Chapter 37 New Orleans, Le Matidora Inn, The Nixons, The River's End

There is a KOA campground right within a few miles of Downtown New Orleans. Most of the campgrounds we encounter these days no longer bother with folks in tents. They are strictly RV parks, catering to the more lucrative, long term RVers.  This KOA fortunately still bothers with a few tent spots. We are sandwiched between giant RV buses and 5th wheels with pull behind "toy vehicles".  One even has a retractable "balcony" off the side.   We find out that our arrival coincides with "Voodoofest" a multistage music festival being held in New Orleans that weekend.  Our next door neighbors are three twenty-something girls who are there to attend and are pretty juiced up for it.  We get the run down on the venues and performers.  They have set up an elaborate camp under the shade of a tree complete with an inflatable couch, camp kitchen, and food pantry.
We have decided to simply pass through New Orleans at this point and return to it by car for a few days after I complete the bike journey.  My relatives at the end of the road are asking about my progress and await my arrival.  I have one nasty bridge to cross in the city proper. To get there I biked down Magazine Street which seems to be the hippest section of town with everything from yoga studios to coffee shops filled with brooders to eateries with impossibly fresh, local fare.  Sue meets me and ferries me across the  US highway 90 bridge to the relative safety of Gretna the neighborhood across the river.  It is the last bridge that crosses the Mississippi.  I recalled the very first one just a few yards down from the outlet of Lake Itasca, a mere wooden footbridge.

The Mississippi River just south of New Orleans near Gretna.

This day I pack on the miles cruising down the shoulder of Highway 23 that is essentially a 70 mile dead end that runs down to the tip of the Mississippi delta.  It is a familiar highway for me.  I traveled it many times during my months here as a Hurricane Katrina reconstruction volunteer years ago.  Sue has tracked down a place to stay called the "Le Matidora Inn" that is beyond my range but I am doing my best to reach it when darkness envelopes me.  She comes out to retrieve me.  Earlier that afternoon I had a pickup truck pull up along side me, some guy yells out my name- it's my own brother-in-law returning on a business errand.  He knows I am somewhere on the road within striking distance so it is my first contact with my relatives.  I had told him when I last visited a few years ago "I will return",  and I did but little did he know it would be by bicycle.
This is the last night on the road before we reach it's end.  Le Matidora Inn is a delightful place and we seem to be among the few paying guests. It's a bit of a celebratory splurge.   It consists of a 10 room main lodge and 4 cottages.  It has a wrap around porch, swimming pool and it's own orange grove, banana plantation and pony ranch surrounding it. That night we are invited to help ourselves to an oyster cookout.  A bunch of guys are shucking a burlap sack of fresh oysters off the back of a pick up truck  under headlights and grilling them on a charcoal grill in batches. I lingered around long enough to get offered a huge platter that I had no problem refusing or finishing off.

Tommy Lincoln, proprietor of Le Matidora.

The guys are friends of one of the owners, Timmy Lincoln who is the grill master that night.  He later invites me to join him in the lodge with a couple buddies who are pretty much half in the bag and half watching the big screen TV with delight as Fox news rabidly speculates on the FBI's latest batch of emails that could derail Hillary Clinton.  I learned that Timmy has done well in life even though he is only about 35 years old.  He shows me photos of  various specialized swamp vehicles and air boats he uses in pursuit of fun in the bayou as well as "river monsters" they have caught.  The next morning under the light of day I learn the place is casually run and even more casually maintained.  The boys are long gone and the vexed woman manager gives me the back story on the family.  It seems the father built the place as a family home and later converted it to an Inn after Katrina.  He was a river pilot.  Pilots are men who are brought on board ocean going ships to pilot  them from the gulf up the river.  They have specialized knowledge of the river and the responsibility to see to it that these multi million dollar vessels meet no harm.  It is an incredibly lucrative profession that is handed down from father to son with the number of licenses deliberately limited. The father had prepared each of his two sons and one daughter to take over the business.  When he died at only  age 58 (drinking) his children had all of it handed to them.  The daughter got the Inn but really wasn't terrible interested in running it just siphoning off the income and spending it on Corvettes and Jaguars.  She recently sold it to the two brothers one of whom took over his father's river pilot license and the other was Timmy. They basically use it as their private "clubhouse" for their various exploits.  In fact, I learned the three of them also own several properties and businesses up and down the delta in addition to the Inn.  No one seems to actually need to "work".  Despite their unpretentious fun loving lifestyle, these guys are definitely one percenters.

