Day 5 - New Orleans, LA to Spring, TX

Day 5 - September 30, 2008
414 miles



(Click to enlarge)





Hit the road about 8:00 a.m. The only goals for today were try the gumbo at Robin's in Henderson, La, get back safely, and get back by 6:00 p.m. because Bobby J had to return his rental Harley.

I love it when a plan succeeds.




The ol' Mississippi from the I-310 bridge near Luling, La.










Knowing how we eschew interstate whenever possible we routed north from Luling after crossing the river through Donaldsonville, White Castle, and Plaquemine on the west bank of the Mississippi. Good road, lightly traveled. As in most of the state, there was still considerable hurricane damage with crews cutting downed trees and limbs everywhere.


Joined I-10 on the west bank of the big bridge crossing the Mississippi at Baton Rouge. I love the Atchafalaya swamp/river/area.




Pilot channel through the Atchafalaya swamp.











I've never calculated the lengh of the series of bridges over this area, but it's considerable. I don't even want to think how many cottonmouths were encountered building these things.



Lake Bigeux














Prior to leaving on this trip I'd written a request for information on things to see and do, and, especially, where to eat in the area. Many were suggested, and several followed through on. But the absolute best was Robin's in Henderson, La. A fellow by the name of Tom White wrote me an email stating they have the best gumbo in the state. I'm inclined to agree after sampling. Bobby J reported the crawfish etouffee was wonderful as well.
Absolutely worth the trip. Take the Henderson exit off I-10, turn south and take the first left onto Henderson Hwy, Hwy352. Robin's is 2-3 miles down on the left. You can't miss it. And shouldn't.


















Left Henderson and took I-10 to Beaumont. Took Hwy105 out of Beaumont to get off the slab. This is a nice little ride I've taken many times through Sour Lake (the site of the first Texaco strike), to Cleveland, taking US59 south to US242 to the Woodlands. Bobby J exited south down I-45 to return the bike while I kept on trucking home to get my car to pick him up.

Okay. Let's have a review of the Louisiana helmet law. I am now convinced that deep down in the actual wording of the law is a sentence which states something along the line of, "This statute shall not be interpreted as covering any but a single individual who wears a helmet practically 100% of the time, and is visiting the state accompanied by a biker called Blonde Dog (Bobby J's "Harley Name"...I know absolutely nothing about his secret handshake and decoder ring), riding a "riceburner" with loud pipes."

It's true! Has to be. Having revisited the events of Day 1 regarding the missing helmet(s), the one yelled at by all the cops in that series of events was me. Never, not once, did any yell at Bob. I have to now report that this phenomenon continued for the entire trip. After retrieving my helmet from the hotel the first day, I wore it, as usual, for the rest of the trip. Bob, on the other hand, continued to wear the dinky little leather cap with Harley Davidson in letters bigger than the brim. We were passed by dozens of police officers. Several pulled up behind and beside us as we rode. In one case, an officer was parked in his cruiser on the side of the road at a red light. I went through the light, but Bob was caught by it and had to stop, adjacent to the damned cop car. NOTHING!! Nothing!

You may think that I was wanting Bob to get caught, but that isn't the case at all. I wish he'd wear a helmet, but I'm certainly not going to wish fines and law problems on him. As the time went on, like a sports fan whose team is undefeated as the season goes on, I kept rooting for Bob to make it through without being stopped. When we crossed the Texas line over the Sabine river I raised my arm high with the clenched fist of victory. Bobby DID IT!!

But still, why me?

Only semi-bad thing to happen is Betsy the Kaw's exhaust manifold started leaking. I think it's the after-market Vance & Hines pipes I put on her. I had a problem with them in North Caroline last year and had to have a bead welded where the pipe turns out of the back cylinder. This sounds like the front cylinder. I'll have to check it out this weekend. Who knows, perhaps this is fate telling me I need to look at the new 2009 Kawasaki Voyager.

Mine would probably be black.












In any event, great ride, great weather, great folks, great food, great music, and semi-blind cops. Can one ask for more? We loved the New Iberia and southwestern Louisiana areas. Any people who can invent seafood gumbo, biegnets, and Tabasco sauce just have to be special. And they are.

Day 4 - New Orleans

Day 4 - September 29, 2008

Got up at 4:00 a.m. for some preventive medicine. That's a couple of aspirin and a lot of water. Best hangover preventative there is: hydration and opening up those blood vessels. Worked fine. Woke up at 8:00 a.m. feeling fine. Updated the blog then joined Bobby J. for a ride into Cafe Du Monde for the biegnet test.

