Over the Hill and Far Away……….

As usual we were awake fairly early and tried to get the Weather Channel on the TV but all we could seem to find were episodes of The Muppets in Spanish. Entertaining as these were, they were not  particularly informative in relation to climatic conditions on our route. Nevertheless it was a lovely sunny morning as we left the roach motel with the prospect of the open road awaiting us.

We spent quite a bit of time at the local gas station, washing off the mud from yesterday and trying to find the right oil to put into the bikes. The cashier asked where I was from in a broad Texan drawl and then said that she loved my accent – which never ceases to amaze me over here!  She also commented that Mark appeared to not be having a good day as he got gradually more frustrated trying to read the small print on oil cans trying to work out which one he needed. 

We eventually got on the road some time before 11 and took I-6 for a short distance before joining the 340 and then onto Highway 84 which would take us most of the way to Shreveport. It was a nice route through green countryside and small towns – all of which seemed strangely deserted  for a Saturday afternoon – and more churches of various denominations than you could shake a stick at. Along the way we stopped for fuel in Palestine and also noticed the Carthage wasn’t very far off the route.
 

We had decided that today we would take more time to stop and take pictures and even check out some of the historical marker posts that line the route. We’d always been rather dubious about these and our suspicions were confirmed by the first couple that we investigated. One led to a church and a cemetery and the second just wasn’t there. It seems that most of them commemorate a relative non-event in the mid 19th century, such as when Wilbur J Pickletrouser stopped his covered wagon on that spot in 1859 and founded the city of Pickletrouser (pop. 556). 

At one one point on the trip along the 84 a coyote strolled across the road in front of us. We’ve seen quite a few animals along the way but at least this one wasn’t pressed into the tarmac like most of the others. Perhaps the most exotic of these was an armadillo who’d discovered too late that its armour was no match for an 18 wheel truck. 

When we set out we had estimated that the journey would be a relatively relaxed 225 miles but somehow that had changed to 280 by the time we arrived in Shreveport. We hadn’t got lost or taken any major detours so can only assume the 225 estimate must have been based on going direct by the Interstates rather than taking the back roads. It was a nice ride but, had we known how far it was, I’m not sure we’d have undertaken it today after the 300 miles the day before.

Once we’d arrived at the hotel and cleaned up we took a taxi into downtown Shreveport, which boasted several huge casinos (which we avoided) and some very agreeable bars and restaurants. We started with a local beer or two and then moved onto the food. Mark had steak and I had some assorted seafood in batter accompanied by jambalaya, which was excellent. It was quite a contrast to our meal in Marlin the previous night.

Dining out in Marlin

Today we are going to try and tick off another state, so we are heading for Mississippi.

I was awoken at 6am by the sound of Mark’s ever-more-desperately-repeated attempts to flush something in the bathroom. He likes to slip in there first thing to perform his ablutions and polish his helmet in preparation for the day. Today it sounded like something had gone horribly wrong but I felt it best not to enquire too closely.

We were both feeling the effects of our over-indulgence the night before and were vacillating about whether to stay an extra day in Galveston. It was very tempting, especially as the sun rose over the Gulf of Mexico  and the smell of sea air wafted in. Had we not had the unavoidable layover in Lake Charles we probably would have stayed but we are due to get the bikes back to NO by Monday evening so we decided to travel on. We wanted to avoid another day on the I-10 so Mark plotted a circuitous route by the back roads, which promised to be more pleasant if somewhat longer. We knew we had about 300 miles to cover so we had a long day ahead of us. 

Our journey started about 10am with a ride along the sea front to the Bolivar Peninsular Ferry. This is a free ferry (or rather several ferries, each seemingly named after local worthies – ours was the “Ray Stoker Jnr”) which takes about 15 minutes to cross from the island to Bolivar Peninsula on the mainland and also throws in a glimpse of the occasional pelican at no extra cost!

Once back on dry land we followed Highway 87 up the narrow Bolivar Peninsular with the sea on our right-hand side. The houses there were all built on tall stilts, which seems to suggest that the land must flood fairly regularly. We also caught the occasional petrochemical smell from the oil refineries and small wells with “nodding donkey” pumps were everywhere. Apart from that there wasn’t a great deal to see and we just followed the two-lane Highway 124 to a place called Winnie. Once there we couldn’t find the road that we needed to connect to and, having been misdirected by a couple of “helpful” locals we found ourselves on a small road that was running parallel to the I-10. Fortunately we spotted a vehicle inspection point, where they check out trucks travelling on the I-10, and pulled in there, and asked directions from the staff. A very kind State Trooper who had just finished her shift at the inspection point told us she was heading back the way we needed to go and offered to lead us back to the road we needed to be on. So we followed her for several miles at breakneck speed down some tiny country roads until we got to the junction we’d been looking for, which enables us to say that for at least some of our travels in Texas we had a police escort! The picture was taken just after we’d waved goodbye and pulled in to top up our tanks. 

