Places Visited: Thursday, June 23: Acadiana City Park & Campground in Lafayette, Louisiana. $13 for 50-amp & water with central dump paved interior roads & sites: N30° 49.436' W91° 59.417' It hurt but we were up early and got the motorhome back to the Chevy Dealer by 7AM where we left it while the mechanic installed that warranty part.
We were determined to make the most of our time in the Lafayette area so we headed out to get a better look at the rice crop growing to the west and south of Lafayette.
We stopped somewhere along the way to inspect equipment used to harvest crawfish. One day I am going to hitch a ride on one of these rigs while the operator is actually servicing his traps. All I can do today is get a good look at the "boat" and equipment.
This "crawfish-boat" is powered by a "stern drive" hydraulic wheel that pushes it through flooded rice fields. The gasoline engine driving the hydraulic pump is located next to the seat in the back of the boat. The "boat" however, is much different than a normal boat. The boat is propelled by a special wheel operated at the end of an arm off the stern of the boat. These boats operate in VERY shallow water -- as in 8" or less. A propeller will not work thus this "mud-wheel" that operates much the same as a special tractor tire designed to operate in mud. The wheel is turned by a hydraulic motor. The engine mounted in the boat appears to be air cooled and the sole function is to power the hydraulic pump. The boat is aluminum with two "wells" fashioned in the forward part of the boat one on each side. A pneumatic tire is mounted in each of these wells so that the boat can roll on these tires when the water is too shallow to float it. In the back of the boat is a bag of crawfish bait that looks to be mostly rough ground cornmeal pasted into small cylinders the size of empty toilet tissue tubes. Now that I have seen this equipment up close I really want to ride with an operator.
These pics show tires mounted in "tire-wells" located in the front of the boat to help when water is REAL shallow or I suppose to move from one pond to another.
A crawfish trap/pot looks very much like a crab trap that one might see in any coastal town. The operator of that crawfish boat is tending to hundreds of crawfish pots or traps located in flooded rice fields. After dumping the crawfish out he drops a tube of bait in the trap then places the trap back in the water. The traps are spaced so that the operator sets the speed of the motor so that he can complete these functions in time to drop the baited trap back in the water within a foot or so of the next trap he is going to empty & rebait. As you can now imagine these pots are set out in long rows and equally spaced. Now you know why.
We passed through Rayne the self proclaimed frog capitol of the world or some such. They do have a lot of bullfrogs in this neck of the woods. We almost always see one of these huge critters crossing the road when we are in this area. Rayne is one of those cookie cutter small towns in Cajun Louisiana and as such each commercial building has their own unique mural.
In Louisiana Cajun Country life revolves around the ubiquitous Catholic Church and adjacent above ground cemetery. Rayne is no different. These small towns also like to paint murals on buildings depicting things that are important in the life of the community. For some reason the rice processing facilities were not busy.
A little further west is the town of Crowley where rice is truly king. It seems that every rice packager in the country has at least one facility in Crowley. We stopped to watch as several hopper trucks arrived for unloading.
I also got out and watched a crew of laborers stack 110-pound sacks of rice on the flat bed of an 18-wheeler. They told me the rice was a special shipment to Iraq. Sure enough I looked at the labels on those large bags and it said something about the Iraq Agriculture Minister yada, yada. The conveyor belt was delivering these sacks in staccato fashion. The loaders were removing the bags from the conveyor belt and placing them on what appeared to be pallets situated on the deck of the 18-wheelers flat bed. A machine with a special arm was applying a strip of glue to one side of each bag. The loaders informed me that the glue would keep the bags from shifting once they were stacked. While talking with two of the laborers taking a break I remarked that they would not need anyone to rock them to bed at night. They let me know that after a 12-hour shift it was difficult to drive home. I can only imagine! There is no way I could handle 110-pound bags for an hour much less 12-hours and I certainly wouldn't be back the next day. When the truck loaded with these bags of rice destined for Iraq pulled away from the loading dock all the driver did was wrap a tarp over the pallets of rice and off he went. I suppose that they are delivering it to a warehouse on the Mississippi River where a freighter will pick it up for delivery to Iraq.
Like most of these small towns in Cajun country they have their beautifully restored Victorian homes. This one has been restored to the "9's". Can you imagine the upkeep to keep this house looking great? Also like other towns around here commercial buildings have beautiful murals. This one is of a horse and buggy at a cross road in the middle of rice fields.
