Tuesday, February 18, 2014 – Louisiana Bayous

At the hotel, Bear tells the cleaning people to not bother cleaning our room.  Then I realize that we need new towels!  Hastily I dispatch Keith to ask the maids to please clean.   Keith finds one worker and says, “The wife changed her mind.” Sven and I round the corner - “I did not change my mind!” I exclaim.  I admonish the young woman.  “You should know better than to ever listen to a man.” “That I do,” she replies, “men have been nothing but trouble in my life.  Don’t worry ma’am, I’ll take care of you.” “Thank you most kindly,” I reply.

Leaving the hotel, Bloodroot takes us on a leisurely tour of the bayous following the route he marked out a couple of months ago.  Beginning at Lake Charles, our trail takes Louisiana highway 27 down to the Gulf, passing two wildlife refuges before returning to Lake Charles. Yes, the same road number travels in a rectangle.  No, I don’t know how the locals differentiate between two separate, parallel roads running north and south.  Using the western 27, Pearl heads south, straight toward the Gulf of Mexico. 

In our mind’s eye, we expect to find the Gulf gently brushing up against a sheltering wetland of bayous. Alas, alack!  Long before we reach the Gulf, we find ourselves viewing miles and miles of petrochemical factories.  In scale, I can only compare the landscape before me to my apocalyptic childhood memories of the 1960s Cleveland flats, a vast, poisoned, industrial wasteland. 

I pause, wondering how much of our everyday comforts we owe to these factories.  Had I forgotten oil’s ubiquitous presence in all facets of our 21^st century lives, from the keyboard I type on to the Lubriderm I rub on my hands, I am now dutifully reminded. I do not recall a time without petrol or plastic.  And of course, I presume the people of Lake Charles delight in the many sorely needed jobs the plants provide, saving the town from the abysmal poverty we will later find in northern Louisiana.  Normally, I thoroughly enjoy being fat, dumb and happy and prefer to remain ignorant of oil’s environmental damage. Today, though, I can’t look away.

We spot a couple of doublewides planted across the street from the factories.  What desperation would cause you to live right here?  You’d have to be plumb crazy. Your kids would be mutants.  I open the window, trying to escape Minnie’s lingering perfume, only to allow a different chemical stench to fill Pearl.  Pearl sneezes.  Poor Pearl!  A Colorado girl gasping for air at sea level.

Finally, we leave the Louisiana industrial oil complex behind and speed south to greener pastures – tall strands of brown winter grass in open bayous.  The word bayou, originating from the Choctaw word bayuk (small stream), refers to a body of water found in flat, low-lying area, generally featuring an extremely slow-moving stream but can also describe a marshy lake.   Our bayou has no trees.  Before us we see an endless wetland full of grasses and open water.

We drive past old trucks dumped in the bayou.  The bayou grows up and around them, slowly reclaiming its rightful ecosystem.  “When you are all dead and buried,” the Bayou chortles in a throaty laugh, “I will still be here. The works of humanity will disappear beneath my boggy, placid waters, as crawfish and shrimp make their nurseries from your toil.  My green prairie grasses will erupt through the water, provisioning wildlife only.  I will triumph!” he sneers in jubilation.  Considering the ecological destruction we’ve just seen, we definitely side with the bayou.

We continue our tour following the happy alligator pictured on the nature trail signs. I scan the trail seeking mutated animals.  Keith pouts, demanding a national park stamp before worrying about the alligator’s mental health, fake smiles and Prozac consumption. 

We pass the Carlyss barbecue and donut restaurant. What!?  Donuts and barbecue sold together? Foodstuffs (and I may be stretching the food concept here) produced using completely separate kitchen equipment? I worry that the restaurant just resells stale donuts purchased at Walfart the week prior. Amused by my petulance, the boys buy and enjoy hot, fresh donuts. I steadfastly pass on the donuts, long ago having had my fill of gluten headaches.  The boys enjoy the local scenery, snapping photos of the large concrete pig standing in front of the restaurant, the brilliantly pink mailbox, and the steer on the restaurant’s roof. Donuts, fake smiles and Prozac, where’s Paula Deen?  Perhaps lurking in the bayou.  I hear belches, but presume it’s the boys digesting the sugary fried dough rather than Paula.  Could the noise arise from Bloodroot’s intestines as he now complains about his alimentary canal?

