Thursday 22^nd. February

North by Northwest

Sleep eluded me this quiet night in the woods of Chicot State Park Louisiana so I rose early and explored down to the lake where a lone fisherman was out on his flat bottom boat out past the rees growing out of the water near the shore. I came across tracks from a small animal (racoon?) and an obvious deer track but no sightings. The trees are alive with birdsong but few sightings other than a small wagtail. On the narrow road in to the park we came across a vulture sitting in the road and despite a blast on the horn he did not move, but eventually flapped lazily away.

Eventually the chaps emerged and we gave our surplus food and beer to Caroline who was grateful. She said that Dan had been ill before they came but was now feeling useful and cheerful volunteering to look after the campsites, while her yappy little dog (rescued from the dog pound) jumped up around our legs. 

Dan & Caroline's camp

Racoon?

The road North was long and straight, through the never ending flatlands through woodland and over rollercoaster flyovers ever onwards past Arcadia, Gibsland, Shreveport and into Texas and Scottsville, Winona and Tyler to land up in Canton at the All Day All Night RV Park. A very wide person in a cap waddled towards us to ask for $30, a contrast to this morning when I tried to pay at the park booth and the guy said "Your good to go, we know about you" Dan had pulled strings in return for his groceries.

Our last night in the RV and the guys are playing games and there is country music playing on the radio, it's a warm night and mosquitos are somehow getting in and being swatted, we are 40 minutes from Dallas and the drop off for the van. The sunset is awesome and we are all so blissed and blessed to have done this epic trip. It has been good all the way with so many highlights to remember for the rest of our lives. The best for me has been to spend time with these two great people that would never otherwise have happened. They have both been wonderful and looked after their old man all the way, and it would not have happened without them. This amazing music trip has been a unique experience that was a lifetime dream for me that has come true, and was better than I could have imagined. Visiting the birthplaces of rock'n'roll, blues and jazz – life does not get any better that this!

Moving day

Wednesday 22^nd. February

Moving day. We were on the road by 12noon and joining the thousands leaving town on A10. Traffic moved at a better pace than we expected as we flew over the water on the massive causway across the bayou and continued through Lousiana surrounded by swampland most of the way. Before we left Miles cycled into town to buy presents to find that the quarter was the opposite of yesterday, clean, calm and ordered as if the whole thing had been a dream. 

Crossing Ole Miss' at Baton Rouge

Lottie?

We motored on crossing Ole Miss' at Baton Rouge breaking off the freeway onto highway 71 which took us over the bayou once again staight as a die to the town of Bunkie where we just had to stop and explore. How does a town get that name? The railroad was parallel to the main street with very long frieght train stopping all traffic across the tracks for at least 1/2 an hour. Photo op for me to get some of the rural decay shots that had eluded me through the van window. 

Our lunch stop, a great time inside with three buxom ladies

Seen in Bunkie

So much of the South really is dirt poor with little wooden houses with front porches and a big pick up in the yard, but very few have gardens so they look like they just turned up one ay with the house on a truck and plonked it down on the grass. We diverted from the diversion to get to Chicot State Park, which is a great forest with RV hookups in the middle. It was an idyllic woodland setting with nearby lakes and good old boy and girl who was here for three months, volunteering as a warden and fishing with his aluminium boat. We hunted for wood in the growing gloom with just enough time to get the wood for a big fire built by Scott, to cook our sausages under the stars. Beer was drunk and laughing was heard through the sound of the cicaders/crickets chirping away as the smoke chased us all around.

Mural on an ex Drug store in Bunkie

This is it

Monday 20^th.

The sun is shining in a true blue sky, it's hot now and the radio is playing Dr. John and Bon Ton Roules tunes. We cycled right through the French Quarter along the river to a district called Nola which had old wooden houses to meet with people having a small unofficial parade of there own with everything bean themed. Bean covered costumes and even a bean covered VW car and beaned bar. A small brass band in caps, white shirts and black trousers led the walkers and a shopping trolly sound system rounded off the ones in costume followed by everyone else around a couple of blocks. When it ended we headed back and stopped at a large covered market to browse the many stalls of tourist tat, T shirts and crafts. In the evening we biked a long way to get to Chickie Wah Wah, a bar on Canal street where the British pianist and singer, John Cleary was playing. He was brilliant as usual and we got talking in the break about him coming to Tenby. He was delighted to see some Golden Virginia as it is rare here, so I left it with him when we left. He played guitar and sang some Taj Mahal songs his playing as good on guitar as piano. The guys wanted to go back into the quarter even though it was 1am by now. I wanted bed so we all went back to the RV park where the radio was so good and fitted with our evening by playing piano tunes, for us to dance to in and out of the van. 

Eventually I was called to bed but the guys still had not had enough and went back to the French Quarter, but in the morning they could not remember anything about what happened. I was just grateful that they got back without any robbings or accidents as they were well gone when they left.

