Days forty one and forty two, crossing louisiana

So you don,t have to look at a map, picture if you will, a red band gumboot, you are looking at the red band side on with the leg bit to the left and the toe to the right. Can you see this in your minds eye? Right, this is the general shape of the state of Louisiana, New Orleans is at the toe, Lafayette is about the ankle and Shreveport is two thirds up the leg part. Comprende?

We are riding from The toe to the ankle and then up the leg of the red band, if you catch my angle.

Recall Horse and Janelle have headed home to NZ to get back to work, we are now down to three bikes.

Right, so we leave New Orleans, at the toe of the red band, crossing the bridge over the Mississippi and head west toward the ankle, on Route 90, supposedly the scenic route to Lafayette and off the interstates. I use the word scenic rather loosely, this is Bayou country, back home we call bayou country, swamp. It’s just a culture thing the difference. One has the impression everything is low lying and prone to misery during times of flood. A lot of the wee towns we passed through on the 90 were pretty run down, the land was pretty damp looking and the only crop visible was sugar cane. Road building looks expensive in southern Louisiana as there are lots of concrete viaducts just to get across the “ bayou” country, posted a couple pics below. The native plants in these here parts, as common as manuka back home is swamp cypress. Now swamp cypress is an impressive looking tree, mature ones left by the roadside have gorgeous long tendrils of moss hanging off the branches. By and By we jumped onto the “Bayou Teche Scenic byway”. All I can say is Louisiana is hard up for byways if this is what they call scenic. The main drag route 90 is more scenic in my view. Despite my less than complimentary appraisal of the day heading west out of NOLA, I did enjoy the ride in a different part of the world, I.e. bayou country, simply because we had not seen any of this country anywhere else in the US of A. We duly arrive at the ankle of the red band gumboot, the city of Lafayette, a busy as hell place, booked into the Comfort and hit the pool due to that bloody heat wave that is following my bike with a vengeance, just to annoy me.

Day forty two dawns and we head north from the ankle of Lafayette, to midway up the leg bit of that red band, to the city of Shreveport, Louisiana. Now I have to say this is an a to b ride and pretty much all on interstate apart from another so called scenic byway. ( Again Calling it a scenic byway could be a Tui billboard advert) just saying. We are now on the I49, it is an actual interstate but with shag all traffic which makes riding quite pleasant. The land topography has changed significantly from south of the ankle. We are now in very fertile looking well drained expensive looking cropping country, sugar cane crops looking much healthier , farm houses looking much more affluent and generally very pleasing to the eye with Excellent farmland to gaze over, well looked after and no slum villages to pass through. I don’t imagine this is a cheap part of Louisiana to buy farmland in.

Shreveport supports a fair wack of oil country so lots of oil tool businesses, guys in overalls sporting the same companies as back in New Plymouth, like Halliburton and Weatherford. Another big employer in Shreveport is the US Air Force who have a a big base here.

We arrive in Shreveport ( that’s pronounced shreeeeveport, not shrev like Trev) once again temps high 30’s and all we are good for is a swim in the pool, some re hydrating with bud light and some bbq sausages.

Tommorrow will see us riding off the top of the red band leg into Bill Clinton’s home state of Arkansas.