We eventually reached Highway 287 which was a 2 lane road running through green fields and woods with a mixture of small houses, farms and RV parks lining it. We were on that for about 100 miles and apart from one stretch that was being re-surfaced and left us and the bikes covered in mud, it was a pleasure to ride. We also saw Blue Bonnets growing by the side of the road and burst into a chorus of Nancy Griffiths’ “Gulf Coast Highway”! 

The 287 took us onto I-7 and thence to Marlin which is a little place about 20 miles south of Waco. The entire journey was just over 300 miles, which is quite a distance in a day on a bike but fortunately the Triumphs run well and are reasonably comfortable so it was fine. We arrived about 6pm and the motel that we are staying at is fairly basic, like many we’ve stayed in on previous trips, but perfectly functional for what we need. We have however found that Marlin boasts precisely no bars and if there are any restaurants, we haven’t found them. It does however have a Walmart and a MacDonalds so, in contrast to yesterday’s extravagance, we have today dined on Big Macs washed down with cans of Busch beer (“clear and bright as mountain air”). 

Tomorrow we plan to cross back into Louisiana and spend the night in Shreveport. 

I began writing this as we sat around a fire pit outside the hotel looking out over the Gulf of Mexico. In contrast to yesterday, today has been one of those days that make it clear why, despise the the awful smells, farmyard noises and natural disasters that tend to accompany us, these trips are so amazing. 

First of all I want to thank everyone who has commented on the blog. Because of the necessity to eat, drink and get horribly drunk every stopover it isn’t really possible to reply to every comment, so in fairness I’ve decided not to reply to any. But your comments are really appreciated if only to confirm that someone is actually reading this stuff. 

We woke to dark clouds at about 6.30 but as the morning went on the sky cleared and the sun appeared. When we set off about 9.45 it was reasonably sunny and dry.  We took the I-10 southbound and crossed from Louisiana to Texas. I’d somehow expected some sudden transition between the two but of course they’re wasn’t and we found ourselves riding through the Texas bayous. 

At about 100 miles out we stopped at what described itself as a “safety” rest area. I assume this referred to safety from tiredness, as its leafy environs appeared to harbour just about every venomous animal and plant one would hope not to meet.

We were also accosted by a passing lady, who assumed we were Canadians because we were riding “thin bikes like the Canadians have”. She then proceeded to lecture us on all the must-see sights within a 3000 mile radius of where we stood. Having asssured her that if we did reach Alaska on this trip we would most assuredly give the Trans-Alaska Highway our attention, we got back on the road. We followed the I-10 until we turned off onto TX -146 just before Houston. The trip wasn’t particularly eventful apart from a small detour around a car crash on a junction. Fortunately no-one seemed to have been badly hurt although I imagine some cold-eyed lawyer somewhere is smiling a bit more broadly today. 

Our route to Galveston took us along the coast but rather than pretty little fishing villages and awe-inspiring views of the Gulf of Mexico as we had fondly imagined, we found ourselves riding through oil refineries almost the whole way. Galveston, which is on an island, however made up for all that. It was warm and sunny when we arrived and the hotel looks out over the Gulf. Having unloaded the bikes we took a stroll along Seawall Boulevard looking for food and drink. The road follows the sea wall was built following a devastating tornado early last century which killed several thousand people and destroyed most of the town. We decided to turn away from the sea and walked towards what the signs described as “Historic Downtown” in the hope that, leaving “Historic” aside the “Downtown” bit might provide bars and restaurants. That was beginning to look like a forlorn hope until we were hailed by a jolly middle-aged couple in a golf buggy who asked us if we were OK. After a brief conversation we found ourselves bundled onto the back of the buggy and carried off to the Bryan Museum which we had walked past earlier. It seems that the museum has a regular event every Thursday at 4pm featuring food, drink and live music. We got there at 3.45 and a volunteer very kindly gave us a fascinating, 15 minute, whistlestop  tour of  the magnificent building which was formerly an orphanage and now houses a museum of Texan history. However too much history can give a chap a terrible thirst and what was on offer at the museum didn’t look too impressive so we abandoned our new-found friends and walked further downtown where we found bars in abundance, although most of them were closed! Fortunately we found one that was open and quaffed several pints of the local brew before walking across the the restaurant over the road where we ate a very agreeable meal (although later discovering to our horror that we had just spent $45 on a bottle of wine!). 

