I-10 Builds Character

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.