We moved today from Fontainebleau State Park which involves jumping on to I-12 which hooks up with I-10 out of New Orleans. It’s never fun and today, with the temperature a muggy 79 degrees, it seemed worse than ever. The haze hung over the wetlands and the tractor-trailers made life miserable.
Things got worse as we headed past Baton Rouge in a windy section with heavy traffic. A kid in a car beside us yelled something and pointed toward the back of our rig as we navigated some curves. I swung into a breakdown lane, just after an on ramp, and carefully exited the truck. The traffic roaring by was scary but as I went to the back of the trailer, I saw what they had been yelling about. Our electrical cord had escaped from the holder and was dragging the plug down the highway. Talk about road rash — the plug looked pretty sad as I stowed it safely away.
Getting back on and up to speed was tough and then we nearly missed a split of the highway, needing a quick change to a left lane but then we were over the Mississippi and things got a bit more quiet. The GPS route to Lake Fausse Pointe State Park looked a little crooked but I wanted off I-10 so we followed the routing. I told Mary, ” It looks like a goat path on the map.” Louisiana doesn’t spend a lot of money on their back roads — the road we were on was narrow, pock-marked, but straight with a speed limit of 55 mph. No way was I going that fast on such a road, which wound back and forth, through little hamlets, past many fishing camps, and eventually coming to a pontoon bridge, ending with a sudden lurch up over a levee on to a real road. (The park ranger, hearing my route, told me that several bigger rigs have lost antennas and mirrors on that bridge.) We won’t be going back that way.
A pontoon bridge rated at 5 tons (now what do we weigh?) |
Nearly every camp/home we passed on the “goat path” had a name: “Bud’s Swampland.” “Who Dat?” …. It was an interesting look at rural Louisiana but it was nice to get on a wider highway for the last 15 miles down to the park. As we listen to peepers this evening, it’s a far cry from the chaos of Interstate 10. In spite of the mosquitos, I prefer this setting much more.
Preflight that trailer!
The goat path route sounds strangely like the Green Island Shortcut of yore. Old habits die hard. Travel safely. Love, RPM