We had a wonderful going away gift from Big Lagoon. Every morning for the past weeks, when we were someplace where the traffic wasn’t too noisy, we’d wake up to the sounds of birds. Usually the predominant one was the many faceted song of the cardinal. In the day, they please the eye, flashing here and there, red bodied males, bright orange beaked females, but in the early morning they’re a joy to listen to, with one pretty song after another. Sometimes the mourning doves would add their solemn coo in the background, then the sparrows would come in with a chirp or three, the jays sometimes would squawk on by, but it was cardinals we loved to hear. This morning, real early, as we lay listening and watching the light grow, we heard a new sound, a series of notes, one tone quickly repeated 7 or 8 times. “What was that?”….” A squirrel maybe” , I said, since it did remind me of the chatter of a agitated squirrel…. “Nope,” said Donna, “it sounded bigger.”… Then a shadow flashed by the window as it swooped past the trailer…“Flying squirrel?” I quipped…. “Har har” was the appropriate response, followed by “Look Lance. It’s a pileated woodpecker!” And sure enough, not ten feet from our window, there it was, on the trunk of a stunted live oak tree that was on the edge of the site.
It was amazing to see. It’s quite large. The bird book lists them as 15 inches long, and quite uncommon. It has a black body, with white markings and neck and throat, and then a magnificent, peaked, all red top of its head. It obviously found something it liked in our tree, as it settled in and started his(?) inspection, looking for the morning meal. I’m not sure if he was listening, or looking for holes, or chinks in the trees armor; but he would cock his head one way and look closely at the bark; then cock his head to the other side, and with the other eye inspect things a bit more. Then, when the right spot was found, he swiftly started his attack. With the speed and precision of a lumberjack, he worked the wood, a sharp knock, knock from one direction, then a knock or two from the other side. Big chunks of wood would fly off, and within a minute, he had a hole larger than a golf ball in the side of the tree. Another visual inspection, another swift chop or two, and then he found his reward. With a lick of his long tongue, a quickly deposited a big wiggling grub into his beak, and gulp, down the hatch. He moved on to another spot, and started again. At one point, we heard the same call again, and a second one joined the first. Words were exchanged, and the interloper moved on, and our buddy settled in for another helping. Eventually, after fifteen minutes, and several courses, he looked at us, nodded goodbye, and flew off. Later that morning, a red headed woodpecker came by, and he was pretty, but after the visit by his big cousins, it was not all that special.
We packed up that morning, took one last long walk, and headed out. It was time to leave Florida, and get a ways down the road toward “the desert,” our ultimate destination. At the Ranger station, amid ohs and ahs and what a pretty dawg, we learned that the cost of the ferry at the end of Perdido Key was not nearly as much as we remembered from last time; so we could stay along the coast, and avoid making the big loop up and into Mobile…“with the Memphis Blues again“…(oh Bobby, you were/are a bard for our generation). We went past Alabama’s version of the gulf coast congestion, mostly for sale again, and then made it Fort Morgan, for the 1:15 ferry. We were about eighth in line, in a parking lot with a closed concessions stand, a johnny on the spot, and signs saying we would be charged the $5 entrance fee for the fort if we left the pavement. So we walked a bit, Dixie discovered the dreaded sand spurs growing in the grass (another, better reason to stay on the pavement), ands we watched the low, flat, wide ferry pull in. The trip across cost $16 for the car, $10 for the |Trailer, $4.50 for Donna, and the dawg traveled for free; but it was worth it to avoid the superhighways around Mobile Bay. We passed numerous oil platforms scattered from here to the horizon, and after 30 minutes arrived on Dauphin Island. A long causeway and bridge returned us to the mainland, and we experienced our two hours of Alabama. We took the road, again through Pine forests towards Mobile, stopped for a late lunch at Bellingrath Gardens (100 acres of gardened property around a grand house on the river, that probably would have been worth a tour at the height of Spring), made a quick grocery stop, then got on the big interstate to cross into Mississippi. Again, entering each new sate on the big highways gave you access to the state’s welcome center, which usually provided good maps, relevant information, and clean restrooms. As we pulled into the one in Mississippi, the already darkening skies opened up, and it just poured down buckets for half an hour. Donna spoke to the ladies at the desk, and was told that, despite what the signs said, if we talked to the security guard, we were welcome to stay there overnight. The building was beautiful, with various rooms decorated with Southern grace and charm, and a bevy of Southern belles, offering us coffee, and information about their State. A full size cut-out of Elvis said “Hi, I’m Elvis,” when you walked past the display about Tupelo, his birthplace. The security guard was really friendly too, and suggested several quiet spots in various corners of the grounds. When the rain let up enough to charge back to the van, we took the tour, vetoed one spot because it was too close to a noisy water filtration station, then backed onto a paved pad, by a picnic table, under the trees, and settled in to listen to the rhythm of the falling rain…my oh my, what a melodic entry this is becoming.
