Rayne, Louisiana bills itself as the frog capital but I ain’t heard one yet. Maybe it’s off-season. Maybe they’re frozen. Night three of the big freeze.
Left New Iberia near noon. So much traffic! I thought I was going to be touring quaint little acadian towns but it’s nothing but pickups, trucks and really dangerous old ladies in sedans. Even rolling through random streets it’s that way. I tried a couple of routes, all choked.
Motorist hostility has been very high, although the people are generally friendly in person. I get honked at frequently, even when I’m on the shoulder. I had one guy yesterday honking from behind me at a red light and motioning for me to scoot over.
Had an exhausting conversation with an old cajun lady yesterday while eating lunch. She was favorably impressed but wouldn’t let it go. She’d clean a table, ask me some questions, clean another table, and ask some more questions. On and on. Mmm, room temperature food.
The third most frequently asked question, after “How many miles you get on that thing?” and “Are you riding for a cause?” is “Why do you have a rat on your bike?”. Also it is expressed as “I love the possum on your bike there.” I have a giant stuffed toy rat glued to the front lowrider rack, with his head hanging over the wheel looking down. He has been a faithful mascot, but the epoxy came loose on one of his front paws so now he rears up on his hind legs in a headwind or when going downhill. The correct answer to the question would be “because I like rodents.” But this is often a difficult thing to tell someone in small town America when you’re wearing lycra underwear on the outside.
Made Lafayette and spent an hour exploring. A nice town, in parts, reminded me somewhat of Amarillo. Headed out on 90 and things got bad on the outskirts. The crummy shoulder became no shoulder with a deepy gully, and even though I10 ran close by, there was a lot of traffic and a few trucks now and then. I had stopped before it ended but people had been honking in passing now and then. I was not welcome here.
I have the right to be on the road, no doubt about it. But stories of cops hassling bicyclists in Louisiana on this road and others like it made me look for an alternative. This is where google maps comes in really handy. I took backroads in to Rayne from there on. Unlike other parts of Louisiana where smaller roads are not throughway, west Acadia is gridland. County roads are laid out in a grid pattern, making for convenient backroads.
Backroads Acadia is also Katrina relocation country. Rows of mobile home communities surrounded by farmland. It is a strange thing to see a bunch of kids wearing gang colors on a mobile home porch. No stores, nothing, just fields.
The towns are poor. Dirt poor. And to see a casino sucking the life out of what’s left is maddening. Every town has them. They’re not what you find in vegas, or atlantic city. They’re a mirror image of the dumps in South Dakotee. Basically just extra rooms nailed on to gas stations with slot machines. If you’re going to piss away six dollars an hour, why not do it instantly with a one-armed bandit rather than waiting for it to happen on television with lotto?
So, Rayne. Got a hotel. Ate some fried frog legs at Chef Roy’s. These are big, big, BIG frog legs. There’s a lot of meat in the thigh but the flavor is mild. A nice dinner place but expensive. I don’t think the locals eat there. Everything else on the menu was seafood, and I’m not entirely averse to it but I prefer things that can get around on land at least part of the time. That means my cajun food choices have been limited to chicken, frogs, and alligator.
My server was angelic. She came straight from the pearly gates to feed me some frog legs.
Heard this one old cajun gentleman at a nearby table. Man it was somethin’ else. Lots of folks in Acadia have a Southern accent, no accent, or a touch of cajun, but this old guy was just about incomprehensible. Sounded like Justin Wilson on muscle relaxants.
Morning. Going to be taking backroads all day today. Getting the Halt! spray on the ready.