Part way through the meal we suddenly realised that our golf buggy aquaintances had also come in and were sitting at the bar. Fortunately there were no hard feelings about us sneaking off from the museum and we spent a happy few minutes chatting to them before catching a taxi back to the hotel.

It will be a wrench to leave Galveston and head inland, particularly with the prospect of a 290 mile ride ahead of us. The booking for the next stop was made while Mark was, how can I put it, rather well lubricated and when I asked him what it is called, it is either “Fuctifino” or possibly “Marlin”. No doubt we’ll find out later!

Today was something of a contrast to the sunshine of yesterday. So there we were all morning, taking it in turns to pace up and down the hotel room muttering, “We’re not supposed to still be here”! The road outside the hotel was alternately a river, a road and then a river again. Every time the rain seemed to be slackening off there’d be another massive clap of thunder and down it would come again. The tv weather channel (between adverts featuring wildly grinning oldsters expressing their joy at the cheapness of their life assurance or the efficacy of their new medication) upped the projected size of the expected hailstones from golf balls to tennis balls. If it got to bowling balls I was planning to head for the basement. We were also getting flash flood and tornado warnings at regular intervals on the TV. By some strange alchemy I was also getting the warnings flash up on my phone screen unbidden, presumably sent automatically by the phone company to anyone in this area. It was obvious that we weren’t going to get anywhere on the bikes today. 

Apart from the sheer mind-numbing boredom of being cooped up in a hotel with nothing to do, there was an alarming lack of food and drink available. While I’m reasonably confident I could get through 24 hours without food, I’m determined not to go that long without a beer or two. There were apparently no bars within walking distance, even if we had been willing to walk through torrential rain and even taxis seemed to be struggling to get through because some of the roads had closed. This is a worry for tomorrow as, although the storm should have moved on by then, we don’t know what damage has been left behind and whether the roads will be open. Another day of this and we’ll probably be reduced to cannibalism. I’ve already caught Mark watching me and licking his lips when he thinks I’m not looking.

Eventually a taxi did manage to get through to us to take us downtown. However we got about 500 metres from the hotel and realised that there was no way we could get any further. We had only just managed to get under a bridge where the floodwater was about a metre deep and it was looking worse up ahead. The taxi driver dropped us at an Exxon station by a small convenience store adjoining an even smaller Jamaican takeaway food shop. So at least food and drink were taken care of, although the realisation that getting back may be an issue began to hit home given that there were cars submerged up to their roofs just the other side of the gas station

After we’d stocked up on beer, wine and unhealthy snacks from the convenience store we ate some very agreeable jerk chicken at the takeaway (who very kindly allowed us to eat in and drink our own beer) and took stock of our predicament. The rain was still coming down and the situation had moved beyond mere inconvenience to what might be termed natural disaster territory. Big pickup trucks and school buses were getting through the floodwaters without too much trouble but cars were struggling, with a few breaking down by the side of the road and others seeking refuge in the gas station – all of which led us to question how we were going to get back. The hotel was only a short walk up the road but between us and it flowed what appeared to be several million gallons of floodwater. At that point the rain had stopped and the waters were subsiding somewhat and we debated whether to wait to see if the route back became passable on foot or whether to just wade through it there and then. As there was further rain predicted, it was a trade-off between getting wet feet or taking the risk of wet-everything if the rain started again. Ever the pessimist, I decided to head back – taking my shoes off and paddling through the muddy water. Once I’d got back to the hotel, prised off the leeches and washed the raw sewage off my feet, I was feeling fairly smug, only to see Mark arrive half an hour later relatively dry-shod and unrained-on!

So that’s been our day really. Not quite what we’d planned when we arrived here yesterday. It’s just started raining heavily again (8.30pm). Fortunately, so long as it’s dry and sunny as predicted for tomorrow, it shouldn’t have messed up the schedule too much although we’ve had to make some adjustments. We’re now planning to make it to Galveston in Texas and stay over there tomorrow night by the sea. 

After checking out of the hotel we got a taxi to Eagle Rider where the bikes were waiting for us. Much to our relief they were both Triumphs, the owner having managed, as he put it, to “finagle” the second one by retrieving an ex-rental from the for-sale collection. This is the one that Mark has taken and, apart from his conviction that the clutch and brakes are not working properly, it seems to be running very well. The Rental Agent who handed the bikes over to us somewhat surprisingly confessed to a fondness for British sitcoms, particularly “Keeping up Appearances”, which he appeared to find particularly side-splitting.  This was a slightly unsettling admission from someone whose judgement we were relying on for the safety checks on the bikes.