The next morning, the rain had stopped, so we had a quick bite, and drove down the interstate for 10 more miles, until we had a good escaping point to head into the real Mississippi. We took 57 north to the Desoto National Forest, then 26 west, through Wiggins and towards Bogalusa. The road was good, the limit was 55, the countryside pretty, up and down small hills, by some swamp, but mostly through mixed forest, lotsa small homes and some bigger ones, and quiet towns. As we ventured farther west, the differences between the small and the large widened, as we found areas where there were shacks and broken down mobile homes scattered on either side of huge country estates, with large grounds, big fences, and usually, charming bars on the windows. We carried on into Louisiana, and were slowly saddened by the amount of poverty, and the piles of trash everywhere. There were certainly some pretty spots, and nice homes, but there were areas that Donna said reminded her of pictures of the Great Depression in the thirties. There was a feeling of hopelessness, and signs everywhere that people either didn’t care at all, or had just given up hope. This was listed as a scenic highway, and there was lovely scenery for sure, but also a sections that were quite forlorn.
We soon were approaching the great old man, the mighty Mississippi River. The houses got larger, historic plantations appeared along the way, and we pulled up to the New Roads ferry. We could have traveled south into Baton Rouge and crossed via a bridge, but decided to stay in the country and float across the waters. Our timing was perfect, we waited about two minutes, and then rolled on board. The crew was bundled up for the cold weather, as they waved us on, and took our $1 fare for the ride across. The Mississippi was wide, and flat, and muddy, but the swirls and eddies showed us it was strong and relentless too. Five minutes later, we were on the other side, and decided to take a little detour along the western bank. You couldn’t see the river, because a huge containing dyke traveled the length of the shores, at least at this part, but the countryside and homes along the river were a mix of nostalgic old homesteads, and more modern estates, with the regular folks’ cottages and houses equally interspersed. We then headed back west, and the experienced another fairly impressive feat of civil engineering. We passed onto a huge area of spillway, for flood control, as the roadway climbed onto a concrete bridge that traveled at treetop level, above the swampy area that may or may not flood. It felt like a normal, concrete bridge, built maybe in the forties, with the preformed concrete heavy rails on the side, and the metronomic thump thump thump of the seams between the poured sections of road surface. |Nothing out of the ordinary, until a minute or two passed, and we were still on this elevated road, straight as an arrow. It went on for over five miles, level and straight and thumping every second, at every road seam. I guess when the waters get high in the ’ol Mississippi, you gotta shunt them off somewhere, and it takes a lot of space to safely disperse all the water. Eventually, as the sun was setting, we pulled into Opelousas, and the Wal-Mart parking lot. Wanting to get an early start in the morning, we figured that another free night was in order. Donna went into the store, and then talked to the security guy who was driving around the lot, and came back shaking her head. She said the place felt real creepy, and the security guy warned us to stay in certain areas, where he could keep an eye on us during the night. Since the sun had now set, and not sure what the next spot might be like, we decided to settle for the devil we knew, rather than the devil we don’t. MISTAKE. The night was cold and noisy, semi-muffled cars cruised the lot at all hours, trucks came and went, and we passed a very fitful night. We got up just as the first light was showing, scraped the ice (yes, the ice…yea yea, in Louisiana) off the windshield, and got on the road, happy we had survived the night. We headed west to Eunice, pulled into another Wal-mart, and it was literally and figuratively night and day. The folks were friendly, the store was clean and well stocked, the parking lot was back from the road and had big ol trees with lots of shade, so we stopped and breathed a sigh of relief. It was time for an oil change, so I unhooked the trailer, and left Donna sleeping in the shade, while Dixie and I walked, and waited for the oil change. Why oh why hadn’t we listened to our gut, and carried on to Eunice, and a peaceful night, I do not know. Leslie, the woman in charge of the oil changing team, agreed with us. She said she hears nothing but horror stories about the store in Opelousas, that it’s bad there, real bad, and year after year they lose a million dollars in inventory shrinkage. She said next time we’re around, come on back and stay there in Eunice…and we will.
