Monday, 24 February 2020
Today is Lundi Gras (Fat Monday)! Too rainy where I was for celebrations, I'm sorry to say.
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| today's route |
Sadly, I had to deal with rain pretty much all day long. I don't mind rain much myself, but it's lousy for driving on Louisiana's lousy back roads. I found a big difference even before I left the campground, which suddenly had big puddles on all the roads. And out on Route 71 there were more puddles on the road (nerve-wracking to drive through because of hidden potholes) and flooded fields all along the roadside. The odd thing was that the rain only started about 3:30 this morning (I was already awake), and it only rained off and on for several hours, so the ground must have been thoroughly saturated to produce this much pooling so fast.
I passed Bagdad Community (Bagdad? Koran? where did these names come from?) and Rock Hill (which solved the visiting-neighbors problem by having short roads parallel to Rte. 71 and the houses fronting on those short roads), and the Community of Hudson Creek (you can see this is not a highly populated area, with all these "communities" instead of towns). And then into Rapides Parish. Rapides is pronounced ra-PEEDS. (I took Spanish in school, not French, and simply don't understand that language.)
I heard on the radio that Katherine Johnson died today at the age of 101. She's the mathematician who worked at NASA on the first Apollo mission space flights, and who's one of the main subjects of the movie Hidden Figures, which is the last movie Momma and I saw together. I should watch the movie again to honor her memory.
Alexandria
My impression is that this is a miniature version of a big city. There's only about 47,000 residents here, but the downtown looks just like any big city - only much smaller. The Red River runs right through downtown and there's a nice little pocket park along part of it.
I learned all this accidentally by getting lost and having to get found again. Actually, I'd intended to drive around downtown anyway, just after I'd done my errands, instead of before. It has a nice feel to it, and even though I was completely turned around and had no idea of where I was supposed to go (until I parked and turned on my computer), I didn't feel intimidated as I have in some cities.
I drove out of downtown and passed the zoo and a golf course and houses, and then ended up at the mall. Google promised me an Albertson's and a Target there. And they were there. But the Target was the odd thing. The city's own solid waste website claimed the official place for me to recycle glass in Alexandria was at the Target. And when I called Target to ask where, they told me to come inside the store and there'd be bins.
I didn't believe them. The recycling drop-off bins I've seen everywhere I've gone have been dirty and messy and there's no way on earth a Target would have something like that inside its store. I mean sure they might have bins for plastic water bottles or coke cans, but not for my household glass jars and things. But they did. Two bins, each about 3' high and 2' across lined with big plastic bags, just for glass, and others for plastic jugs and aluminum cans. So I went back out to the RV to get my things (I hadn't taken them in with me due to lack of faith) and got rid of everything except paper. The Target refused to accept any paper for recycling, which is usually the only thing I can find a place for. Who would ever have thought it?
It was still pouring rain so I had a terrible time finding a place to walk the dogs that wasn't saturated or inaccessible due to puddles. The dogs refused to understand me when I was explaining all this to them, so out into the rain we went for a short walk in a part of the shopping center parking lot.
I liked Alexandria. It seems to have everything a big city has without the big city attached to it. Nice.
Back on the road, heading east toward the Mississippi River again
The afternoon consisted of driving through one parish after another - La Salle, Catahoula, Tensas - and through one small town after another - Jonesville, Ferriday, Clayton.
I passed field after field and finally decided they were mostly cotton fields when I saw one with soggy leftover cotton in it.
I passed Frogmore Plantation and, unlike most plantations that seem to ignore who actually built them and did the work on them, this one apparently encompasses the whole cotton farming situation both then and now. The tour sounds quite elaborate and very interesting, including old and new cotton gins, and I'd like to go if I'm back this way (and it's not pouring rain). Here's the description. http://www.frogmoreplantation.com
I saw a sign saying I was reentering the Atchafalaya (emphasis on the CHA) Heritage Area, now that I'm heading back toward the Mississippi and its tributaries.