Man, that Mr. Garmin is one smart fella. He knows me better than I know myself. Like a mother, girlfriend, or wife, he knows what I need even when I'm unsure myself. Example: take this morning's ride to Cafe Du Monde. The blue track on the map below represents the shortest route from our hotel to the Cafe. It's the one I'd have preferred, but, no, Mr. Garmin knew we wanted it more interesting. And it was.

I programmed the GPS to go to the Cafe du Monde via the fastest route. The route in red is where Mr. Garmin took us. Back across the Mississippi river, through the famous Algiers section of New Orleans so we could take the ferry across the river to get to Jackson Square. All in all, a very interesting and nice trip. Would've been much better on a full stomach and appropriately caffeinated. But, what do I know?




(Click to enlarge photos)













On the ferry.
















View across the river to New Orleans. Worth the delay in the route.













The famous Cafe du Monde










Bobby and the biegnets.




Jury's out on the best biegnets. We've decided larger sample sizes, and more candidates are in order. Don't get me wrong, these are absolutely wonderful, and the best yet. But, it's not the kind of testing one wants to end, is it? Besides, we desire to prove Mr. Burke right.










Couldn't find Jax beer last night to go with the shot of bourbon and the bloody brewery is about six blocks away. Go figure.

Just off Jackson Square.










The fat kid at Jackson's Square
(Bet they didn't call it that when Jackson was here.)














St. Louis Cathedral - Jackson Square















Ceiling of St. Louis Cathedral


















The Sanctuary














Beautiful look down toward the quarter from Jackson Square.










After Jackson's Square we decided we wanted to see the WWII museum. After several false starts and GPS readings we finally found it.






Actually, what we found was the sign that said it was closed today.














B.A.S. (Big Assed Statue) just across the street from the WWII museum.

We checked it out. It's Robert E. Lee.
Certainly hope the guy's not afraid of heights.

Question: Does it make sense to place a statue so high no one can see what it looks like?




Left central New Orleans for the Chalmette Battlefield N.P. For the uninitiated, this is the site of the Battle of New Orleans.


The picture helps show why the fight was here.







To the right, the Mississippi river.











To the left, all swamp. No one is getting through here.













So, as seems to be the case at all battlefields, you have to come through the guns.

The British didn't make it.






Ironically, the war was over whenever the battle was fought. Ben Franklin and John Adams had signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24th, 1814. The battle was fought January 8, 1815.





Went back to the hotel about 2:30 p.m. for the afternoon siesta. Man, those Italians and Spanish are really onto something there.

Fully recharged we headed back to Bourbon Street.







You gotta love a city with places like this.







We went back to the SingSing bar of last evening. It was the best music we heard while walking up and down the street, and it was great again. The second band of last night wasn't playing tonight, but the front band with the great bass player, great young guitar-lead male vocalist, and Miss Pleashette were back, and that was fine for us.



Then the highlight of the evening. Bobby J asked for a certain Muddy Waters song, and the guy didn't know it. We were talking about music earlier, so he knew Bob could play so he asked him if he would do it. Bobby J, always up for anything said, "Sure," and got up and did it. Good job, too.
Tina told me the guy had never let anyone play his guitar before. It was a treat!
How many people you know can say they've "played Bourbon Street?"





What if this is it?

Day 3 - New Iberia to New Orleans

Day 3 - September 28, 2008


Got up to another great fall day here in Louisiana. Lazed around getting ready and pulled out about 9:00 a.m. Took Hwy 182, the old two-lane highway that connects all the towns along Bayou Teche. Great, easy ride, averaging about 50 mph, laid back looking at the great old homes. Went through some neat old towns, Jeanerette, Sorrel, Baldwin, Franklin, Centerville.
Pretty ride.



Old home on Hwy 182













Coming up on the Atchafalaya river coming into Morgan City.












The Atchafalaya (I just love that word for some reason)











This old place looks disheveled because of hurricane damage. There's still a lot of it in this area. They got hit full on by Gustav and brushed hard by Ike.




A beautiful, sad sight. Abear's Cafe in Houma. Closed on Sunday.
Absolutely the best cajun food in Louisiana as far as I'm concerned. (So far.)




Pulled into New Orleans about 3:00 p.m. We're staying on I-10 north of the city. I routed us around the southern end because, well, because I'd never taken that route. We stayed south of the river until catching the Westbank Expressway and crossing over to the city side. This put us right by the Super Dome and near the Riverwalk area. We merged onto I-10 and headed to the hotel, checked in, took another of those great ride showers and headed into town about 6:00 p.m.


