http://cjni.com/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/838 I wasn’t eaten that night by an alligator, as it turns out; I woke up entire, and immediately hopped on my bike to do a little morning tour of the park. There were all kinds of wading birds everywhere; they flew off as soon as I was within a hundred feet or so. I found […]
Monthly Archives: May 2014
In the Parish.
24-May-14Into the Dagobah System.
20-May-14buy provigil online overnight I stayed that night at St. Bernard State Park, where I paid twenty dollars for the right to camp legally. The very nice woman at the gate, who looked kindly on the idea of biking up the river and seemed eager to please, thought long and hard about which campsite to give me. She had […]
Fiddler Crab Holes.
20-May-14Throughout Louisiana, the roads are at least slightly embanked to deal with flooding, and the river of course is heavily leveed, and the material for the banks and levees typically comes from nearby – generally the ground adjacent to the road or levee. So you are always travelling next to a ditch. The drier ditches […]
The Mississippi River at New Orleans.
20-May-14Bible, King Louisiana Version.
20-May-14This is actually a pretty good transcription of the way people talk in Louisiana, where there is no distinction between “fine” and “find.” But I’ll note the full transcription should be “Who fahn may, fahn lahf.”
The eastbank of the river is not heavily developed in Plaquemines Parish, but periodically along the river you will see chain-link fence behind which sit large industrial complexes; I saw a grain elevator that smelled like Honey Nut Cheerios, pouring grain directly into a tanker ship: no packaging, just grain dumped straight onto seabound steel. […]
Crawfishing.
19-May-14When you’re in a car, you drive by people sometimes and wonder, “What the hell were they doing?” But you’re already long past, and don’t circle back to find out. On a bike, you just press the brake, drop your bike, and find out. I grabbed a sprig of a white-blooming shrub I hadn’t recognized […]
Eastern Plaquemines Parish.
17-May-14My guidebook had not exaggerated when it said that there were no facilities between Pointe a la Hache and Poydras; for thirty-four miles there is not a single gas station, restaurant, grocery store, or anything else. I have often reflected on how important commerce is for community: we need public houses, and businesses are typically […]
Pointe a la Hache.
17-May-14I landed on the eastbank and immediately the place was different. It was quiet here – no highway, and indeed, no people. There was a structure, right across from the ferry landing, which was actually old – somehow or other an old wooden house had survived the hurricanes. It was abandoned, mind you, but it […]
First Cross.
15-May-14I was in one hell of a good mood about riding the ferry. Both the other riders were in their cars, however, and there were no workmen on the deck; so I had my excitement all to myself. I sent a few text messages because I couldn’t help myself: this was my first Mississippi crossing […]