. It was Christmas Eve morning and my plans were already being washed away. I had intended to stop and ask to camp behind a church, then join them for the service and see what happened from there, but who would even want to sit next to me if I was covered in mud and soaking wet? By the time I packed up the worst was over, the bike and my shoes picked up half a ton of mud but other than that things weren’t looking too bad. I cycled along in the rain riding through all the puddles to try and clean as much off as possible. A few miles brought me to a bridge over a river and away from Texas and into Louisiana, where everything seemed to change quickly. People called out to me as I passed through a village, though I couldn’t understand a single word, I can only assume they were speaking English. The rain stopped and I reached a junction with gas stations and casinos, gambling is obviously very legal here. Having had a bite and a warm drink my spirits were lifted. I didn’t so much as people watch as people listen, their accents were completely different and very strong. I carried on to Lake Charles, I was running out of map and didn’t have one of Louisiana yet. I crossed another large river on the I10, it was steep and horribly narrow, you just take you life in your hand and try and get across as fast as possible, but this was a big bridge. I searched around in Lake Charles for a map, I couldn’t find one, being Christmas Eve most places were shut. I had no idea of my route out, though I guessed it was east so I could at least use my compass….oh, hang on a minute! I would have to ask people the way, “Excuse me, I don’t know where I want to get to and have no idea of the road name or number, but I think I need to go east, can you help me?”. I wasn’t feeling confident. But I am an experienced and resourceful cyclist, I have other navigational tools, I had the wind, it had been pushing me nicely along, I just had to make sure the wind was still pushing me along “Can you tell me which way the wind is going?”, “Hell Boy, it gonna be blowin’ THAT way”. Thankfully I found a map and continued eastwards on the US90, I cycled with ease, cruising along at an effortless 30kph, it was so easy that I didn’t want to turn south and head to Hayes and route 14, but that was the way I had chosen to go. The landscape was now was very flat, I don’t expect to see even a slope for days now. The land was pretty though, fields were interspersed with house that had plenty of land, mainly smallish wooden houses, some were mobile homes. I decided that I would not go any further than Hayes and as I rode along I thought to myself “Some poor family is quietly making their final preparations for Christmas and some smelly, muddy English cyclist is about to walk into their lives and bugger everything up for them“. Hayes wasn’t big, but despite churches being everywhere there didn’t seem to be one here. I asked a family outside their house and was told it was a little further on. I soon found a Baptist Church and checked around the back for camping. Despite being decent grass it was very squelchy under foot, but I would still hope to camp there. I checked the church and the small building next door, nothing was open, time to try a house to see if I could locate the Pastor. There was no answer at the first, there was at the second. There were two women there making there final preparations on some lovely looking Christmas food. They told me the Pastor was in a village that was miles away and the Christmas service had been on Wednesday, I had already missed it by 24 hours. “The nearest one will be Lake Arthur another 18 miles further on”, “Hmm, I will never make it today, thanks, but I think I will have to give up on a church service tonight”. “Do you need anything? Do you need any money?” I was asked “No thanks I have everything I need…oh, hang on a minute, can you spare a little water?”, so as I filled my water bottle I was asked “Where are you going to stay tonight”, “Oh I will just head out of the village a bit and find somewhere to camp”, “Well if you ask my husband you could sleep in our camper van”, she gave him a call and within a couple of minutes he returned to the house and kindly said I could stop in the van. I took my bike around the back expecting to see a small caravan but suddenly realised I was being offered a brand new monster thingy, one of those where the sides extend out to make it even bigger. This was no camper van, it was a small luxurious house. Mickey switched on the electrics, water and hot water, showed me around the mansion and said “Come and join us in the house for something to eat when you are ready”. Wow, I had landed on my feet again with the free run of a $50,000 brand new mobile home, and they called this camping! After a wonderfully hot shower I joined them in the house. There was Mickey and Martha and their daughter Jill, her partner Kyle and her son Kamron and I was offered more than I wanted and made to feel very at home. We asked each other questions and chatted away and despite it being Christmas Eve I was soon on my favourite subjects of guns, politics and religion, all guaranteed to create an interesting discussion. “Ah, we have heaps of guns, I always carry one with me the whole time. In these parts every car and every house will have guns, it’s just a way of life”. I was shown a few “Are any of these loaded?” I asked cautiously, must gun deaths here are caused by accidents and I didn’t want to add to the statistics, “No, only that pistol on the counter over there, that is the one I usually carry around with me”. At one point I asked Mickey “So what did you think when a scruffy Englishman turned up on your doorstep this evening?”, I was surprised at his reply of “I thought God had sent you here”. It’s an interesting answer as I always think that I am being looked after. I was also shown pictures of their nearby second home which Mickey had built with a little help from the families. It was wrecked by Hurricane Rita, the one that arrived just three months after Katrina had destroyed much of New Orleans. They had completely rebuilt it only to see it completely wrecked 18 months ago by Hurricane Ike, this time with 3 feet of water in the house. Mickey had rebuilt it in 5 weeks and raised it on to 7ft stilts so that it would not happen again. They were a wonderful family and even offered me the chance to stay on Christmas Day and have dinner with Martha’s family. I would think about it, but this seemed too good an opportunity to miss, to see how Americans really celebrate Christmas. Let me ask you a quick question, what would you do if a complete stranger arrived on your doorstep at 5pm on Christmas Eve?