I rolled up the next day at my in-laws place in Buras, LA just 10 miles from the last town of Venice. Sheila Nixon is Sue's sister and recently retired as a housekeeper at a local motel and her husband Leonard, a shrimper before Katrina, now catches baitfish to sell to sport fisherman.   Their daughter Cristina who lives nearby has graciously arranged for us to stay just down the road at a fishing camp she knew the owner of.  He found out about my journey and offered it's complimentary use.
Over a decade ago I had spent several months here over the course of a year helping rebuild their place after Hurricane Katrina.

There are still reminders of Katrina in the Delta.

It is a remote end-of-the-road kind of place but has a spirit of community and toughness rising from the adversity of weather and catastrophes that have battered the place and the economy.  Leonard seems to know everyone and everyone knows him.  I have always referred to him as a combination of Santa Claus and Frankenstein. His good nature and world class beard as the first and his gait as a result of knee punishing years of shrimping, the latter.   He is one of my favorite brother-in-laws despite our vastly different backgrounds.

On Sunday, October 31 I pedaled the lasted 12 miles to the end of the road. It crosses over the levee that wraps around the town of Venice like an old fashioned bathtub rim.

Venice Marina is home to a major commercial fishing fleet and
"Sport fishing capital of the south"

It continues  past the large Venice marina complex and winds through the marsh barely above the water level, at times awash with water.   At 11:00 in the morning I arrived at the sign that marks the southernmost point in Louisiana. Murphy runs along side me for the last couple blocks as a finish line for him as well.  Sue and her sister Sheila are there to record this "historic" moment.   The road peters out a hundred feet beyond into the edge of a saltwater marsh.  We had traveled some 2,100 bicycle miles from the stepping stones at Lake Itasca. It had taken 72 days from Minneapolis and another 8 days from Itasca.   The numbers include 11 flat tires, 1 blow out, 5 worn out tires, 1 rear sprocket, 16 broken spokes and one crunched bicycle. My gasoline expense was zero. Murphy can basically claim the distinction of being the first golden retriever to travel the length of the Mississippi River by bicycle. At least no one ever contradicted my claim by informing me that some other guy came through here last week with a golden retriever on a bike.

The happy road warriors.

Ceremonial dipping of the wheel in the waters of the gulf.

2,100 miles upriver where she starts. I am told it takes 90 days for a drop of water to reach the gulf.  I beat it  by 10 days.

As I think about the journey it really became about the people I met along the way.  My confidence in the basic goodness of people, if given a chance, is still there.  On the other hand, I will give no quarter to bike chasing mongrels.  Some have already asked about my next adventure.  For now my yearning for long distance bike travel is satisfied. I am thinking more along the lines of luxury such as an Alaskan Cruise. It might offer a suitable counterpoint to sleeping in ditches and eating instant noodles.

  It is with a bittersweet farewell, I thank all of you who helped me all along the way (especially my wife Sue), who took an interest in my "incidents of travel" and encouraged me onward for I have truly reached the River's End.

David and Murphy

Chapter 36 Disaster Strikes, Approaching New Orleans, The trip changes

My wife Sue arrived in Baton Rouge late in the afternoon after a marathon two day drive down from Minneapolis.   It has been several weeks since she left us behind in Missouri so our reunion is long awaited.  We meet in the parking lot of a library and she is relieved to find both of us in one piece, though a bit ragged and worn on the edges.  My riding attire has faded considerably and my black saddlebags are now a have a  faded purplish hue.  I am as tan as a beach bum and a bit skinnier.  Murphy is a matted dirty mess just how he likes it. We put the bike on a roof rack and head for a motel room across town.  By now it's dark and the drive becomes an exercise in frustration as the GPS unit we have is fighting with the smart phone over who is right.  These devices are truly wonderful but not infallible.  After getting  sent in the wrong direction at a key turn we end up in a hopeless maze of freeway interchanges and even  helplessly cross a huge bridge over the river miles out of our way.  When we finally arrive at the motel our nerves are frazzled.  We pull up under the entrance canopy, the car is suddenly jolted with a shudder. A sickening screeching sound is followed by a bang and then silence.  What the...?  The bike on the roof just got pulled off by the roots. The canopy was too low. I get out and spot it laying on the asphalt at the edge of the pool of light from the canopy.  My noble yellow steed of the last 2,000 miles and 38 years is mortally wounded.  The frame is bent at an unnatural angle, the top tube is snapped.