Once we’d familiarised ourselves with the bikes and transferred the necessities for the next few days to the panniers, we set out for Interstate 10 which would take us to Lake Charles. The 10 is a six-lane road which crossses the bayous and for about 50 miles of its length is actually raised up on concrete pillars over the water. In truth it was fairly monotonous but we were able to keep up a good speed all the way. The only problem we encountered was a traffic jam in Baton Rouge where a hot, stationary bike in 30 degree outside temperatures is not the most comfortable place to be. The monotony was enlivened by numerous billboards along the way featuring pictures of smiling but cold-eyed lawyers advertising their services. One in particular popped up about every five miles to enquire, “Car Wreck?” and then, “Injured?”. One could almost sense his disappointment that we were able to respond in the negative to both those enquiries. 

About half way along we stopped at a gas station to top up the tanks. The gas station had a sign on the door  warning that admission would be refused to anyone in “Sagging Pants!”. Fortunately our pants were about the only things that weren’t sagging at that point so we were able to use their facilities. 

We had set off at about 11am and covered the 200 miles to Lake Charles in about 4 hours, arriving just after 3pm. The hotel (a Holiday Inn) boasted a lobby a rather nice curving staircase and a massive chandelier. A further somewhat unusual feature was what at first sight appeared to be a Christmas tree! On querying this we were informed that it was in fact a Memorial Day tree, placed there in preparation for Memorial Day which falls on May 29.

Lake Charles is a largish town of about 70,000 people laid out in a sprawling grid pattern that we’ve encountered in other parts of the USA. We got a taxi to take us to the central district but allowed ourselves to be persuaded by the driver’s recommendation of a “popular seafood restaurant” (voted #1 by USA Today readers apparently!) called Steamboat Bill’s. This was out in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere by the side of the Interstate. It operated the rather unusual system of making people queue at the door until you knew what you were ordering at which point you could then move to a cashier who took the order, served the (canned or bottled) drink you ordered and sent you off to choose a table to wait for your food. All the food came coated in so much batter that the high spot of the meal turned out to be playing “guess the species”. The alligator, if it actually was alligator under the batter, tasted like a rather pleasing blend of chicken and fish. I’m not an alligator aficionado and have no previous experience to compare it with but, if this was indeed my first taste of a reptile, it got my seal of approval. Elsewhere on the plate, also lurking under the batter was what appeared to be a crab shell filled with sage and onion stuffing accompanied by shrimp, oysters and catfish. 

We had planned to be setting off for Corpus Christi in Texas today but we are currently in the midst of massive thunder storms and a tornado warning, so we have been forced to stay put.

 I am writing this with the thunder rolling outside and the lights in the room flickering on and off! The next edition of the blog is therefore likely to come to you from a bar in downtown Lake Charles!

This episode comes rather later than planned as the safe in our room malfunctioned last night trapping my ipad within! I began this at 7.40 am on Tuesday (in truth the days are rather blending into each other at present but my watch and calendar assure me that’s correct). 

It was a hot and sultry day in NO yesterday. After a rather indifferent breakfast of tea or coffee and “breakfast smoothie” (“Slush Puppy with seeds in” to our British readers) we set out to explore. In view of the weather we both purchased hats. Mark adopted the “French Boulevardier” look while I took my usual course of opting for the more conventional “Bemused Old Chap/Hobo” style.

Having payed homage to the Mississippi and seen a few river boats our still somewhat confused body clocks decided that it was time for lunch. The town was very quiet today and we had no trouble finding somewhere to eat out on the pavement. In fact the only people about were us and a couple being married in a sort of bandstand  a bit further down! I’m sure there’s a fascinating story behind that but alas we’ll never know what it was. 

We lunched on fried oyster poboys (aka baguettes) which were delicious. Moving on, we decided that more oysters were called for and each devoured 12 raw ones sitting at the bar of Mr Ed’s Oyster House, one of the many oyster bars that seem to lurk down the side streets of the French Quarter. Feeling a bit oystered-out after that we returned to the hotel to re-equip and regroup.  Mark then headed off to Union Station to fulfill a long-held dream of seeing the City of New Orleans train come in from Chicago (apparently there’s a song about it!). However it turned out that, due to a fire in a depot somewhere, the said train is stuck in Tennessee. It was just like waiting for a connection at New Street Station but on a grander scale!

