Headed south toward New Orleans. We have driven for days mostly below the ankle of Louisiana’s boot. Almost every road is a long bridge through hundreds of miles of flat land rowed with undulating waves of sugar cane. Massive plumes of clouds cushion the sunburned blue sky above palms and sawgrass hiding at the edge of and under the highway, oblivious to the vehicles. We drive over swamps and marsh and water-soaked jungle where the moss hangs like organic curtains in trees that grow fatter and spread near the roots, sucking at the moist earth beside rippling pools of turtles, gators, frogs and white birds in the rotting undergrowth.
A flatbed truck passes on this flat road. It is loaded with blue pipes that sing in the wind like a 70 mph pipe organ. This is hurricane country. Katrina was here, Rita was here, and no one has forgotten their mannerless visits.
Almost every gas station is a restaurant and a casino as well. Drive-in daiquiri shacks dot the highways. We pass Houma and her cattails clumped in the marsh. Brackish bayous lace the lush terrain. Docks and rusted barns with roofs scarred and twisted by the wind sit near Grand Isle. Water is green with algae under wooden walkways. Low houses hug the earth and mobile homes bake in the sun amongst the tangled vegetation that squeezes the road into a thin, curveless, concrete drive.
Handpainted signs prop against trees in front of nets and crawfish traps and airboats and johnboats. “Seafood.” “Crawfish.” “Live Crabs.” “World Famous Bloody Marys.” “Daiquiris.” Pictures of alligators are everywhere amongst the metal buildings.
We cross a tall bridge over big working boats, barges and grain elevators into Kenner, Louisiana. I-10 widens and New Orleans is to our right. We see the damage of the worst hurricane in American history still being cleared. And then it happens.
Ben is behind us in the rented Mazda van with all of our equipment. Robin sees it first. A piece of wood is in the road. The 4×4 is under Ben’s van before we know it and rips the back passenger tire. Boom, we hear the tire explode. He hobbles to the side of the busy interstate. We pull over. A flat tire on the flattest road in the flattest place in America. What are the odds?
Continued on next blog
