Friday, 31 January 2020
Early this morning I was walking the dogs, worrying that one of those off-the-leash dogs would show up, or a deer or other wild animal. One of the other campers was leaving for work and had a large truck with a trailer in tow, which he pulled out of his campsite just as we were passing. I figured we'd just step off the road until he'd gone by, but there was a snag. The trailer was extra long - looked like it could hold at least 2 cars on it - and it was empty and aluminum so it made a really extraordinary amount of noise. I'm sure the surrounding sleeping campers loved it, but my problem was with Gracie.
The noise absolutely terrified her - well, to be fair, it was really loud and we were right next to it - but I had to work hard to keep her from either running away or dragging me over. Then Dexter saw her bouncing around and decided it was playtime and started bouncing around to get her to play with him. It was a mess. And this guy's campsite was a long way from the park entrance - and even after he'd left the campground we could hear that trailer for a while down the road - so it took a really long time to get Gracie back under control. What a way to start the day.
Travel plans
For the second time, I decided to break my rule about spending an entire calendar month in each state. This time the driving force was a near desperation to get rid of these recyclables. And it wasn't just the glass that had been accumulating for the last 6 or 7 weeks, but also paper, plastic containers, everything. Momma and I used to be able to fill a 96-gallon city recycling container more than half-way every 2 weeks, sometimes even fill it altogether. So it's not really surprising I'd be swimming in the stuff after so long. Mississippi just isn't interested in recycling at all, except limited residential service in a few cities.
I had a storage box and 2 trash bags of recyclables in my belowstairs storage area, and I had to fight to get to my toilet because of the other bags of it stored there. And almost every day brought more.
The only recycle facility I'd been able to locate near any Mississippi border is in Baton Rouge, an hour or 2 from any border so I couldn't just drop by. The route I'd planned for today and tomorrow wouldn't let me get there until Sunday. I knew that and it seemed okay yesterday, but today brought more recycle materials to the bags by the toilet and I just cracked.
I'm missing the southern part of Mississippi and the town of Picayune, both of which I'd wanted to see, but taking care of my mental health is important too.
I didn't have a campground reservation in LA until tomorrow, and I'd be giving up a prepaid reservation over by Hattiesburg, but fortunately, that site was costing me only $17 so I felt I could sacrifice that. I called tomorrow's campground but they said they were full, except for sites that had recently been flooded by rain. Finding a campground on a Friday night in the general vicinity turned out to be difficult. I finally found one that looked okay just west of Baton Rouge, mapped out a route that included the recycling place, and started to leave.
That's when I discovered the drawer latch in the kitchen that keeps breaking had broken again. Fortunately I'd bought a spare last time, so I emptied the drawer and replaced the latch. Getting to be quite quick about it with so much practice. I've got to figure out what's wrong with that drawer - none of the others has broken even once.
Of course, all that took so long it was 10:00 when we were driving out, but Google said the drive would be only 2 or 3 hours (2 for other people, 3 for me). It ended up taking me 4 because of stops.
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| today's route |
I heard a radio interview with a woman named Kelsey, the head of a group called Trixie Chicks Trick Riders, talking about her group (info at https://www.trxchx.com) and their upcoming performance called the Never Give Up Tour. The page for the tour seems to be only on Facebook, so you'll need to check it for yourself, though it sounds worthwhile to do. Kelsey said this tour is a benefit or something for rescued horses. Sounds like horses often need rescuing just like dogs and cats do - because the owner and the horse have a personality clash or the horse turned out not to be suited for what the owner wanted - lots of reasons the owner will decide to put the horse down. Kelsey said her group rescues and trains these horses - I guess it's like rescuing a dog from a shelter and training him to sniff out bombs or drugs. It was all very interesting.
Our drive from Natchez to the border took us an hour, mostly past more crop fields and few towns.
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| Louisiana - my 23rd state |
I was expecting a big place like the ones on the interstate, so I was passing it before I realized that's what it was and had to turn around and go back. Just a little place with a little driveway and a little parking area, but they had plenty of tourist materials and several helpful Louisiana ladies inside.
The woman who helped me had a really thick accent. It's been interesting to me how a basic Southern accent will vary depending on which state I'm in. Kentucky's accent is noticeably different than Louisiana's - each state's got its own version.
One of the other visitors was asking about Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans, and it sounds like there's at least one every day until the 25th (the actual Fat Tuesday). I asked my helper about celebrations in other LA towns, and she said in the smaller places I'd probably find they'll just have one local parade that lasts about half an hour and otherwise I wouldn't likely be dealing with road closures around the state or anything. I like local parades. They've all got something unique to that area and it's great to be with local folks just enjoying themselves. Momma and I were regulars at several local parades in the Austin area and always had fun.
Continuing south
I continued south on US Route 61 that I'd been driving on for most of western MS and now all the way to Baton Rouge. A handy and comfortable alternative to the interstates.
I passed a large white metal archway, very fancy and ornate and tall - I could see it a ways down the road - and when I got there I expected some big plantation house. Instead what I saw was a tiny gray wood house not much bigger than my RV in a tiny yard fairly close to the arched entrance. And I really think that's all there was. Maybe the owner had a metalworking business?