The evening proceeded along similar lines other than that the seafood was catfish and shrimp, accompanied, rather curiously,  by fried sprouts, rather than oysters. We ate at an open-fronted restaurant in a side street which afforded us a grandstand view of two security guards, six cops and a paramedic involved in the arrest of a shoplifter in the store across the street. There seems to be a distinctly different ambience in the side streets off the main thoroughfares and when we left the restaurant we found ourselves regularly sidestepping puking drunks and other insalubrious-looking characters as we navigated back to the hotel. 

It’s now 8.30am and we are due to pick up our bikes at 10am at the Eagle Rider depot which is just a couple of miles away. After that all we have to do is to navigate ourselves onto Interstate 10 which we follow most of the way to our next stop. We are heading for Lake Charles today, which is about 200 miles west of here just before the Texas border. Apparently it’s a small town with a lake. Whether it has anything else to offer is something we’ll find out later. The plan after that is to get to Corpus Christi in Texas on Wednesday but as there’s currently a predicted 80% chance of thunderstorms that day we might have to rethink that plan. 

The day began at 6.30 am yesterday in Manchester, with the usual farmyard noises emanating from the bathroom as Mark performed his morning ablutions. After a decent interval we took the shuttle to the airport and went through the joys of checking in.  It seems to be my turn this year to attract the attention of the authorities and got to watch as my backpack was swabbed for drugs, explosives or, for all I know, illicit meat products. The flight was only about half full but still managed to be late taking off.

We were then able to settle down to a choice of the finest cuisine that American Airlines could offer, the effects of which were mitigated to a great extent by the copious quantities of complimentary red wine on offer. We received some helpful travel advice from the stewardess which boiled down to – you meet a nicer class of drunks on Frenchman St. in New Orleans and Atlanta Georgia should be avoided at all costs (despite it being her home town).

The first leg of the flight passed reasonably uneventfully and after seven and a half hours of the joys of hurtling through the air in a metal cylinder we arrived in Philadelphia with a wait of four hours before our onward connection to NO. This was mitigated by our delight in finding that the President had turned up in person to greet us. 

Apparently he tries to personally meet as many incoming flights as possible to ensure that there are no Mexicans on them. Fortunately he gave us the thumbs up!

With 4 hours to kill, unusually for us we decided to pass the time partaking of some food and drink. We found a branch of Legal Seafoods which offered a very agreeable Portuguese seafood stew – although the principal ingredient was listed a “scrod”, something that alarmingly comes next to “scrotum” on the Google search list but actually turned out to be a generic term for white fish fillets! At the end of the meal we were pleased to see that the drinks component of the bill exceeded the food by a comfortable 50% (anyone spot a developing theme here yet?). 

Our onward flight was delayed by about an hour but, possibly as a consequence of the pre-flight imbibing, I slept through most of it, waking just in time to see us fly through a spectacular thunderstorm with lightning and rollercoaster style turbulence! That however paled into insignificance compared to the taxi ride from the airport, with our driver changing lanes apparently at random while scribbling on a notepad he had placed on the steering wheel. Somewhat to our surprise we eventually arrived safely at the hotel. The sights on the drive reminded me of one of the things I find most fascinating about America – it manages  to look both very familiar yet at times utterly alien. 

We were so tired by the time we got to the hotel we just checked in and slumped into bed. When I opened my suitcase I found a nice note from the Transportation Security Agency telling me that my bag had been searched and repacked somewhere in transit. They actually did a better job of packing it than I’d done originally so I suppose I can’t complain. 

Here we go again…..

OK, so technically we’ve only got as far as Manchester airport. It took a while to get parked here as Mark, as a BMW owner, struggled to grasp that he should park between the white lines rather than straddle them. 

Following the prolonged manoeuvrings in the car park we checked into the airport hotel. The receptionist was charming but shared rather more gynaecological insights than might ideally have been required to facilitate the process. We then proceeded  to eat and drink far too much while reminiscing about the past, a process that we are likely to repeat on a daily basis over the course of the trip. Since then we’ve been “drinking our asses off” in the spirit of the next 2 weeks.

Assuming that we can remember who we are and where we are going, we should be Philadelphia bound at 11am tomorrow. We have a stopover  in Philly but as Google informs us that we have a 43% chance of being either shot or raped, or both, during our time there we might just stop in the airport and spend the time browsing the fragrances on sale in the duty free shop.

If you can summon up the will to follow this, we look forward to boring you rigid with the tales of our travels over the next couple of weeks or so…………