|
 
Wednesday, November 21, 2001 - Pickin' Up Pe-cans and Put 'Em in Your Pocket, Etc.
55 miles. Simmesport, LA to Green Acres Campground, St. Francisville,
LA
Getting out of our cozy sleeping bags was not easy
today when confronted by the coldest night of the season so far here in CenLa.
It was About 32* at dawn so we packed up after our starter breakfast of hot
applesauce, warm hotdog buns and coffee. We then rode the mile into Simmesport
(pop. 2092) for a real breakfast at a restaurant.
We relaxed inside while it warmed up and then took off
for our ride along the Mississippi to the St. Francisville ferry. First we
crossed the Atchafalaya River (harder to pronounce than to spell). The
Atchafalaya is the course that the Mississippi would take naturally if it could.
It is now used as an overflow valve when the big river is high.
At one point we passed a sign indication a ferry to
Angola, home of a large state penitentiary. We did not take it. It reminded me
of what I had read in a newspaper back in the restaurant. It was the president
of the NEA asking Louisiana to spend as much on education as it spends on
prisons.
Near Morganza we passed large sluice gates that can be
opened when necessary to drain the flooding Mississippi into the Atchafalaya.
The river would be VERY high when this happens. It was a beautiful, clear day
with light breezes after the strong north winds of yesterday. All in all it was
an enjoyable ride as we wound our way down the riverside on lightly traveled
roads flanked by the leveed Mississippi on the left and large, fallow cotton
fields on the right.
Along the way we passed a number of what must have been
sharecropper huts, now abandoned. This was the life of perpetual indentured
servitude that awaited many of the emancipated after the Civil War. As The Who
said, "Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss."
Thirty three miles of Delta pedaling brought us to
Morganza, LA (pop. 759). Here we stopped for a break of Pepsi and brownies
bought from the Girl Scouts' bake sale back in Simmesport. While we rested
someone brought in some pecans they had picked up from their yard. The
storeowner weighed them and paid 29 cents a pound for them. He later takes them
to a mill for shelling.
It turns out that this was a very good year for pecans,
the best in the 30 years said the buyer. There was lots of rain in mid Summer
and the pecan crop is enormous. A more typical year might fetch a price of 50-75
cents a pound while a year of scarcity could bring as much as $1.25 a pound.
This is the very heart of the natural range of the wild pecan and they grow
everywhere here and seem to be the dominant tree. Pecan orchards here are rare
and the nuts are just picked up where they fall and brought to market helter
skelter. It must be great to be a Louisiana squirrel.
After Morganza we rode until we came to the river,
which is low right now, and then took the free ferry to the east bank and on
into St. Francisville, which is the second oldest town in Louisiana, New Orleans
being first I assume. Here we checked out a caboose that was open and on
display. It has always been my fantasy to take a long train ride in a caboose
enjoying the view and sleeping in it while traveling, not a likely prospect
now.
Entering St. Francisville meant climbing a short steep
bluff into the loessland of Eastern LA. Here the terrain changes dramatically
from Delta flat to small, heavily wooded rolling hills. We spent the night
across from a state historic site, where James Audubon lived and did a 28 of his
famous ornithological paintings.
|