After a breakfast of delicious biscuits (a cross between bread rolls and scones) and figs we went to their daughter’s Jill’s house who I had met the previous evening. Now Hayes, like all the other villages in southern Louisiana, has a very tight knit little community. Now you remember the close community of Terlingua Ghost Town don’t you, well it was nothing like that. As we just drove a block down the road with presents in the boot (trunk) of the car Mickey said “That’s my sister’s house, that’s my brother’s house, that’s my niece’s house, that’s my daughter’s house, in fact everybody in this street is our family. Mickey’s family also live in Hayes, we known everybody in Hayes and Bell City, the next village along”. In fact I later noticed that the street name was the family name. Each village had a population of about a 1000. This really was a family affair like I have never seen before. It was great to see presents around a tree, then Michael their son arrived with his partner Danielle and the present opening started, I was amazed, there was even one for me! The men’s gift seemed to focus on hunting, though thankfully they hadn’t given me a gun! Around mid day we drove the short distance to Martha’s parent’s house, where I was assured there would be plenty more family to meet (photo, Mickey, Jill and Martha are 1st, 2nd and 4th from the left respectively). And by heck there were too, I was introduced to them all as they arrived but I am sure they must have got fed up with my constant question of “Ok, remind me who you are and where you fit in with the rest of the family”. Dinner was delicious and a traditional winter Louisiana meal of Gumbo, a sort of spicy seafood broth. They were a bit surprised when I helped with drying up the dishes “Men here never do that, it’s a woman’s job” to which Kyle called out “It’s the men’s job to watch the football”. As time went by it was noticeable that there was a split, the men sat outside around a fire listening to Cajun music and talking about hunting, football and drinking beer, all the manly stuff, and the women sat inside and talked about all sorts. It was much colder than of late and being as I can sit around in the cold almost any evening I want, I opted to stay inside where I was bombarded with questions and Brooke, the bossy one (actually not really bossy but the source of most of the questions) insisted that I take their family photo and that I put it on the blog (photo), so there you go Brooke, job done, sorry it is not a very good quality photograph! Martha has 5 siblings, all married with kids, so there must have been about 30 people there over the course of the day, but they were all wonderful, especially her parents who tried to ensure that I ate and drank as mush as possible and that I made myself at home. And I certainly felt very at home, I had met 5 people yesterday and the rest today, yet I felt very comfortable with them all, lovely people, a wonderful family. Most lived in the village, some a few miles away and the furthest just across the border into Texas. We left around 22:30, I couldn’t quite work out where the day had gone, but a wonderful Christmas Day that I shall never forget, I am sure I will remember it at every Christmas in the future.

I took up their offer and stayed for Boxing Day, not that they have Boxing Day here. Mickey took me out to their second home, which they call the camp. They acquired it as a rough piece of land 8 years ago and it is now a beautifully landscaped, located by a large river, complete with hook ups so that other people can bring their camper vans down and join them. Mickey and Martha had done all the work themselves, Mickey being a very talented builder/electrician/etc. I was really impressed with it and Mickey said he loved it most when other people could use it and enjoy it. We then went back and switched from the truck into the little 4x4 buggy and he took me through rough tracks and water which I thought we would never get through, to show me the hunting hides he had built around the fields, there is no stopping this guy he is a workaholic! Then it was into the BMW and back into Lake Charles where the 6 of us that had been together when I arrived went to a seafood restaurant and they bought me a meal of Crawfish, a local seafood and rather like a small freshwater lobster, though judging by the amount we got through on our table they must almost be extinct! This is now Cajun country where some people still speak French as the area was originally settled by French speakers from Canada. As we drove around I listened to the lively Cajun music that heavily features the accordion and the fiddle. A tour of the town brought us to their church which holds 2000 people, then back home before visiting Ronnie, Mickey’s brother whose garage was more like a museum with antiques on the wall and beautifully restored old cars on the floor. In the fields we pass birds that I thought were flamingos, but they turned out to be spoonbills. Spoonbills are normally white, but these had bright pink wings caused by the crawfish that they eat, I just hope I don’t turn pink, it really isn’t a colour that suites me! We then headed out for another meal with Martha’s parents. What fabulous people I had been lucky enough to stumble upon and who had opened their hearts to me at Christmas time. They are relatively wealthy but have chosen not to move to a larger house, but they do give large sums of money to those around them that are less fortunate than themselves, they are wonderful, kind and generous people who I shall never forget.