We reach our first destination, the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge (NWR).  Established by Teddy Roosevelt in 1937, Sabine protects and preserves coastal wetlands for birds migrating using either the Mississippi or Central flyway. The refuge works to restore marsh habitat lost to rice farming, levees, channels and hurricanes. It serves as the nursery area for many marine species, including blue crabs and shrimp.  Sabine protects remnant beach ridges called cheniers and builds low-lying underwater terraces to replace lost cheniers. The cheniers slow wave action in open water areas and create yet another habitat for different bird food plants by giving them room to grow.  The refuge promotes the growth of native grasses via periodic burning, mowing and discing.  The resultant lush prairie provides natural beauty and protects the soil while supplying food and cover for wildlife.  Water control structures preserve a delicate balance between salt and freshwater.

Louisiana’s history-digging 8,000 miles of canals through the bayou to support the oil industry and building levees that dump marsh building sediment into the ocean has resulted in Louisiana losing an acre of bayou every half hour.  Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost 1,900 miles of bayou to the Gulf of Mexico.  Looking at the increased hurricane threat to New Orleans, I would make bayou restoration a priority.  Sadly, I doubt that others share my desire.

We venture out on the mile and one half wetland walkway boardwalk.  The early spring sunshine has brought out the gators.  My Denver buddies warned me that alligators could run real fast, catch and eat me.  I better watch out!  Researching, I learn that humans can outrun gators and that in any case, alligators don’t chase their prey.  Funny how we always fear creatures living outside our normal environment.  I wonder if Cajuns think that they’ll be eaten by bears or mountain lions in Rocky Mountain National Park.  These alligators appear pretty torpid, just out warming themselves in the glorious spring sun.  We later learn that today’s sunshine, the first in quite a while, has brought out far more gators than expected for this time of year. We see around fifteen!

On the boardwalk, we stroll out over the marsh, passing over both water and semisolid, somewhat squishy land.  Following Sven’s instructions, we carefully avoid the alligator poop.  “No poop on me or I quit!” he threatens.  We chance upon a languorous water moccasin, also sunning himself, and give him ample leeway as appearances can be deceiving!  We spot birds – herons, gulls, cormorants, egrets – Keith’s camera clicks and clicks.  We meet some real birders with spotting scopes. Ever jealous of other people’s lenses, Keith ponders his eternal dilemma.  Should he sell the house, leave the family homeless, and buy a few good lenses? Sighing at life’s verities and his own moral compass, Keith switches gears in his mind, taking out his frustration by using reeds to attack fire ant nests.  The ants swarm the reeds which Keith then brandishes like a little kid trying to scare me. So cute!  

Bloodroot takes us past Holly Beach, a vacation community chock-full of multicolored houses on stilts, right on the Gulf.  They’ll be able to combat global warming’s sea level rise with the stilts for a while, but when each house sits in sea water, albeit elevated, eventually the ocean, like the bayous, will win.  I hear no commentary from the ocean; it’s too vast to be concerned with a few houses encroaching upon its territory in Louisiana.

We take a working (free) ferry across a bit of the intracoastal waterway and cross some amazingly cool bridges.  To our chagrin, we see that Louisiana apparently doesn’t believe in picnicking.  For the past hundred miles, we’ve seen nary a picnic table or place to cook.  Our stomachs and our mouths both grumble.

Giving up, we head back north on eastern 27 to the Cameron Prairie NWR.  Stopping in the refuge’s parking lot, we prepare our luncheon salad, battling wind so strong that our lettuce takes flight.  We recover our salad bits for a nice lunch inside Pearl.

After lunch, Pearl ventures out onto the Pintail Drive Trail (part of Cameron NWR) winding through the bayous. As we spot so, so many birds, I fervently wish that I were a better birder and had a clue as to exactly what I am seeing.  But I must content myself by saying we see oodles of very cool birds. We drive past freshwater marsh, coastal prairie and moist soil. Much as Sabine, this refuge uses every tool at its disposal to create a smorgasbord of winter homes for thousands of birds, ducks and geese.   

Continuing north, Pearl takes us back to Lake Charles for dinner. Tonight Bloodroot proposes a new dining experience touted by young people on the Internet: haute cuisine fast food.  We seek a place called Sweet Breads.  I tremble, stomach tumbling within my body, fearing we will be eating fried pancreas chicken McNuggets.  Searching, we tour Lake Charles repeatedly.  Back and forth, back and forth we go, bickering through our hunger. Giving up, we return to our hotel parking lot for the wi-fi allowing Bloodroot to download correct directions.

Over dinner, I’m sternly corrected.  The name of the restaurant is Street Breads, not Sweet Breads. Bloodroot ridicules my pancreatic fears. At the counter, we order a glass of good, local beer and a sandwich made from artisanal bread and all fresh ingredients.  Enjoying our reasonably priced, local, well-crafted food, we reflect upon restaurant experiences as a whole.  Perhaps we’ve overrated the sit-down rigmarole  for decades.