Mississippi Dreaming

It was a trip out of the city today as we headed up bush, driving back roads beside long winding mega levees that follow the meandering course of the Mississippi River, itself a mega highway for slow chugging cargo ships. To view the river one needs to stop the car and climb the grassy slope to look down on that broad murky expanse of water, its banks mostly lined with wharves and oil refineries.

We stopped for a picnic on a plastic bench near Baton Rouge and bought pina colada and black cherry snow balls. Brain freeze on a warm humid day.

The road took us past many stately and grand old plantation mansions, with enormous lawns and old mossy trees surrounding the huge columned fronts of the old homes, beautiful buildings open to the public and re-creating the glory days of slavery and ill-gained wealth.

We picked up a hitch hiker, a garrulous old Louisianan, an entertaining guy who chatted constantly the whole way, although we barely understood a word he said, his Southern accent was so rich.

Driving deep into the Atchafalaya Basin we finally found some suitable and accessible wild bushland, and Rod took himself walkabout. Pacing silently and alert amongst the scattered shadowy swamps, exploring some of the myriad dead-end shallow rises, marvelling at impressive cypress trees with buttressed trunks and tangled bundles of pneumatophores, hard woody roots projecting darkly from the duck-weed covered calm water. The weedy surface was sometimes languidly disturbed by mysterious large water denizens, briefly glimpsed. Catfish? Turtles? Alligators perhaps?

That was another box on the bucket list ticked.

There were long bridges that literally stretched for miles, spanning huge areas of swamplands. Well maintained super highways that only were lacking in corners, passing over massive areas of low lying swamps, the famous bayous. Buried pipelines abounded, each carrying oil or gas: the wealth behind the local economy.

All along the highways there were clusters of roads on sticks, curving over each other in multiple layers. We came across no roundabouts, instead enormous arching concrete cross overs, huge and yet fragile-looking.

We arrived back at our digs after dark, having negotiated fast and busy multi lane highways with manic city drivers swapping lanes and tailgating each other, brake lights glaring.

It was another big day.

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