She's hurt bad.

 It is beyond repair.  Since Sue was at the wheel at the time she is horrified at what just happened.  She apologizes but I share the blame.  We both had forgotten it was on the roof.   I am puzzled at the damage wrought by this fabric canopy until I realize that on the inside, behind the fabric is a steel I-beam that would have sheared the top off a Sherman tank.
 I am still in shock. What now?  Maybe it's best we just call it the end of the bike trip and drive down the rest of the way. Sue wants to drive home immediately, she is distraught with this turn of events. I picked up the remains and gently placed them in the back of the truck. The mood in the motel room is cheerless and somber.  Even Murphy seems to know something is wrong.  The evening moves along slowly until sleep mercifully closes in.  Meanwhile, an idea starts to form in the back of my mind.
I had been thinking about getting a mountain bike since last spring.  My steelhead fishing trips to Canada have for years involved long hikes down logging roads perfect for a mountian bike. I hadn't even brought the subject up with Sue to date as I already had one too many bikes in her view.

 Now might be a good time to bring up the subject.

I am thinking...I could finish the trip with a new mountain bike. I could dust off my remaining road bike back home and customize it to my new long distance travel bike.
I propose my plan and ridden with guilt she is more than happy to go mountain bike shopping the next morning. Timing is everything.

Capital Cycles in Baton Rouge is able to track down a bike that fits me.  I get it equipped with a luggage rack, water bottle rack, rear view mirror and special road tires.  When they roll out the kitted out and fitted final product it dwarfs the technician.  He calls it "the Clydesdale" and so is thus christened.    For me a leap in technology, both light and rugged.  It is a beauty.  Sue does not even ask the final cost.

From this point forward Murphy is being chauffered by Sue  in his ruby red limo.  I am riding my new bike flying along without any gear. It is ridiculously easy going. The miles melt away.  The trail is now following the Mississippi river levee along the "River road" which is now a endless series of huge loops like ribbon candy.  For each mile of straight line point A to B driving for Sue I go seven miles.  The scenery is a jarring mixture of industrial facilities and leftover estates from the plantation days.

Historic Hospital to treat leprosy actually called
 "Hansen's Disease" to avoid the stigma connected with it.

One former plantation I pass is quite historic in that it was the site of the only leprosy colony in the United States for many years. A small museum informs me that the building and later village was home to several hundred sufferers of the disease.  Research conducted here led to the first truly effective drug that is able to control and actually reverse it's ravages.  At the time,  lepers were feared and ostracized even by family members.  It is now understood to be caused by a bacteria that is actually quite difficult to transmit. Not a single instance occurred at the place in its history.
 That afternoon we started to look for a place to stay that night.  This is not a tourist area by any measure, yet everything was booked.  We called a dozen places up to 50 miles away.  We were later to learn that the floods last summer around Baton Rouge had resulted in a massive clean up and repair effort that attracted workers from across the country. These workers had been based out of the motels for weeks.   We finally found one with a room available due to a cancellation.  As I approach New Orleans, the landscape becomes very industrialized.

Threading the needle through refineries.

 I pass giant refineries, processing facilities,  and coal yards all tied by overhead piping and conveyor belts to terminal facilities along the river.  Ocean-going ships are able to navigate up the river as far as Baton Rouge.

Ocean ship beyond the levee.

I see the super structures of these big ships poking up from behind the grassy levee looking like they are half  buried in the grass from my perspective.  The last twenty miles into New Orleans the MRT is a paved path right on top of the levee.  It's a great view being 40 feet above it all, the river on one side and an ever changing landscape as these industrial facilities give way to the outlying neighborhoods of the city.

For me the nature of the trip has changed.  I no long need worry about finding a place to eat or sleep
each night.  They are within easy reach with Sue a phone call away.  She ranges ahead and paves the way for my arrival. Without Murphy in his trailer and my loaded saddle bags,  I no longer am a novelty.  The people I meet are not curious, no more questions; where am I going, how far each day?  Now I am just a guy on a bike,  probably lives 5 miles down the road.  Even when I tell them what I am doing I get this "oh that's nice" response.  They don't really believe me.  I don't look miserable enough.

One of the more impressive plantations along this section of road is now a Jesuit retreat.

And this is the next door neighbor.