Louisiana

Crossing into Louisiana from Texas was bittersweet. The riding conditions quickly improved on Highway 12 East, but we were greeted with a wall of humidity that we still haven’t escaped. Louisiana seems to exist in an alternate universe, and in their universe water doesn’t realize that it is supposed to be a liquid when it is 70 degrees outside. We could feel our pace getting slower and slower as we fought through thick air and our lungs gasped for oxygen.

We discovered that a Parish is basically the same thing as a County, and the quality of the roads changes drastically as you enter new Parishes. It was really difficult to find a stealth camping spot that first night because everything in Louisiana is a swamp. By time night fell we decided to go with a spot near some power lines that was probably owned by the power company. We were out of sight of the highway, which is really all we need. The odds of someone seeing us at night are basically zero, and if someone sees us in the morning it doesn’t matter because we are moving on anyway. I guess they could be a shitbag and call the cops to give us a trespass notice, but so far that hasn’t happened. Stealth camping was pretty difficult in that part of the country but we always found a relatively safe place.

The next couple of days were relatively uneventful. We biked along the same road and saw the same sites. We clearly stand out down here and a lot of people at gas stations and grocery stores are interested in us. They also offer us weed and money and food pretty regularly, but we generally turn down these offers. As we approached Baton Rouge we needed to cross a couple of rivers, and by rivers I mean “a river that also has miles of swamp on both sides”. In order to navigate one of the rivers we had to trespass on a nature reserve. The road through the reserve was decent and we just smiled and waved at everyone we saw. Nobody seemed to care that we were there, which is kind of the norm in life… if you act friendly and confident people tend to just let you do your thing.

After several days we arrived in Baton Rouge, which turned out to be a really kick ass town. It has all the things we are looking for in a place to live. It is also SUPER cheap. With a little effort you can find a 2-bedroom house with a yard for about $600 per month. One good thing about living in Los Angeles is everything seems reasonably priced compared to them. If we end up moving to Baton Rouge (which looks fairly likely) we wouldn’t really need to work anymore than we are now, though a part-time job at a coffee shop or something is good for meeting people and getting out of the house. We both get kind of fat when our lives don’t revolve around exercise and we will need a way to stay active.

In Baton Rouge we stayed with a wonderful couple we found on Couchsurfing. Jen and Zac hosted us for several nights and we had an amazing time with them. We all had a lot in common… they are vegan, minimalist, love travelling, and they work for a solar company (okay, we don’t work for a solar company but we have solar panels). They also love pets and have a dog and a pig. We may be meeting up with them in DC later this year, which would be fucking awesome. One of my favorite things about being on the road is meeting all these amazing people and staying connected with them. Our network continues to spider all over the country and the magic of the internet lets us all stay in touch.

Sadly, our time in Baton Rouge had to come to an end and we hit the road. The first day was longer than average at 45 miles, but we made it halfway to New Orleans. We stayed with Dale, a prolific host that we found on Warmshowers.com (a site that has nothing to do with pee). Dale owns an auto shop and opens it up to cyclists coming through the area. He was incredibly friendly and knew exactly what a cyclist needs after a long day on the trail. He provided a safe place to sleep, electricity to power our stuff, a little kit with a new toothbrush and other amenities, and a little privacy. After chatting for a bit he left and let us rest. There was another cyclist there who was from Australia and travelling the US for a bit. He, like us, didn’t have a very strict plan, he was just riding along. Now we have an Australian connection for when we decide to tour there. J

The next morning, we slowly got back onto the road towards New Orleans. The plan was to get to a state park, camp there for two nights, and then head into New Orleans to stay with one of the coolest people on the planet, Cheyenne. Unfortunately, things don’t go as planned. The weather when we left was gross and we had a late start, which made it impossible to get to the state park. But, because we were so close to New Orleans (and Louisiana’s swampy terrain) it was nearly impossible to find a stealth spot. Eventually, after some searching, we found a spot underneath an interstate overpass. It wasn’t the quietest place but it did the job.

Before heading to Bayou Segnette State Park we stopped by Starbucks to work and Best Buy to get some supplies. We didn’t actually get anything at Best Buy because, apparently, they don’t actually have things in stock. So, we just used Amazon to order exactly what we wanted instead of settling for what they had. After the work we hit the road to finish up our short 20 mile day. Unfortunately, short doesn’t mean stress free or easy. To get to Bayou Segnette we had to cross a massive bridge going over the Mississippi River. It was a stressful ride but we made it and after checking in we set up for the night.

The next morning, we finally were headed to New Orleans to rest for about a week. Though, the 15 mile ride would be one of the longest ones of our bike ride. Our first stop was to a welder to get Anna’s trailer welded, it cracked for the third time a few days earlier but this was our first chance to find an aluminum welder to get it fixed. We found a guy who makes giant aluminum boats and he fixed it up really quickly. Our original plan was to take a ferry across the Mississippi in order to avoid the bridge and to cut our travel time down, the ferry would dump us straight into the French Quarter where we were staying. Unfortunately, the ferry was broken. According to the ferry website the boats are “older than Neptune and prone to break”. It doesn’t appear that the city of New Orleans is putting any real effort into solving this problem in the long term. Shit just breaks all the time and people deal with it.