Tuesday 21^st. February Fat Tuesday Mardi Gras

Mardi Gras day dawned bright and warm but it took a long time to raise the guys to go out and explore.When we finally did we found that we could not get very far as the parades and crowds had sealed off our area with no way through for the bikes. This is an all black neighborhood and so the crowds were all black and the first parade seemed to be the Zulu, but strange to see all the floats with black people with blackface make up on.

Scott adjusts his costume before we head for the parades

 Many of the participants were dressed as cowboys and on horseback with confident control of the horses despite the noise and excited crowds all around. Later we abandoned the bikes and escaped on foot down to Bourbon Street where there was a constant stream of crazy costumes of extreme imagination parading along seemingly forever. Changing to the next street the scene was the same pirates, spacemen, crawfish, crocodiles, semi naked body painted girls with blue hair, gorillas and charlie Chaplin were all there, and music blasting out everywhere. We made our way down to the river where it was a bit calmer, but everyone was wearing some bizarre hat or mask. 

 There were a lot of gays involved but I loved this pair

Along Canal Street which is a big highway the main parades were still going by, huge floats pulled by trucks and showering the crowds with beads balls and small furry animals. Scott and I called in to the Court of The Two Sisters, a large old place that went back a long way from the street and then opened into an elegant courtyard where a lunch for a group of well heeled and load people was breaking up. A cold beer went down very well as my legs and feet were telling me to sit and rest. Further wandering through happy and totally strange people went on untill we went back to the van for a break. Mardi gras is the time when people can reclaim the streets and cars have to give way to humans. The lords of misrule reign this day, but the christian groups are also out again trying to convert people, a completely ridiculous task. This must be the greatest free party in the world!

Lundi Gras

Sunday 19^th. Lundi Gras

Cornet player in the street corner band

Father and son far to merry

The Frenchman Street corner band

RnR needed today as the energy levels are low following yesterdays partying, so I cycled into the French Quarter and people watched taking photographs and talking to people. Right next to our RV is St. Louis cemetery with all the graves raised up inside monuments because of the inevitable flooding. I got two pictures and the batteries failed on my camera, 110volts is just not enough to charge any of our equipment. 

The cemetery next to us

The Mississippi steamboat

This site was a supermarket before Katrina. Down Canal Street to the river and riverside walk in bright sunshine but a cold wind blowing. The river is fascinating with huge container ships coming and going all the time, with two traditional paddleboats for the tourists, The Natchez and The River Queen. There is also a free ferry to Algiers on the other side called The Sen. Alvin T. Tumpf! I saw a large bird bobbing about on the water which I eventually identified as a pelican which was a surprise.He took off and flew off skimming the surface just above the choppy brown water. At 3 pm I passed 4 large stages with bands pumping so at night this part of town must also be jumping. 

I refused to go on the evening expedition but Miles and Scott took the bikes into the madness that is Bourbon Street at the moment. Scott had got some great pics of the parade of the Krewe of Bachus with this years king, film star Will Farrel. As soon as the sun went down powerful lights project on to the clouds sweeping around the sky and nearby skyscrapers, and the scream of emergency vehicles on the flyover becomes more frequent.

Mardi Gras 1

Saturday 18^th. February Lundi Gras

The biggest RV in the world is here

Our first task today was to get our bikes shipshape and for me this meant changing an inner tube. The weather was cloudy so once this was done we set off to cycle into the French Quarter but only got as far as the gate when the skies opened with a mighty deluge that made biking impossible. One of the staff warned us that there was a tornado watch and the rain continued to empty down in a mighty storm for several hours so we got soaked just going back to the bus, which set our plans back but enabled me to get on and write this. Late afternoon we set off again to Michaels Bike Shop which was closed when we found it. Happily a local antique shop owner called a local Ironmonger who has chains and locks. Scott bought a combination lock but soon found it was too complicated for us to work after a night on the town and so had to get a key operated one instead. 

Once we secured the bikes to an iron post we could get about on foot but the rain hit again big time and we were forced into Spotted Cat Bar which specialises in traditional acoustic music, and then various other bars in Frenchmens Street which were chilled at this time but later packed with revellers and music from impromptu brass units busking on corners, a shopping trolly sound system made to look like a bull, and a percussion player who sat inside his world of things to bang and attracted a crowd of assistants including Miles. Unfortunately while crossing a very broken up road I took a dive into a puddle by the kerb and sustained grazed knuckles which bled profusely and we had to retreat to the toilet of a middle eastern restaurant to mop up the damage. I blame the road and not the beer.

We had no need to go off Frenchmens because all we wanted was there, a different band in every door, Jazz crooner, organ based groove, modern and traditional jazz, funk and reggae. And so the night was spent dancing like fools and meeting friendly people until about 3am when Scott kindly accompanied me home on the bikes. He has taken many pictures which may prove embarassing on Facebook later.