Louisiana Bayous

Day 50, Mile 2435

Crawfish boil - Yum!

We cycled a long meandering route through Louisiana this week, trying to stretch the state out as much as we could.  After crossing the Sabine River, which divides Texas and Louisiana, we headed south and down to the Gulf Coast, which was ravaged by both hurricanes Rita (2005) and Ike (2008).   We were not particularly aware of its impact before arriving in the area.  To the locals, everything is “before” or “after” the storms.  While there has been much rebuilding, for every house that stands (usually on 20 foot stilts), there are three driveways that go into an empty cement pad which used to hold a house, but is now just vacant land.  The communities are 1/3 of their previous size, and are almost completely without any businesses to this day.

Houses on stilts at Holly Beach, Louisiana

Humans may have been negatively impacted by the storms, but the swamps, marshes, and coast all seem to be thriving.   Water was ever present on our tour through the state, with marshland and canals taking off in all directions.  Birds, frogs, and turtles were abundant; we saw one bobcat, but our favorite was spying 49 alligators in 2 days.  From huge ones (10 feet long) to little baby ones, they were all fascinating for a couple from the north to see! We stopped to chat with a family having a crab boil and they just happened to have a pet baby alligator:

Baby alligator

But the real reason we were stretching this section of our tour out was to experience the Cajun culture.  Of course, that means food!  Amy insists that I remind people that we are usually eating macaroni and cheese and oatmeal type meals, but on this section we threw the budget out the window and ate!  We were invited to a crawfish boil with a family in the “town” of Cow Island.  While crawfish look like little lobsters, eating their tails was more like eating shrimp cooked in cayenne.  We were able to sample shrimp Po Boy sandwiches, fried catfish galore, frogs legs, boudin, fried pickles (wow!), varieties of crab and shrimp, jumbalaya, and a couple different kinds of gumbo.  We also got to a Cajun dance hall to dance to zydeco music. 



BIG Alligator!

And then, of course, are the people. We were asked a couple times if people from Louisiana are the friendliest people we’ve met.  I quickly learned not to tell them that Texans were also really friendly.  We must look skinny or something because people kept giving us food.  From the couple who took us out to dinner for our first gumbo, to the lady who, without telling us, paid for our lunch near the banks of the Mississippi, and left before we could even thank her.  We were allowed to sleep through a big gulf storm in the halls of a Baptist church in Hackeberrry, and were invited to spend 2 nights in an antebellum mansion in St. Martinsville.   There is just something about looking like a bike rider, rather than someone enclosed in a car, that opens us up to strangers.  Riding is almost always good, but these interactions with people who we will never see again will leave us with our longest and best memories.

Dock into the bayou

We crossed the Mississippi River today into the state of Mississippi and will be traversing the state for the next week on our way to Tennessee.  Check out the map below this entry.  Now it looks like we’re getting somewhere.

Texas Country: Part 2

Day 38, Mile 1860

STEEP Hill Country!

We’re still in Texas after peddling over 900 miles in the state so far.  But we’ve been witnessing the landscape change dramatically and have experienced a significant amount of southern hospitality.  We left the huge vistas, deserts, and 10,000 acre ranches of West Texas, and rolled through the Texas “hill country” this week.  Hilly it was, but also beautiful.  We cycled on roads so small there wasn’t even a painted center line.  The little towns became more numerous, with general stores that were still open and thriving.  The last few days found us out of the hill country, but still rolling along through east Texas farmlands.  The fields are greening up and a Texan might shoot me if I said it to his face, but it feels like we’re now “back east.”

Indulging in Smitty's famous BBQ in Lockhart, TX

Our favorite place of the week was Smitty’s BBQ in Lockhart, Texas (the BBQ capital of the state).  We totally changed up our plans for the week so we could arrive in Lockhart at dinner time.  We walked in, passed the 100 year old smoker (which had an open fire in the middle of the floor), and back to the meat ordering counter.  You order the meat by the pound, so we ordered a pound and a half combination of homemade brisket, sausage and ribs.  Then we went to the next counter and got our coleslaw, potato salad, and sweet tea.  The meat is just all wrapped up in butcher paper, and there are no utensils, we so just dove in face first.  Let me just say here, that they were the best ribs I’ve ever had and I’ve been salivating just thinking about them for the past week.

Lunch with 93 year old Franny and her son in Comfort, TX

The hospitality abounded this week.  We stayed with Robert and Judy in Kerrville,Texas after he saw Brian sitting outside a bike store, and then we went to their local Baptist Church for the contemporary Sunday service.  We camped behind the local Ambulance station in Wimberley, Texas and was invited in for a steak dinner with the local EMS guys.  We were offered an empty apartment to stay in after asking at the general store in Independence, Texas about local camping options.  And the best of all was our lunch with 93 year old Franny Chamberlin and her son Frank in Comfort, Texas.  While standing in line for an iced tea, this woman came up and asked us all the typical questions (where are you going, where did you start, etc) and said to us “Well, you’re having lunch with me.”  She proceeded to buy us a great lunch and entertain us with tales of her family, who helped found the town of Comfort in 1846.  They have  lived there ever since, and we almost felt like a part of the family by the time our lunch was over.

We’re taking a half day off here in Navasota then pushing on to Louisiana (and can’t wait)!

Quiet farm roads in rural East Texas.