Friday, 21 February 2020
There was a stunning sunrise this morning and I'm sorry I didn't take a photo of it. When I was walking the dogs I saw the sun just coming up over the cypress-filled lake and it was really nice. Peaceful.
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| today's route |
My drive today took me from near Shreveport in LA's northwest corner southeast to Colfax, which is a half hour out of Alexandria, the geographic center of LA. I passed through Koran and Haughton on the way to Taylortown on US Route 71.
Still driving in Bossier Parish, I passed by the turns to several plantations: Waterloo, Ash Point, Magenta and Elm Grove.
Rural Louisiana looks like houses, trailers, industrial plants, a gunsmith. Big wide open fields of crops, cows, sheep, horses. Tree farms in various stages of growth.
I saw a calf nursery (I guess - there were quite a few out in a field with their moms). Cows and horses lying down in the warm sun - a change after the clouds and rain, and the wind was cold but the sun was warm.
In Red River Parish, I came to the town of Coushatta, expecting to see gambling. I've seen lots of ads in Texas for the Coushatta casino, and I guess I expected it to be here. It's not. No sign of any gambling at all. The well-advertised casino is almost due south more than half the state away from this town. The casino is near the town of Kinder and I think run by the Coushatta Tribe, the reservation for which is nearby.
Coushatta (town) calls itself the Heart of the Red River Valley. Wikipedia had no explanation at all for where the name of this town came from. Before the Civil War, it was plantation country with the majority of the population being enslaved Africans and African-Americans. The town's population is still about 2/3 black and 1/3 white. And about all I can tell you besides that is that the level of fire danger today is extreme, though I have no idea why with all the rain we've been having throughout the state this month.
And then I moved into Natchitoches Parish. I came to the town of Campti (such an odd name), where I saw a bright yellow metal building with the label THE CHURCH painted across the front of it. Campti claims to be the oldest town on the Red River.
At Clarence I turned right on a road called El Camino - East West Highway. I don't know why. I passed another church with a sign out front that read: "Tomorrow's forecast - God reigns, the Son shines."
Natchitoches
Coming into Natchitoches I passed a road labeled Natchitoches Port and saw on the riverbank an enormous pile of logs. I noticed a Weyerhauser facility between the port and the town. I crossed the (unlabeled) Red River on a very high bridge (for which I was completely unprepared, but I'm getting a bit better at bridges with all this practice).
Here's the thing with the word Natchitoches. Forget what it looks like, it's pronounced NACK-eh-tish. I learned that on my first day in Louisiana, when I stopped at that Welcome Center and the nice ladies there told me to go visit. We were looking at the map and they were saying NACK-eh-tish, and I finally asked just to be sure. And pointed out that Texas has a town named Nacogdoches which, yeah, is spelled differently, but that town's pronounced nearly the way Natchitoches looks. (Even Wikipedia notes the 2 names shouldn't be confused.) But the ladies assured me they were telling me the truth, and they were right. But that made me distrust the pronunciation of every other place name in the state.
The reason they thought I'd want to visit is that Natchitoches is the oldest permanent settlement in the state - actually, the oldest permanent settlement in the Louisiana Purchase. It was established in 1714 (the LA Purchase was in 1803) as a French trading post, but French traders had already begun to settle there in 1699. And the reason some folks come visit here is that Steel Magnolias was filmed here, and apparently some of the buildings in the movie are still here.
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| fleur-de-lis |
I just wanted to see the old town. I saw very narrow streets (clearly built when people were riding horses or walking); very old houses that have mostly been turned into inns and B&Bs; brick streets; iron lace balconies like in New Orleans; the fleur-de-lis is on the street name signs; the Cane River runs right through town and there's a nice park and walk along the river in town.
Most streets seem to be one way, and I found out why the hard way. I was trying to find a short cut out of town and turned on Rue Trudeau, discovering almost instantly that yes, I was going the right way on this one-way street, but so were all the cars parked on either side of the road, leaving only a tiny corridor between them. I'm a big fan of the folks who pulled their side mirrors in, because I'm not sure I'd have made it through unscathed if they hadn't. I had to move inch by inch in a few places, watching not only the road ahead and the cars on either side of the cab, but also the cars along the rear of the RV's sides. Without my own side mirrors, it would have been impossible, though at one point I had to pull them in because someone parked hadn't done his. Then I was really flying blind. It was such a relief to get through all 2 blocks of that.
I'm including this link to the Wikipedia page because it had a few nice photos of the town. https://en.wikipedia.org/Natchitoches That page says the Natchitoches Meat Pie is one of the official state foods of Louisiana, and I'm really sorry I didn't know that when I was there. Here's a link about how they're made. https://en.wikipedia.org/Natchitoches-meat-pie
I passed the Cane River Queen, that looked like a tour boat on the Cane River, docked at the riverside park. I saw what was likely a tour group that I guessed was with Road Scholar/Elderhostel, though I couldn't easily find a tour of theirs that came through Natchitoches when I looked online. But they were probably who was using the small Shreveport tour buses I saw parked nearby; it looked like they were having a great time. Elderhostel does really good programs - Momma and I went on 3 of them.
Back on the road
Heading back toward the Natchitoches Port, I noticed that the logging trucks turning into the port were carrying long skinny logs. Logging trucks heading away from there toward Weyerhauser were carrying much shorter, peeled, thicker, more finished-looking logs. I used to know about this stuff back in one of my former lives, but I've forgotten it now.
I saw, almost on top of each other, a sign saying I was entering Winn Parish and another sign saying I was about to cross Saline Bayou. When I looked up the bayou to see if it were really saline (it's not), I learned that it marks the boundary between Winn and Natchitoches Parishes. Saline Bayou is a tributary of the Red River and has been designated a Wild and Scenic River. It's black because it's full of tannic acid.
In Grant Parish I came to the town of Montgomery, which bills itself Home of Bon Dieu Falls. I don't know why I had so much trouble finding out anything about Bon Dieu Falls, but the most I came up with was that there was an old French fort with that name near where the town is now, so I guess there are falls there. What I do know is that for a tiny town - population 730 - it's got a real sense of community. The town hosts the Bon Dieu Falls Festival every fall, and it's got a surprisingly lengthy Wikipedia page that absolutely has to have been written by a local. It includes the lack of funding for the police and a local shooting spree from the 1990s. https://en.wikipedia.org/Montgomery
The stretch of Route 71 between Montgomery and Colfax is one of the best roads in the state, and I was really sorry to have to turn off it.
I called yesterday about this campground that I'd found online somewhere and got good directions, that the guy told me were much better than GPS, which consistently sent people down the wrong roads.
This campground has only 25 spaces but is on flat land right on the Red River, where there's a dam within sight. It's an incredible pleasure to be sitting on flat land for a change: doors stay where you put them instead of swinging wide open or slamming shut, nothing rolls around or tilts - it's a relief. And they charged me only $16 with the half-price senior discount. Such a deal.
Of course, it may be only 25 spaces, and there are only 10 of us camped here, but at least 50% have dogs so I have to be careful when I walk mine. But that's doable.
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