Even as I was about to leave the following morning Mickey and Martha’s generosity was shining through as Martha asked “Are you sure you don’t need dome money”. I gave my standard reply of “Thanks, but it is me that has chosen to put myself in this position” to which she replied “Yes, but it also nice to be blessed at times”, a good point, but I had been blessed over the last two days with their generosity, company and conversation, and money just can’t buy that. I set off on a nice sunny morning, the fields looked wonderful. People’s gardens had what looked like mole hills, but they were mounds created by the crawfish and flooded fields I passed had the nets in them to trap them all. I also passed swamp land and rivers. This is prime alligator territory, but I didn’t see any, it is a bit cold for them and they tend to bury themselves, the only one I saw was road kill. The going was very flat so a steady speed, though after Lake Arthur I had a nice tailwind and the riding was very easy going, through rice fields and later fields of sugar cane. I made good progress and it seems I have misjudged the distance to New Orleans and I would now guess it will be just 3 days riding and not the 4 or 5 that I had anticipated. Louisiana is known as “Sportsman’s Paradise”, but the sport is the wildlife. Being a Sunday I saw no end of people men in camouflage heading off for a bit of hunting. I’ll tell you what, if I was a duck this is the last place I would come for a holiday!

7 comments:

Jill said...

Wow John, you really captured your stay with us, just lovely in words. I am glad you had a good Christmas, and I am also thankful you were able to be part of our family for a short time. It is something I myself will always remember. I wish I could have seen you off Sunday morning but I am not a morning person, so I did not make it out of bed in time :-) but, I hope the rest of your journey is wonderful and just remember God is leading your way so all you have to do is follow. May God bless you and keep you. ~Jill~

caff said...

Well Zibs you certainly landed on your feet and to think I was worried you may miss out on your piggy in a blanket for Christmas!! Many thanks to Mickey and family for being such wonderful people (unsuspecting victims!!) and looking after my brother. It sounds as though he had a fantastic Festive Season with you all although I'm sure he ate you out of house and home!! John, you mentioned about your difficulty in remembering everyone's name and who belonged to who. I remember having the same difficulty remembering the dozens of wonderful people I met when my friend took me to her home in Pakistan. I was completely mind boggled with confusion......but loved them all:-) It's good to hear you are having the same terrific experience :-)xx

Brooke said...

Hey John..glad you enjoyed your stay and the crawfish..I knew you would. What a blessing to be able to meet you..and I just loved the comment in the blog. Keep in touch!

aoiffe said...

I am green with envy - since I was a teenager I have wanted to eat Gumbo. And crawfish too...

Glad you were both blessed, and carrying blessings to others this Christmas time. Perhaps like the birth of Jesus in the stable, blessings often slip in quietly and unnoticed by the world at large.

Lorna said...

Wow, indeed!! Your trip just keeps getting better and better. Happy New Year, John! We'll all be looking forward to seeing you again in 2010:-) Safe cycling...

aoiffe said...

You set out in 2007 saying that you would be disappointed if you travelled for less than 3 months, and now we are about to tip over into 2010 and you are approaching 3years of travel. Amazing stuff with brill writing and awesome photos that have given me a chance to travel the world and all from the safety and comfort of my armchair.

Happy New Year. Thinking of you and hoping you are blessed now as you were at Christmas.

caff said...

Happy New Year Zibs thinking of you with special virtual hugs! Hope 2010 will be as wonderful and special for you as the last 3 years have been.I can't begin to say how much I'm looking forward to seeing you again in March or thereabouts and hearing much more about all your stories,adventures and all the wonderful people you've met. Take special care. Loads of love :-) xx