As we headed south out of Crowley through miles and miles of bright green rice fields we spotted one of those crop duster planes and turned down a side road to get a closer look.
We got close all right, we were close enough to get some of the chemical on our windshield. They fly so low and so fast. This one was applying a liquid. We were stopped to watch and take pictures. While we were there a nice man in a pickup truck stopped and told us that the airfield the plane operated out of was just up the road and that we should stop in and watch the operation. We saw the air craft land and decided to take the nice man up on his offer. The owner of the air operation was just as nice. He had been the pilot of the aircraft we had been watching.
We watched as he taxied his aircraft up to a big tank with a large hose dangling off an extended arm. Someone jumped up on the aircraft and attached the hose and within a minute or so he was loaded for another run.
Another of his aircraft arrived and was loaded with 2,000-pounds of rice seed that was being spread about 4-miles north of us. Another aircraft was being loaded with fertilizer. The fellow rattled off the type of fertilizer but the only thing I remember was the 40% nitrogen. It was interesting to watch the aircraft being loaded with seed rice. A big truck arrived with these huge 2,000 pound bags of seed. A truck crane lifted one of the 2,000 pound sacks of seed corn then maneuvered the huge bag over the aircraft. When held in the air by the crane the 2,000 pound bag of seed rice did not look like it did sitting on the back of that delivery truck where the bag looked to be basically square. Once in the air I could see that the bottom of the bag was fashioned into a funnel. Once positioned over the aircraft someone pulled a draw string on the bottom of the bag and the seed rice began pouring out of the bottom of that "funnel" which appeared to be 10" or so in diameter. Within a very short time, like a minute or so, the bag was empty and the aircraft was ready to head out again. The total turn around time might have been 5-minutes if the pilot had not jumped out to answer a call of nature.
We quickly said good buy to the owner and headed out to get in position to watch this plane seeding a plot of land. We had get on down the road because it wouldn't take the pilot long to catch us. The pilot flew over us when we were about 3-miles up the road so it was easy to follow him to the field. Once there we couldn't get as close as we would have liked to the field he was seeding as it was not next to the highway and we did not want to go driving down any of those dirt trails on private property so we watched from the side of the nearest paved highway which was about ½ mile away. Look closely and you can see the seeds being dispursed.
Talk about getting low to spread seeds this "crop duster" is low.
These rice dryers are located on one of the many rice operations in this area.
Crawfish season is about over as this sign proclaims. Joyce took the pic of this rice field from a bridge you can see tractor tracks in the rice fields.
Mahatma and Water Maid aren't the only rice companies but they are one of the big ones.
While this rice is bright green now it will turn golden with heads of grain at harvest time.
By now it was time for lunch so we headed to Dupoy's in Abbeville a place we try not to miss when in this neck of the woods. I was hoping for one of those special Cajun lunches but the special today was pork chops and garlic mashed potatoes. That is what we had and they were good but, it wasn't one of those exotic Cajun dishes I am accustomed to getting at Dupoy's. Joyce's adventuresome spirit had ebbed and she was wanting me to return to Lafayette where she could carouse the new mall so that is where we headed. Thankfully, we were not there long before I got a phone call from the Chevy Dealer informing me that they were finished and we could pick up the motorhome. In only a few minutes we had settled up with the Chevy Dealer and were headed to Pensacola, or so we thought. It was 3PM, we could make the Mississippi Coast and stop for the night at Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis where they have 50-amp connections and free entertainment in the Casino. Our joy was short lived. Not 10-miles from the Chevy Dealer that pesky "check engine soon" light came on. At least it didn't come on immediately. Possibly it was an aberration and would not come on again. I kept on going past one exit. My optimism was not rewarded. It came on again and again before I got to the next exit and turned around. When I called the Chevy Dealer from the interstate they said bring it back first thing in the morning. That was what we were thinking would be best as well. We exited I-10 and pulled into the same campground we stayed in the past two nights. Thankfully, it has 50-amps and shade. Joyce and I both have been trying to stay positive but we pulled into Lafayette Monday afternoon and tomorrow will be Friday. Enough is enough! We have been having a good time while in Lafayette but we want to be in Pensacola. Something has got to happen for the better tomorrow or my sweet/mellow disposition is likely to go into meltdown. In an hour or so, after we had cooled down, Joyce announced we were going to Mulate's tonight. Mulate's is a Cajun tourist place in Beaux Bridge. They feature live Cajun music nightly. We don't particularly care for their food