Southern Gothic Horror

Carrier has arrived.

I dodged a bullet on this trip. The original plan was to ride the Yamaha from Texas to the Alabama coast, but a frigid cold front descended all the way from my home and found me here. The cold spirit misses me. The temperature plummeted to a fatal 20F where any patch of ice could be the end for a motorcyclist. But as it happens a friend had a truck in Texas that they needed to bring to the exact same little coastal Bama town I booked a BnB in for next month. I can’t believe the coincidental destination that serves us both. We loaded the bike into the back of the truck outside Houston and I thanked my lucky stars that I had a warm cozy cab to hang out in on the road. Even the colors of the two rides match each other perfectly.

Making my way down the road I realized that driving can be great fun! Pulling on the bulbous steering wheel and mashing peddles reminds me of when I was 7 and driving a toy go-kart on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I love listening to radio and there’s buttons on the bulbous steering wheel for cruise control. When I hit the accelerate button, I can feel the truck gallop forward suddenly as it settles into a faster pace. There’s an 18-wheeler that just cleared out of the lane ahead of me, so I mash buttons like it’s Mario Kart and this is Rainbow Road. Since I’ve had lasik there’s even massive sparkling lights everywhere too after the sun goes down.

Between point A and point B lies New Orleans, a place I’ve wanted to visit since watching Anthony Bourdain’s A Cook’s Tour where he ate Cajun cuisine and explained how some bars are open 24/7 and even have washers and dryers, no doubt for the high-achieving alcoholic.

But first though, I stop at Lake Martin outside the working town of Lafayette. The little body of still water is classic Louisiana bayou with moss hanging from cypress trees growing out of the water. The lake is full of nesting herons, hungry alligators, and something else that makes a curious sound.

Ploop-ploop.

What was that?? My eyes darted over to the water’s surface where the sound emerged.

Ploop-ploop.

I realize the sound is coming from the quick succession of two things falling into the water. I looked up to find a gorgeous crimson cardinal munching on berries. Apparently it’s dropping the split pieces into water when it’s done with them. The flyers are hard to see up in the tree crowns where the berries grow, but now I know how to find them. I listen into the swamp for the curious sound and break out the camera when it happens again. After spending some time with the little flyers the sun is starting to kiss the horizon and the swamp is enthusiastic to make itself creepy with all its hanging moss and gnarled branches.

Next, New Orleans. Kicking off the experience with a trip to the Museum of Death seems like a natural start, where all things macabre await the visitor. And next, three hours in the Metairie Cemetery sounds appropriate. #justsinyeetthings

The dead aren’t buried here but laid to rest in stone coffins above ground. I think it’s because the ground absorbs so much water that when it storms the place would be full of corpse tea if they were buried underground. Metairie is a southern who’s-who of lore and history. The sprawling necropolis counts as residents a prominent brothel madame of the French colonial period, Louisiana governors and senators, and Confederate generals. In the corner is a memorial to the Louisiana Division of the Confederate Tennessee Army that contains the remains of the very man that initiated the Civil War, P.G.T. Beauregard who led the attack on Fort Sumter.

I’ve never been in a place where things have been repurposed and reborn to the degree that they are here. Flowing down the Mississippi River are the remains of the alpine Rockies, dusty new Mexican desert, wild Appalachians, sacred black hills of the Lakotas, plains of Nebraska, and other vast realms, now reconstituted into marshes of the bayou. Most of the places I’ve been to in the last decade will end up here.

A week in Louisiana is a fast week indeed, and before I can catch my breath it’s time to go. I’m sad to give my valediction to this place but I’ll be back. Right past the border there was something to lift me up though, and I stopped at the visitor center outside NASA’s Stennis facility. Stennis is the agency’s location geared for engine testing and I never had any interaction with it during my time working on Orion, but there is a littany of information that will reward the visitor. It’s a family friendly museum so don’t expect the relationship between Nazis and NASA to be fully explored (some juicy information awaits you if you Google it tough), but I did spend a good couple hours here.

When I left Mississippi I almost had my own horror story that I didn’t realize until I reached Alabama. I had left the $650 telephoto lens in the truck bed, tailgate down the entire way across Misssissippi. I cannot think of a more horrifying experience than to have lost it. But after getting groceries in and checking the bike’s straps I found it present and accounted for. Despite my ignorance we all arrived on the Bama coast.