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Monday, November 19, 2001 - From the Center of L.A. to the Center of LA
52 miles. Oberlin, LA to Willie's Washington Campground, Washington, LA
Awoke to another chilly, dewy morning, which is what
we have come too expect. We end up packing up a wet tent and starting out with
our long pants, warm shirt, jacket and a scarf. By around 9 or 10:00 it is
warming up nicely and we are able to ride in shorts and short sleeved shirts.
When we stop for lunch, we pull the tent and tarp out to dry in the sun.
We hit the road around 7:30, with a very slight fog in
the air. Our first stop was Mamou (pop. 3482), reputed by the locals at Curley's
RV Camp to have a better Mardi Gras than New Orleans. It also has a famous party
place called Fred's that has its Saturday night parties broadcast live on local
radio, just like we saw in a recent movie.
The road to Mamou was flat, with mostly fallow rice
fields and some sugar cane along the way. There is a rice mill in Lake Charles,
south of Oberlin. The fields are flooded with water from a nearby bayou or
pumped from the ground with its very high water table. It appears little of the
rice work is done by hand as in the orient. It is all mechanized with the output
being sold to South America and the Caribbean.
By 9:00 it was warm enough to peel off all our extra
clothing. Once in Mamou, we were looking for lunch. There were no restaurants
that we could find, and the grocery store hadn't opened yet. So we ended up
eating at the Shell station (pork BBQ sandwiches, not too bad), where a tanker
truck ran over our drying tent, no harm just a dirty mark. Good thing gas
stations have mini stores, or we would often end up without lunch (on the other
hand, would all those Mom and Pop restaurants still be open if they
didn't?).
After leaving Mamou, we continued on to Opelousas (pop.
18,151) past more rice fields and then some nicely wooded areas. The road was
very pretty where the forest was. We made it Opelouass, fairly early, so we went
to the washteria to do our laundry, ate a Big Bufford burger with Cajun fries
and then hit the Piggly Wiggly before heading 5 miles up the road to camp in
Washington (pop. 1,253). Passing thru Washington we went by a truly awesome live
oak with a spread greater than its height and long, pendulous branches hanging
down to the ground, touching it, and then growing upward again. I could imagine
it being a National Champion tree.
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