I passed a sign advertising The Myrtles Plantation, "Home of Mystery and Intrigue." https://www.americanhauntingsink.com/myrtles It seems to be a B&B now and to distinguish itself from all the other local B&Bs with this claim of being haunted. That website spends a lot of time credibly debunking almost all the claims of murders in the house, so I find it interesting that one of those claims is actually repeated in this wikipedia link. https://en.wikipedia.org/Myrtles-Plantation
I passed a sign for Historic Rosedown Plantation, a state historic site. The house was built around 1835 and offers daily tours for $10/senior. In fact, I passed several signs for various plantation houses along this road.
I passed the turn for the Audubon State Historic Site. In fact, I passed several signs for various Audubon-related places in this area though I'd never thought of him as being connected to Louisiana. The historic site is at the Oakley Plantation, where Audubon did a lot of work on some of the drawings that would go in his Birds of America, still acclaimed almost 200 years later. Seniors get in for free. I expect to come back to this area of the state when I've got time to poke around and may visit this place.
I passed yet another historic site, this one for Port Hudson. That's the port that fell to Union control at the time of the Natchez siege, leaving the MS River under control of the North. But I've had enough of the Civil War for a while so won't likely come back to this place.
I was finding that from Port Hudson back up the road to St. Francisville, the major town in this area, I'm no longer seeing crop fields but instead a string of franchises and local businesses in the St. F region, and mobile homes, RV parks and small houses of asphalt shingles near Port Hudson. This sort of scenery seemed nearly nonstop.
Then I hit Baton Rouge and was quickly confronted with LA's oil heritage: an Exxon Mobile polyolefin plant, per their sign. That being Sanskrit to me, I looked it up and learned polyolefin includes a variety of plastics in current use, such as polyethylene and polypropylene, which of course I've heard of but couldn't identify if they hit me in the face. According to a local newspaper article, this plant is a recent expansion of Exxon's original plant, doubling the facility and increasing local jobs.
Yep. Louisiana's economy is heavily dependent on oil.
I've been seeing several signs that used the word BREC without explaining it. And now that I've looked it up, I'm still not real clear. For one thing, those seem to be initials but I can't figure out what they stand for. Its website says it's a government agency, created in 1946 to "connect people to parks and nature," which seems a little vague. 1946 is just barely post-WWII. Their by-laws are headed "Recreation and Parks Commission for the Parish of East Baton Rouge." None of that gets me to BREC. My guess is going to be Baton Rouge Environmental Council or Committee or Commission. And they switched to the initials because its success could be torpedoed by the "environmental" tag, which might seem inflammatory in this oil-industry-dependent state. I'm sorry I don't know anybody to ask.
I saw an oldish sign that said, in big letters: "Obama Supporters It's Showtime! Trust In Trey Goudy." I'd forgotten all about him (ah, the short memory of the American voter). I'm guessing this sign is referring to that House committee he chaired that spent years trying to find what Hillary Clinton had done wrong in Benghazi, after which he conceded that nothing had been done wrong. The sign must have expected a different outcome. I'm surprised it's still up.
Recycling
US Hwy. 190 runs completely across the state, generally paralleling I-10 and I-12 and running through a lot of communities along the way. On its route is the recycling center that the City of Hammond promised on its website was open 24/7. Despite having upended my travel plans to come here, I was not really expecting it to be here because the aerial view on Google didn't show any bins or anything that remotely looked like a place people could drop stuff off.
I just didn't want to get my hopes up and have them shattered because it's been getting to be a strain living with the stuff. I mean, at this point there was so much of it I just couldn't bring myself to throw it in the trash, so it just kept accumulating.
But when I got there I saw an old beat-up sign that said Public Recycling Drop-off (promising) and hidden in a corner I saw several dumpsters, one of which had little recycling icons on it. That one was nearly full, though, and I didn't want to dump my stuff in the others without knowing. Fortunately I ran into an employee on a break who told me sure, use any of them. So I got rid of weeks and weeks of containers and papers.
I was actually so stunned at this happy outcome that I couldn't feel happy about it. Or relieved or anything. Just stunned. It wasn't until much later, when I had a plastic cup and some papers to discard that I realized I now had room behind my toilet. And the storage space underneath has room - I put some summer clothes in the now-empty container that held bottles. I really really do hope every other state from here on out is more interested in recycling than Mississippi and, to some extent, also Alabama were. That was crazy.
Back on the road
US Hwy. 190 also crosses the MS River at Baton Rouge north of the I-12 bridge that everybody's used to. I've done that bridge. The one for Hwy. 190 looked on the map to be shorter, which means generally preferable to me. And tonight's campground is just a few miles off it on the other side of the river, so 190 was my route. For quite a ways, it's also called Airline Highway, though that must be an old name because it's just a 2-lanes-on-each-side local street. For a lot of its route, the road surface was absolutely horrible and the dogs were looking at me accusingly like I was deliberately causing them this discomfort. Old name for an old road, I guess.
I passed a lot of billboards advertising the legal services of Gordon McKernan, who says he handles injury cases, car wrecks, that sort of thing. But one of the billboards said only, "Blessed are the pure in heart. Matthew 5:8" and Gordon's name and photo. I thought that was a little weird.
I've never eaten at a Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen and was really interested to see the very heavily patronized one I passed here in Baton Rouge. Does that mean it really deserves to have "Louisiana" in its name?
I found that the Hwy. 190 bridge over the MS River is named the Huey P. Long Bridge.
By the time we got to the campground, the day was still chilly and windy and cloudy. You'd think it was winter or something. Today felt like a lot more driving than it actually was - only about 100 miles - but I was tired.
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