I saw a billboard that read: "Luke 5:2-5 Repent or Perish." I don't know why I was curious but I was, and that's not at all what that part of the Bible says. Those verses tell about when Jesus met up with Simon who was called Peter (it says) and his brother Andrew who had been fishing for hours without catching anything. And Jesus sat in Simon's boat and taught the men. That's what it says, no matter which translation you look at. Oddly, the version of that story in 2 other gospels is vaguely closer to the billboard's message. In Matthew 4:17, just before telling about the boat part, it says that Jesus said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." And in Mark 1:16, again before telling about the boat stuff, it says Jesus said, "Repent and believe in the gospel." Luke doesn't say "repent" about anything connected to that story, John doesn't even mention the incident, and none of the four mentions the word - or concept of - "perish." [And with all this, I simply don't understand how someone can believe that every word of the Bible is true and literal. Even those who claim to have been there have the same sort of accuracy in reporting that most eyewitnesses do today.]
That billboard was the most excitement of the drive, which was across flat land, some fields with cows or a few horses, most with crops - before, during or after growth. Lots and lots of bare trees. And rain. Mostly steady, sometimes hard, for most of the afternoon. Made everything look gray.
So here's a question: why does the one Louisiana Public Radio (broadcast statewide) program classical music from 9:00-12:00 and 1:00-4:00 five days a week? If they insist on programming music, why can't they switch up genres? Mississippi Public Radio does. It's not like Louisiana is devoid of wonderful home-grown music and musicians. Why on earth so very much classical music - statewide - in this part of the country?
In that 12:00-1:00 non-music slot today, I heard a report on mosquito research (very relevant to Louisiana, even in February, I'm sorry to say). Scientists have noted that mosquitos gravitate to lactic acid and to smelly feet, and that a person's attractiveness to mosquitos, or lack thereof, seems genetically associated. The moral of that story is (I suppose) to watch the sources of lactic acid you give your body, keep your feet covered, and hope you're on the right side of the gene pool. I seem to have the wrong genes. Scientists are working on a way to use that genetic information to find a way to repel mosquitos, since ridding the planet of them altogether would do terrible ecological damage.
In Concordia Parish, I came to the very small town of Waterproof, which is now 92% African-American. In the 2000 census it had 834 residents and now has fewer than 600, 24% of which are over the age of 60 (meaning the population will be declining even further). The problem is it's a farming town, and the farms have switched from family-owned and labor-intensive to today's industrial-scale mechanized farming. Cotton, mostly, supported by corn and soybeans. Though a flood in 2008 ruined the corn crop (a risk for this year too, I'd expect), and the current tarriffs are likely ruining the soybean market. The town just has little for a job base, so it's hard for young people to stay. I've included the Wikipedia link because it quotes an NPR story from awhile back that explained where the name Waterproof came from. It also says General Claire Chennault was raised here. https://en.wikipedia.org/Waterproof
On to the nearby town of St. Joseph, where my brother's mail drop was waiting for me in General Delivery. That's a tiny post office that looks like a one-man operation: open 8-11:30 and 12:30-3:00, Monday through Friday. It looks like there's just enough work to fill a workday for the postmaster and seemed so peaceful, I was ready to apply to fill the position if he ever wanted to move on.
I saw a historical marker in town that explained why St. Joseph is more like a New England town than a southern one. https://www.hmdb.org
From there a few more miles down the road was tonight's state park. I knew I'd stayed here 2 years ago when I was first heading up to Pennsylvania at the start of my trip, and I thought I remembered it. But it looked so completely unlike what I remembered that I must have been thinking of someplace else, though I don't know where.
The campground is right on Lake Bruin, which is an oxbow lake left over when the Mississippi River changed course some time ago. It's not named for bears, as I'd assumed, but instead for the owner, Bruin, of a then-nearby plantation. I'd expected bears.
Instead what I got was a lot of water. Many of the campsites were half-flooded; mine was fine as long as I didn't want to use the barbecue grill, which had a moat around it.
On the other hand, I had a good view of a spectacular sunset.
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| looking toward the lake |
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| a few minutes later |
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