but they do have the live music and dancing. We ordered the minimum necessary to stay and enjoy the evening. Joyce got to dance and that is what mattered. We didn't stay out too late since we had to get up early again in the morning. Friday, June 24: We made it to Pensacola and home today. As difficult as it was we got up and had the motorhome at the Chevy Dealer by about 7AM. The mechanic met us with his handy tester. He plugged it in and away we went on another test drive. Sure enough that "check engine soon" light came on and had the same trouble code that it had when we arrived in Lafayette on Monday. As we made our way back to the dealership I discussed with the mechanic what the plan was. He didn't know and said he would have to discuss it with the shop foreman. The shop foreman wanted to try another part this one would cost $294 plus labor but they did not have that part in stock and it would be Monday afternoon before they could obtain one. I called a "time-out" and requested that we get together with company management high enough in the chain of command to make a decision. I said that it was time for all of us to walk away from this while we were still speaking and presumably friends. Thankfully, they agreed. Management disappeared to discuss the situation with the mechanic, service representative and foreman. Then management made me the offer I wanted and accepted. They would refund ALL labor charges but I would have to pay for the parts they had replaced. All together the parts not under warranty came to around $300. They also said they would reinstall my OLD parts if that would make me happy but I would have to pay the labor to reinstall them. I accepted their offer. They refunded me the entire labor charge and I paid for the parts they installed and we parted ways still friends. I agreed to pay for the new parts because the problem was MUCH improved and the new parts had obviously fixed much of the problem. By 9:30 we were on our way to Pensacola. But first we have to cross over the Atchafalaya Basin (the original river where the Mississippi River flowed to the Gulf of Mexico before levees were build to contain it in the heavily dredged channel that now meanders past New Orleans before emptying into the Gulf 60-miles or so south of New Orleans. The Atchafalaya Basin is 18-miles wide where I-10 crosses. As you can imagine it was a major engineering feat to construct I-10 across the basin.
The Atchafalaya Basin still funnels nearly half of the flow of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico the other part flows past Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
One can only imagine the engineering required to construct I-10 across this dense swamp. As you can see they had to dredge a canal between the bridges to bring in supplies and equipment.
Not long after crossing over the Atchafalaya Basin we were looking at the Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge. It is a pretty sight. Once on the other side restaurants will serve sweet tea. West of the Mississippi waitresses look at you like you have lost your mind if you order "sweet tea".
Before long we have crossed over the entire state of Mississippi and have negotiated the only tunnel on I-10 that happens to go under the shipping channel leading to the Alabama State Docks in Mobile. East of the tunnel is another long bridge that spans Mobile Bay. We rolled and rolled without stopping. The trip had been fun but we were ready to be home. When we were in Alabama nearing the Florida State line we got hit with a fierce thunder storm with winds so bad that it forced everyone on the interstate to slow down to a crawl. We couldn't see and the wind was blowing us around. We exited along with all the 18-wheelers within sight. There just happened to be a big truck stop where we exited and all of us headed to their big parking lot in single file where we parked for 10-minutes or so while the cell passed. Joyce and I laughed as we remembered that the last time we had seen rain was on our way to California in mid-March as we were in Louisiana just west of the Mississippi River. That was three months ago. We know we are back on the Gulf Coast where these thunder storms are as much a part of life as humidity and sunshine. This is the end of another great trip. We will be in Pensacola until next Friday when we head east about 200-miles to St. George Island, Florida. Joyce had said that we were home for awhile and she would let me know when "awhile" was up but that for sure it would be after the grandchild was born in August. Obviously, that was before she knew that our Son & his family were going to spend a week at St. George Island. I guess I can stick around Pensacola for 6-days. It will be rough but I think I can do it. While we are over that way we will probably stop by and visit with friends on Cape San Blas. Then we will also probably spend some time visiting with my Mom in Panama City. My BIL also lives in Panama City and he is "Da Man" that is going to get my computer world turned right side up. He has ordered me a new laptop, plus a new hard drive for my "former" number one laptop. When I leave Panama City this time I should have two really kicking laptops plus the back-up laptop that I am writing this on. Oh thank Heaven for a BIL that can work magic on computers. Until next time, remember how great life is. Mike & Joyce Hendrix
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