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Day 41- Simmesport LA

 If yesterday was all about rice, today’s crop was sugar cane. It’s as if we stayed on the dividing line last night because the rice fields were no more, replaced with a acre upon acre of sugarcane, or bare red dirt where it had already been harvested. It’s quite a bit taller than it looks from the road.


I didn’t have too many questions until I saw a loader by a pile in the field a little farther along the road. At first I thought it was dirt, but when a truck pulled in, I stopped to watch and realized it was the cans. Tammi pulled up and filled in the gaps for me. A machine goes out, cuts the stocks, strips them of the green part and chopped them to size. Then shoots them out into a trailer being pulled behind which is then taken to a truck like the one I saw to go to the processing plants.


Once I had my fill, we continued onto the town of Bunky where we stopped at griffins antiques and market. It has an old-fashioned lunch counter and an amazing array of pies cakes and pastries along with just about anything else you might want.


We learned that the town was named after the founders daughters pet monkey, and somehow the high school mascot end up being not the monkey monkeys but the Bunky panthers. We did not get the story on that. What a pity.

Next game Cottonport, a lovely town with a river running alongside the road.

I’m still pretty fascinated by the way the trees grow right in the water.

All that lovely ended as we headed out of town and into headwinds that range from 10 to 15 mph. And, of course, this is where the pavement started to fall apart. Cue the Cuisinart on the juice setting.

(This isn’t even the worst of it)

Hey Governor Edwards, how about sprinkling some of that infrastructure money into Avoyelles Parish, shall we?

We’re now at the Christ the King Catholic Church for the night, staying in the religious Ed building. I picked a room that has the 10 Commandments on the walls, in both the original text and kids speak with the exception of thou shalt not commit adultery. Guess that one’s a little bit hard to explain to a first grader.


Things I learned today:

  • Yoga after a ride is very beneficial
  • A good cow face can improve your mood



Comments

  1. I just showed Doug your cow picture. He agrees. He also loves cows! Debbie

    ReplyDelete

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