Great old granite building on Camp street just off Canal.



















Seemingly a few minutes later, it's dark and Bourbon Street.












Stopped into the SingSing Bar. Appropriately named. Great little three piece group playing Blues and R&B. Joined a little later by a wonderful singer named Pleashette. Man, could she do Aretha Franklin!!! Great voice on her own.

Bass player was a native American called Kujo, and one of, if not, the best, electric bass player I've ever heard.



Tina provided libation and, man, could this girl dance behind that bar. Wonderful, smiling personality. And it worked for her, too. She was a nice lady and a treat.






At these prices one would think a shot of Jack would go in a glass. But, no.











We went to eat at 'The Embers' on Bourbon Street. Food was surprisingly good. Picking up on our biegnet challenge, we've decided to test gumbos, too. The gumbo here was excellent.

Went back to the SingSing to find our little combo replaced by another band. This one featured a guitar player ala Stevie Ray. No joke, he was as close as I've ever heard to Stevie Ray's style and sound. This guy obviously made a hell of a deal at the crossroad. Worth it. Bobby J pointed out he screwed up the negotiations. He only got three chords.


Proving an old theory of mine, New Orleans is just like Disney World and Tijuana: It's got everything you don't need.

















One of the sights that always amazes me. A couple with their two young girls (walking behind the post) on a tour of Bourbon Street where every third door has a shill trying to talk you into a bar or a strip join.

One guy cracked us up. As Bobby and I walked by he tried to get us to go into this strip joint with a sign saying, "Topless and Bottomless." (I figured it out: they were wearing belts.) Anyway, I said, "Man, I'm too old for that stuff. I might have a heart attack or something." He says, "Man, you got a credit card, them bitches'll keep you alive all night!"
What, exactly, does one say to that? We just waved and kept walking.



Maybe the horse was interested.












Tomorrow: The great biegnet test continued on Jackson Square.

Day 2 - New Iberia, La

Day 2 - September 28, 2008

Story is if one is going to the zydeco breakfast in Breaux Bridge you need to get there as early as possible. Word has it that the lines get pretty long to eat breakfast to Cajun music. So, I set the alarm for 6:20 a.m., shut my book, and turned off the lights about 11:00 p.m., anticipating a great breakfast in the morning. The alarm goes off, and I jump out of bed eagerly looking forward to a pretty, early morning ride. After, as they used to say down here in the deep south, my "morning toilet," I see by the ol' bedside clock it's still a few minutes before the appointed meeting time of 7:00 a.m. so I turn on the TV to catch the weather. Imagine my surprise when the reporter gives the time at 5:55 a.m. You gotta be one dirty bird to set the clock ahead an hour on a motel clock. Not funny. Not funny by a long shot.

After a couple of cups of motel coffee and a chapter or so in my book, I met Bobby J. downstairs for the ride to Breaux Bridge. I didn't wear my riding coat and it was nippy in the air, with morning mists over the fields and canals. An absolutely beautiful ride. Of course, as I usually do, the camera is in the tank bag and I'm too busy enjoying the ride to take pictures for this blog. My bad. But a good ride.



Downtown Breaux Bridge, La.

(Click on any picture to enlarge.)









We found the Cafe Des Amis in Breaux Bridge and snuck in about 8:15 a.m., just as the band was setting up. Good breakfast and good music. Can't beat that. I'll tell you one thing. If your foot doesn't tap to zydeco music, you're a damn commissar. No doubt about it.


Bobby J and the "door lady." Her job is to collect the $4/person cover charge which is applied toward your breakfast. No problem. The day I can't eat $4 dollars worth of something you can put me in a hole. I'm done.





The band, all tuned up and ready to play. They took awhile getting ready, but, just as I heard Roger McGuinn of the Byrds say back in the 60s, "We tune because we care."









And the folks danced for their breakfast.









Beignets in Louisiana, in the morning. Not bad. Think of fried dough with powdered sugar on it. Sort of like doughnut holes, I guess, but less "puffy." We ordered these because, according to James Lee Burke, the best beignets are at the Cafe Du Monde on Jackson Square in New Orleans. How we gonna verify that if we haven't sampled others? And, it's all about sample size, you know. I've applied this requirement to beer, scotch, various liquors, and now fried bread. Works. Works well.





