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DAY 5: Friday Oct 24th
We woke up in Biloxi, Mississippi, right across from the ocean, which had white sands just like Pensacola did. I woke up bright and early, probably because I really wanted to go and play in the ocean. It was REALLY misty and foggy out - and while I stood on the ocean, pelicans would "appear" over my head and then vanish into the mist again. It was really cool! The mist was simply INCREDIBLY thick. You could barely see back to the street from the edge of the water, and could only see a few feet in either direction on the left or right. I also got some great photos of little seabirds on a nearby pier. OK, maybe a few too many photos of them. They were so cute! They probably thought I was a space creature in my heavy gear. Heck, I'm sure that every person we rode past that morning thought we were insane to wear such heavy gear in such hot weather. In any case, Bob came to examine the beach too and then we were off. |
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We stopped at a UPS stop and mailed off our backpack full of extra clothes so we'd be as light as possible heading back. As we started to leave the beach area, this little zippy motorcycle kept tagging along with us. Finally he pulled up alongside us at a light ... and he pointed at the yellow dragon sticker on his own motorcycle! He and Bob started talking about the Dragon and the riding around here. A fellow dragoner!
We drove out of Mississippi and into Louisiana. Suddenly there were green streams and stinky bayous and brown water. We sang "Green River" by CCR for a while. And then we approached New Orleans. Talk about a GIANT LONG bridge!! It was around 7 miles long! It was across the large lake - Lake Ponchartrain - to the north of New Orleans.
The city was very spread out with lots of bridges everywhere, stretching up and over areas of water or city. Finally we were at an exit near the actual, main city. Down we descended into the city - what a slime pit!! There were grimy buildings and sleazy shops. We went on Canal Street past Basin Street from the famous blues song. There were homeless people on the streets and a cable car track down the center of the street with a "trainee" cable car practicing his moves.
I was feeling pretty disappointed. This wasn't the New Orleans I had hoped to see. I really wouldn't want to walk around this area! But then we finally looped around to Bourbon Street which was one way going in on a right-turn-only. Very cool!! It was a narrow, one way street with pretty much no parking the entire way down. There were overhanging balconies and a ton of shops along the entire length. Lots of bars, lots of 'attention-getters' sitting in the bar doorways trying to wave you in. Some had signs with their current offerings. It was lunchtime so the streets were busy with people. There was a horse drawn carriage which went ahead of us, voodoo shops offering 'altars' and dolls and such. The doors were all run-down and wooden with slats in them. Bob saw a woman in a big pink hoop skirt at one of the bars.
Then at the lower end was the gay area, lots of very handsome guys wandering around. And then we were done. We came up a parallel side street and there were NO shops at all on it, just houses with vary tall, skinny doors and windows, each with a pair of slatted wooden shutters to close them up. And pretty much ALL of them were shut tight. No parking anywhere, so it was time to head out.
We went back up Canal, which once it got out of the city proper was a VERY nice road, very wide, the grassy strip down the center and big houses along the sides. The cemeteries were HUGE with all graves being up above the ground stone buildings. We headed on out and north.
We took a different bridge out of New Orleans and if the other one was huge, this one was GIGANTIC. It was literally 25 miles long, with 7 crossovers, and a drawbridge which was up for sailboats when we reached it. We saw 3 pelicans soaring alongside us - one dove down and got a fish while we watched. Lots of seagulls and terns with forked tails.
After a bit more driving we stopped at the Louisiana Grill at 2pm for lunch because I was STARVING. This was actually a rather nice restaurant - the kind with white tablecloths and a great winelist. If the waiter flinched when he saw us come in in full gear, he didn't show it. He showed us to a front table that, granted, didn't have a white tablecloth on it :) I had the Crawfish Remoulade with creole tomatoes, and a cup of seafood jumbo with a glass of sauvignon blanc. The gumbo was *great*, much lighter and tastier than last night's, with all sorts of flavors. The crawfish was even better - it was a light blend in a cream-style sauce over salad, with large red tomatoes and lettuce. Very, very fresh and tasty. Bob had a burger and a salad.
OK time to head out. We went north for a short ways, and were soon back in Mississippi. This was a LONG haul through the whole state, south to north. There were LOTS of big cow pastures full of interesting colored cows. The sun was finally at our back which was a HUGE relief after having all of the previous days involving sunglare right in our faces. Especially since I wasn't able to find any sun block until just yesterday. Still, it was hot, but the McDonalds we stopped at had a broken ice cream machine!! Bob got us a milkshake instead which did cool us down some.
Finally we watched the sunset to purples and blues, but no interesting colors in the clear blue cloudless sky. The sky was fascinating, seemingly huge and expansive and just solid blue.
We went past Jackson and up near the border we stopped at the McDonalds there. Unlike the one in Georgia, this one was ALL black - behind and in front of the counter. It was near a big, nice comfy mall area, everyone was quite friendly. A dad with his two kids chatted with us about our motorcycles, the dad asked us if we'd trailered the bike down from Mass. They were amazed we'd actually driven it, and the kids said they loved the bike. They all waved bye when they left.
At this point my knees were sore and I was pretty sleepy. We only have 2 days left now but it's starting to seem like a loooong trip, and at this point, while we've had PERFECT weather so far, the weather channel that we watch each night is showing a HUGE rainstorm creeping along towards us. It seems that it will start hitting Tennessee tomorrow afternoon and will chase us all the way home, apparently raining all day Sunday on our entire long ride home. I'm not looking forward to that AT ALL. We call Kate to ask if we can get there at 11am on Sat instead of noon to try to give us half a chance of beating the storm. Then we tuck in in Brownsville, which is about 45 minutes outside of Ripley.
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