By noon, we were back on the road, and heading for Texas. We had passed through some interesting places in Mississippi and Louisiana, including a section of down-home Baptist churches, with the best selection of names we had run across…the Little Sweetwater Missionary Baptist Church, and the Sweet Pilgrim Baptist Church; the New Morning Star, and the Greater Golden Light; the New Welcome Hill, and my favorite, the Big Level Baptist Church. We bought half a flat of Ponchatoula strawberries, which we enjoyed over the next several days, that lived up to what the owner of the roadside stand had said: “ they’re the best strawberries in the world.” We saw the huge buildings and granaries, where they processed rice; and the acres of flooded fields where they grew rice, and a secondary crop of crawdads. It was a regular industry, raising and selling these “mudbugs.“ We saw a place that made the crawfish cages or traps, wire mesh baskets about the size and shape of a bed pillow, with a metal or plastic collar at one end, maybe three inches high and 6 inches in diameter. In the flooded fields, you see them evenly interspersed, with just the collars above water. How they work, I’m not sure…do they get lured in somehow, like tiny lobsters, then vacuumed out the top? Are they put in smaller and then allowed to grow as salmon farming? For now, it‘s one of our unsolved mysteries of the South. We did solve one when we stopped at a store that advertised Sausage and Cracklins, and Homemade Boudin. “What’s bowdeen?” I asked, and received a quizzical look. You know, you have it advertised outside…”Oh, you mean Booo-dahn!, here, have a look.” In a steam table were a series of grayish, speckled, sausages, a little larger than bananas, laying in a curved row. ”oh, they’re sausages of some sort, are they pork?” “Momma, what’s in these Booodahn?” Momma, cigarette in her lips, said , oh pork, and onions, and rice, and spices, and, that’s about it?” Admitting I was a vegetarian, before I was offered a sample, I thanked them and headed back, with the answer to our question, what’s boudin.
We enjoyed our brief stays in the deep south (except for the scary night), but it was time to hit the southern plains, and find some warmer weather. At Starks, we headed briefly south to the interstate, followed an old Scamp (a ‘79, 13 foot fibreglass trailer) into the Texas welcome center, and did our normal thang. Maps, info, walk the dog, use the facilities, visit with folks with interesting rigs. We saw and toured a Born Free, the start of the art in new, fibreglass Class-C’s. 22 feet long, with a Ford chassis. It was lovely, well built with triple roll bars, well laid out and appointed, lots of room and comfort, and more reasonably priced than Roadtreks. Built by a family owned and operated company, if we win a lottery, this might be what we choose to let Donna take adventures on her own. Pocketing the brochure the owners gave us, we said good-bye to the welcome center, and hello to Village Creek State Park, 10 miles north of Beaumont, and only forty minutes away. We wanted a quiet place to stop, earlier in the day, were we could get warm, do some laundry, have power and safety and walking trails for the dog. When we called ahead, the |Ranger said there was room. When we asked if we could find one that was fairly secluded, he laughingly told us that although it was a small park, with the sites fairly close, only three of the 26 were occupied, so we should find a spot to our liking. 45 minutes later, we did, and settled in for some well needed rest in the Lone Star State.
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