When we began our
trip, I feared pain, weakness and walking difficulties would send me home
quickly, long before we reached Louisiana.
As we’re halfway through our trip today, perhaps it’s time for some
reflection. How do I feel? Spending most of my time in the Honda’s
passenger seat instead of a wheelchair has eliminated back pain. By taking it
very easy, I’ve become strangely stronger, if just a wee bit. I rely heavily upon Tinky, my walker, both
physically and emotionally. Tinky
encourages me. “We can do it,” he says.
“We are strong.” Bathroom issues keep cripples at home. With Tinky’s
help, we triumphantly walk from the bed to the bathroom as needed. Life is good.
Last
fall, through the trip planning process, we uncovered a lodging conundrum. In the States we can rent either a room with
a kitchen or a place potentially handicap accessible. The two seem as different and mutually
exclusive as oil and water.
Generally, we’ve
chosen kitchens over handicap accessibility. Bear and Bloodroot have unearthed
previously unknown culinary skills, much to our collective delight. They now
excel at cooking under travel duress, be it strange kitchens or outdoor picnic
tables. We search for the finest,
freshest yet simplest-to-prepare foods. We’ve taken to shopping at Whole Foods,
going so far as to plot out when our locations will intersect. Despite the exorbitant per item cost, we find
Whole Foods far cheaper than any restaurant and certainly tastier.
Last night in
Lafayette, we watched a huge thunder-boomer with lots of lightning. Safe, snug and inside, we enjoyed a real
southern rain where the sky opens and buckets of water cascade, drenching the
earth below. I miss the people of the
South and a real Southern Rain.[1]
The storm’s lingering humidity curls our papers.
Leaving Lafayette
behind, we speed down state route 90 again today. As eternally indulgent parents, we find
ourselves encouraging Bloodroot’s sinkhole obsession. We stop at Lake Peigneur, exit Pearl, and
begin acting as junior archaeologists seeking visible remains of a large mining
disaster.
In 1980, Texaco engineers
seeking oil hosed up and punched a hole through the lake’s bed, piercing the
roof of a massive underground salt mine.
The lake, previously a placid shallow place visited primarily by
fishermen, drained into the mine, dissolving all salt in its path. A huge vortex ensued, sucking in the drilling
platform, a tugboat, eleven barges, numerous trees and 65 acres of the
surrounding terrain. Houses
wobbled, then sank.
Flooding the mine consumed
so much water that the Delcambre Canal, the lake’s normal outlet to the Gulf of
Mexico, ran backwards as the yawning underground caverns drank until sated. Eventually,
the mine filled restoring equilibrium, nine barges popped out of the sinkhole, leaving
the remaining two permanently mired beneath the lake.
To Bloodroot’s
disappointment, the maelstrom has left few traces of its fury. While watching the whirlpool itself would’ve
been very exciting, at this point only a pretty lake remains, albeit now deep saltwater
(1300 ft.) instead of shallow freshwater (10 ft.). Bear and Beaver return to Pearl, while
Bloodroot embarks upon a voyage of exploration and discovery. He finds chimneys, the tops of trees and
shingles left from the time when the sinkhole claimed so many houses.
Leaving Lake
Peigneur, we drive to the Lake Fausse State Park on the Atchafalaya River. Desiring lunch with minimum toting effort, we
seek a picnic table close to both the parking lot and the river, with a view,
of course. Finding the perfect spot, we park.
A sidewalk lined by shallow bayous runs between the parking lot and the covered
picnic tables. The boys empty Pearl’s
hat, carrying the stove, cooler and cooking implements out to the picnic area.
Keith begins concocting lunch, attaching the propane fuel tank to the camping
stove and sifting through the cooler, seeking appropriate foodstuffs.
Bloodroot, for no
apparent reason, rolls Tinky over to the picnic table while Keith fusses at him
about it. Bloodroot ignores Bear, intent
upon performing the Tinky-Winky Tango. I
drive Sven toward the table, where I will chop vegetables, my contribution to our
midday repast.
Bloodroot decides
to charge me with the walker. He runs,
forgets that Tinky has brakes, and loses control of the walker. Bloodroot
trips, veering to the left. Staggering
to the right, he nearly recovers. But it’s too late. Bloodroot careens off the
sidewalk, flips over and lands on his back in a shallow bayou. Tinky flies across the sidewalk into the opposing
bayou. Bloodroot emerges unhurt, outside of his pride. We retrieve Tinky, a bit worse for wear. Tinky never fully recovers, his legs
permanently bent.
We pluck dead
leaves off of Bloodroot. He’s sopping
wet before he even goes canoeing. Fortunately,
Bloodroot finds both a towel and clean clothes in Pearl. She laughs at him too,
much to his annoyance. For the rest of
the day and into the evening we can’t stop laughing helplessly every time we
look at him or think of this event.
Keith repeatedly mimes the adventures of Bloodroot and the walker, wishing
fervently that we had videotaped the entire incident. At times I think Bear would be an excellent
playwright. He can act out the scenes
and block while I write dialogue.
After lunch, fully
dry, Bear and Bloodroot go canoeing. I
sit at a different picnic table overlooking a branch of the river and write. Spring is beginning here, sending out
tentative tendrils of herself, checking the safety of the temperature before
proceeding. The green grasses surprise
and delight me, so different from Denver’s arid winter. The trees haven’t
leafed out quite yet, but the magnolias and some yellow flowers bloom. I bask in the sun resurgent after last
night’s storm.
The boys paddle by
me, go a few hundred feet in the water, turn around and paddle by me again. “Oh
my men,” I query, “are you lost?
Confused? Perhaps going the wrong
way?” “No, there are many paths,” our son mystically replies. “And many puddles
to fall into,” adds Keith.
The river flows by
placid and calm, riled by the wind kicking up now and again. Looking up into
the tree branches I see a fishing bobber caught by someone’s poor casting.
I spend the
afternoon writing, reading and napping in the sun. Shadows fall on the river as
the afternoon wanes until even my perch becomes shaded. Bloodroot and Bear pass
by again proudly telling me that they have canoed four miles. They dock the boat without incident. Outside
of the puddle adventure, no one has gotten wet today.
We pack up and
make ready for our journey to New Orleans.
We find our next Airbnb location, the bottom floor of a house in the 13th
Ward. This ward flooded during Katrina,
but has now been restored. We move in.
Keith and I prepare dinner while Bloodroot drives up to the airport to collect his
best friend Barkley.
Bloodroot and Barkley
met in college becoming fast friends.
Both writers, they plan a website with the goal of being as important
and influential as the Paris Review. (http://theunion4ever.com) They’re
undecided about being a secret front for the CIA. We consider Barkley our other
son. He’s bright, witty and charming,
enough to make any adoptive parent proud. We love him dearly and are so
grateful that he has chosen to spend some of his limited vacation time with us.
After hugs, over
dinner, Barkley cautions us to be careful in New Orleans. His attorney has warned him about Louisiana,
saying “They use the Napoleonic Code down there, something I know nothing
about. Don’t get in trouble because I can’t help you.” Duly advised, the boys
swear off prostitutes, drugs and gambling for the duration. We turn in for the night.
Now I understand that I need to travel to Louisiana! Bravo for a story well told!
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