Cycling Ellen

52.1 miles today
2152.9 total

For the next 24 hours or so, I’m going to live the life of a Southern Belle.  I’m staying here at the Butler Greenwoods Plantation in St. Francisville without internet, without cell service and my watch just died last night.  I’m sharing the original cookhouse with Jeannie, our own building with our own bedrooms (my bed has mosquito netting), our own bathrooms, a Jacuzzi tub to share next to the original well (which has Plexiglas over it) and our own kitchen.  I’m sitting here writing with a cup of herb tea after a delicious Southern dinner (shrimp, collard greens with beans, Cajun cornbread and salad) over on the verandah of the little house next door. My friend, Debbie, who I met on the Vermont WomanTours trip, surprised me by showing up for dinner here.  She lives in Baton Rouge and it was great to see her!

I’ve been looking at the information about this area and I think I might just ride my bicycle to visit some neighboring plantations on our rest day tomorrow.  Alright, maybe Scarlett O’Hara wouldn’t have ridden her bicycle, and I definitely don’t have the right clothes, but I think I could get into this lifestyle!

Half of our group is staying here in various buildings spread out around the gorgeous grounds.  The trees on the driveway are filled with Spanish moss.  There are a few resident cats, some fearless ducks and a peacock that strolls around the grounds.  Dawn has seen birds of all colors from her porch across the pond.  The other half of our group sounded equally content with their lodgings at the St. Francisville Inn in town.  They have the convenience of being in town but I can spend the day on the porch swing on our back porch.  Life is good for all of us.

We were also split into two groups for another reason this morning.  The Mississippi River is so swollen that the ferry that we were supposed to take to get here isn’t able to run until the water levels go down.  The nearest bridge doesn’t allow bicycles so Linda had to drive half the group directly from Simmesport this morning into St. Francisville with the bikes on top of the van.  It was an hour and a half one way.  She then drove back to Morganza to pick the rest of us up who had ridden our bikes on the original route as far as we could before the water caused road closings.  I got in 50 miles or so until we had to stop before the ferry landing place and turn around to go back to Not Your Mama’s Café, our meeting place in Morganza.

I was so glad to have ridden the route which ran along the levees most of the way.  It was a cold but beautiful morning and we rode past fields, a few houses, and cows, horses and donkeys feeding on the sides of the levees.  At one point there were many pickup trucks parked on the side of the levee that turned out to be the landing place for the Angola prison workers.  We chatted with the guard at the top of the levee who said there are 5200 prisoners there.  We had seen some this morning on our way out of town cleaning the sides of the highways.

At dinner last night we had been talking about all the dogs that have been chasing us.  Different women have different strategies for dealing with them.  Candice has her whistle which she blasts.  That has worked really well for her except for the deaf Doberman who helped her set a new speed record on her bicycle.  Sue squirts them with her water bottle.  Kat, we call the dog whisperer, as she slows down and talks to the dogs.  Some of us speed up and try to out run them (does it surprise you that I’m in that group?).  This morning, I watched Debbie as she tried a new technique.  When a beagle type dog came running out I heard her say, “Want to race?” and the dog started running right along beside her at about 15 mph.  It was barking excitedly for a while and then started panting but kept running.  When two other dogs came out to chase, he ran them off and resumed running next to Debbie.  Micki came along with the sag Subaru and tried beeping her horn but the dog kept running.  Eventually, everyone stopped and the dog lay down at my feet next to my bike, a race well run.  We were laughing at the sight of this dog working so hard, now lying on his back for a good belly scritching.  I picked him up, handed him to Micki and she drove him back to his house a mile or so back.  He ran up his driveway (and probably took a good long nap) and we’ve been chuckling ever since.

It was clear why the ferry was closed when we got to the Spillway Bridge on SR 1 before Morganza.  Water was everywhere and the trees were just peeking up with their topmost branches.  It looked like a Mississippi Lake and we weren’t even seeing the whole river.  Later, we crossed it from a highway bridge near Baton Rouge where we could see all kinds of refineries on the edge of the river.  I’m glad I got to see it without the manmade obstacles nearby first.

I’m also happy that we had time in Morganza as we enjoyed a delicious lunch at the café.  Since Linda called and said she’d be later than she had anticipated, I rode my bike around town a little more.  We stopped at the local grocery store and met the butcher who showed us the pig intestines used to make sausage, pigtails and feet, frozen rabbits and some alligator meat in his freezer (from a nuisance alligator).  He said the alligator tastes like chicken.  Maybe I’ll try some in Florida.

I also found a purple crawfish bag on the side of the road.  They are similar to the sacks that oranges come in and will make a nice new laundry bag to replace the plastic one I left behind the other day.

Time to close up the shutters on the kitchen door and climb into my 4 poster for the night.  I could get used to this.