So, we were stuck with crossing the bridge again. We were most of the way up the bridge when my chain snapped. I was able to push my stuff up the rest of the bridge and then coast down to an abandoned lot where I could try to repair the chain. That didn’t go as planned. I didn’t have all the correct parts to replace the chain because I am dumb and forgot that I had used up the spare links when I was in Dallas. We found a bike shop two miles away and started walking.

Eventually we got the parts, fixed the bike, and started riding again. By this time it was already late afternoon and we decided to stop by a brewery on our route into New Orleans. The beer was good and it was a nice break from the crazy long and stressful day we had. We hit the road again after a few drinks and made it to our friend’s place in the French Quarter at around 6pm. We had to pee really badly from the beer, so fixing that was our first order of business. Then we hauled everything up to her third floor apartment, locked and covered our bikes and trailers in the alley, and then finally relaxed.

Our time in New Orleans was a mixture of business and pleasure. We worked a bunch, rested some, and got our bikes tuned up. We also explored the city with our wonderful friend Cheyenne as our guide. Cheyenne is one of the most beautiful spirits we’ve ever encountered. We met her years ago because of Burning Man. She was in Los Angeles at the time and needed a ride up to Burning Man, she connected with me through a mutual friend, and we gave her a ride to and from the Playa. She is one of those people whose love and passion and energy can motivate you to get involved and change the world. She also always opens her home to those in need (she actually hosted us in Olympia, Washington back in 2014 as well when she was in college there), and she is a wonderful tour guide and host. It was such a pleasure seeing her and exploring New Orleans with her.

New Orleans is a fun city and somewhere that we would like to visit more often. It has so much life and character, and generally finds a way to prevent the problems you see in other large cities. There is a substantial homeless population but the city is fairly clean. There are trash cans everywhere and you often see porta-potties and public toilets available (take note Los Angeles). We never felt unsafe while wandering around and the open container laws (and recent marijuana decriminalization) means the police are generally there to prevent violence and theft instead of being used to bring in money or harass people because of their vices. The city is expensive as shit though, which is one reason we would visit a lot instead of living there.

After a prolonged break (we were delayed because our bikes took longer to tune up than expected) we started hit the road again, this time with Mississippi on the near horizon. Leaving New Orleans was an experience itself. First, we stopped by Villalobos, the home of one of our favorite shows “Pit bulls and Parolees”. For those that don’t know, the show focuses on the day-to-day operations of Villalobos, a rescue organization that focuses on pit bulls and hires primarily parolees. The show is all about second chances and letting individuals (animals and humans) have a chance at a new, better life. We took some pictures while there and met some of the staff. The staff was fascinated by Higgins and his little adventure we’ve been on.

After Villalobos we had a lot of trouble getting out of the city. We were going through the 9^th Ward and it was clear that the culture and infrastructure was still suffering from Hurricane Katrina’s devestation. There was a real distrust of outsiders there, to the point where a cop told us we needed to move along quickly when we were in front of a store packing up the groceries we just bought. Apparently, because I decided to eat something while packing, we were loitering and couldn’t stay there to eat. This is the first time that has ever happened to us.

At another one of our stops we pulled into an abandoned lot to have a quick picnic. We weren’t there 20 minutes before a truck pulled up and told us that it was private property. It was clear he wanted to make sure we didn’t plan on staying long. Shortly after he left another car pulled up and the driver just stared at us while we packed up. She didn’t say anything, but she watched us until we were ready to leave.

We kept trucking and soon got to a bayou reserve with some picnic tables. We stopped to take another break and a cop pulled up to talk to us. He warned us about how dangerous it was in the area and told us we needed to be careful because he “just caught two people doing drugs earlier”. The mindset that “doing drugs” = “harm to other people” is really disturbing, but pretty common among law enforcement. Personally, I’d rather hang out with a drug user than a cop. It is way more likely that a police officer will shoot Higgins or I than a random pot smoker will. When the cop asked where we were staying that night we lied and said we had a friend a few miles up the road. It was better to lie to him than tell him we planned on stealth camping along the river.

Fortunately, we actually didn’t need to stealth camp along the river. Shortly after we passed a Catholic church one of the employees drove up and told us we could camp on the church property if we want. That was really nice of him and this marks the first time a Catholic church has been helpful. Generally, Catholic churches are the least supportive. They either ignore emails and phone calls or have policies against providing shelter for strangers. Our favorite denominations tend to be Presbyterian and Lutheran churches, they are usually friendly and don’t try to convert us. I’m not sure if there is a theological reason for why different denominations tend to treat us differently, or if the difference even exists, our sample size is hardly big enough to draw any real conclusions.

That night beside the church was our last one in Louisiana. The next day we rode the final 15ish miles to the Mississippi border. We had a tailwind and beautiful weather to keep us moving into our 17^th state.

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