They bury 'em above ground here. They say because of the water table. I'm not sure.If some of Burke's characters are buried here, the devil maybe pushing 'em back up.






Lots of Catholic influence, churches, and burial grounds around there. I suspect lots of Catholics, too. See, those statistics classes weren't wasted on this ol' boy.





Did see a Methodist church somewhere while riding this morning. Should have taken a picture of that. Certainly more rare.

After breakfast we rode over to Lafayette. That's pronounced La-Fi-eeeeeette, with the short "e" as in "I et breakfast." This was so Bobby J could get the obligatory Harley dealer T-shirt. By the way, one of us wasn't wearing a helmet. Can anyone guess who that was? Of course, no cops, no shouts of "Put it on." (You know, on reflection I've heard that somewhere before...never mind, different subject.) Anyway, not one damn cop said a word and we must've passed a brigade of 'em. Bobby's wearing this flat little leather, Harley French lid-type cap. I have the GPS so I'm leading most of the time. I guess they see me in my big ugly bucket and just assume he has one on. That or, hmmm, perhaps my paranoia isn't misplaced.

After contributing to the Harley-dealers retirement fund we rode back to New Iberia and visited the Tabasco plant on Avery Island.

This is where they make it. Not an inconsequential capability. They make 700,000 2-ounce bottles per day and sell in more than 123 countries. I'm impressed. Figure it out. If it's an 8 hour shift, that's 24 bottles per second. The magic may well not be the recipe, but how they move the bottles that fast.

Equally impressive is it's all stayed in the family and, I think, without too many money fights over the generations. Of course, what happens here stays here too.






Bobby J. coming out of the Tabasco Shameless Commerce building with his usual supply of "gotta haves."









This entire area is filled with some of the most beautiful old oak trees I've ever seen.


This was a "youngster" outside the Tobasco store.









The road going out of Avery Island.














Came back into New Iberia and took a little ride through the town.







Lots and lots of these old homes.









Some more hidden than others.

Beautiful homes, usually with nasty secrets. Secrets like small, dinky rooms, with window air conditioners, hot in the summer and cold in the winter.


But...still beautiful. Many have horrible signs in front telling us things we don't want, or need, to know.


I believe I mentioned the oak trees. There was one smaller than this outside the restaurant last night which was documented to be around in 1636. God only knows all this guy's seen...and for how long.



Strange place this New Iberia. Can't help but wonder what the old one was like. We came back from the Tabasco plant and decided we'd like a little cool libation, so we went looking for a sports bar so I could have a Rocky Cola and Bob his usual Diet Coke. Couldn't find one! We rode up and down the main drag. The "biker" bar we'd noticed last night between the police calls for helmets, was closed. The sports bar I'd noticed early last evening was closed. Man, it was Saturday afternoon about 3:00 p.m. You can't spit without hitting a screen with a football game on it, and the sports bars of New Iberia are closed? What in the world is going on here? And it's full of roughnecks and platform workers. Something ain't right here...it ain't fittin', it just ain't fittin'.

Finally giving up on twelve screens, Bobby and I decided on the Chilli's. Can you possibly get more commercial than that? Showing four screens, two football, one NASCAR, and one baseball game. Gives one time to pause to contemplate which is more boring, going around in circles, or gonad scratchin'. My vote's hung on this one.

Had a couple of Rocky Colas and a decent hamburger and did what all old guys do after such a meal: went back to the hotel for a nap. Fortunately, the Chilli's was adjacent to the hotel so one doesn't have fully don the armor to ride across a parking lot.







I'm pretty sure Bobby didn't wear his helmet at all.














Having fully recharged batteries, we decided to check out a local establishment. Evidently, Gustav or Ike caused a little damage. I thought we were going in to hear a program from humorist, Art Buchwald, but couldn't have been more wrong.




That's the better side of me here, putting away my HELMET, and donning the nice $18 red, with torn visor Tabasco hat purchased earlier in the day. That's when you recognize the marketeers have taken over the world; when you pay $18 for a hat that's intentionally made to look old and worn. What the hell, they've been doing it to blue jeans for a generation or longer.





Anyway, it wasn't a Texas bar. How do you tell if you're in a Texas bar? Easy, they frisk you at the door; if you don't have a gun, they give you one.

A few lemonades later we made it back to the motel. I think Bobby actually wore a helmet back. Of course, we had to pass the gauntlet of cops just up the street.


Tomorrow: Hopefully, Herbert's (that's "A-Bears) in Houma, then New Orleans.