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The Preacher Said I Was A Loner

The pastor's sermon Saturday afternoon dealt with people who were often alone even when in a crowd. Ironically, I had just had that discussion with Darlene the morning before that so Pastor Dino's message was pretty much a confirmation as if it was for me personally. Not that it's a life altering situation, it's just how some people are wired. However, we are designed to overcome certain things that can prevent us from growing even as we get older.

Taking that in mind, I decided to join a group ride to New Orleans from the Harley shop in Baton Rouge, Sunday. Typically, when I'm in a crowd, I smile a bunch, shake a few hands and promptly forget any name given, but yesterday I genuinely made an effort to be get to know some folks but when you're on a relatively loud Harley, there ain't a whole lot of conversation that's going to happen.

We fired up at 9 AM and rode down old River Road through Geismar, Burnside, Convent, Kenner and stopping a couple of times before eventually arriving at the New Orleans Fairgrounds where we had an awful buffet lunch. The trip there, in it's self, was an effort in dealing with 50 riders with 50 different riding styles but we were blessed with no incidents or accidents. Everyone was friendly enough but alas, I forgot (I told you I would forget them) the names of everybody I met except for a couple of the guys I hooked up with on the way back as we detoured around Lakeshore and the New Orleans Yacht Club.

I'm looking forward to doing that again and maybe I can get to know them a little better next time.

A great day to spend doing absolutely nothing!

A great day to spend doing absolutely nothing!

Leaving Darlene in dreamland with the coffee pot on auto pilot, I fired Boudreau up relatively early at the crack of dawn to go to a men's bible study at Frank's this morning. Aside from that, everything else was pretty much a worthless day except for a few miles and a tank of gas. This is one of my first 'official' vacation days I've taken this year so I took off with my trusty camera just to take pictures and ride my bike.

Going down River Road, I stopped off at a local tourist trap near Sorrento where there's a fenced off area behind old houses that make up the village. Behind a 6 foot heavy duty chain link fence, there's an alligator or two that hang out waiting on a daily ration of a whole chicken. There's not much motivation for them to wander off because the eating is good and I suppose the nuisance level is pretty low too. He must have been around 10 feet long. Just take my word for it because I wasn't about to stroll out there with a yardstick to see how long his tail was. They may not have fed it the chicken for the day.

The fall flowers were out and so were the bees, hornets and mosquitoes. On this photo of the berry, you can make out my image reflecting on the skin of the berry.

A ride down old Airline Highway toward Gramercy had me getting off the bike to see what I could see in the water. I noticed a crab swimming at the top and occasionally flicking water with it's claw.

Looking at a cabin across the barr pit, I remember years ago traveling along Highway 61 and seeing small houseboats lining the banks for miles. Here's one of the last hold outs for cabins.

As I was taking the picture of the crab, a young woman came across on her small personal ferry and crawled into a Bayou Beater (maybe a 15 year old Nissan) apparently headed to work. I would have figured it occupied by some old crusty fellow like myself. Notice the satellite receiver to the left of the to the building. Sounds kind of romantic in a way but a 'Tammy', she wasn't. Bless her heart, she was probably scrounging for every dime just to make a living but at least she is working.....she's a real kind of girl.

Still a nice day to be in Louisiana.

They don't make'em like they used to.

Spending the weekend with my mother, we talked about her keeping the place up, winter coming on, etc. She stays pretty active with a fairly large place to keep up. Her complaints usually include keeping the battery up on the pick-up truck and how the grass grows so quickly.

She had a man come by to cut some wood for her early so it could dry a bit before winter. Although he split much of it, there were some pieces she felt was too large for the fireplace, so she set out to split it on her own.

One log in particular wouldn't seem to split so she inserted a wedge in the crack of it and began to hammer it down with the butt end of a single bit axe. After a few mighty swats, the axe broke. I guess they don't make them like they used to.

In defense of the axe, it was an axe that my grandfather had and probably well over a hundred years old. Mama is only 87.

Nope, they just don't make'em like they used to.

Whoops!

OK, OK, I know. I've been hiding for a year on this blog. Maybe I've been in a funk, a mental block or whatever. One thing may be that I destroyed my 'good' camera and haven't had the drive to send out photos and tales. The last time I posted, Darlene and I were still in the 'Maui' mode.

For a while, I thought I had some kind of entitlement to states with palm tree in them.

Also, I've been in a new phase at work, flitting from one short term location to another. Over the past year, I've been in Arkansas, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Connecticut, Florida, a couple of shots at Texas and a couple more in Louisiana. My bags are worn out.

I promise to be much better in the future.