Day 41: Oberlin to Chicot State Park 50.1 miles and 446 ft of climb
The stay in Oberlin was very pleasant, with the American Legion cooking dinner for us. The park adjacent to the Legion hall was also nice and level with a large, soft grassy area to pitch our tents. However, there was only one bath and shower available for all 15 of us to use and if someone was in the shower, no one could use the toilet. Late in the afternoon, a truck dropped off some port-a-pots and then promptly told us they were for an event tomorrow and we couldn’t use them. Tip: locks on port-a-pots are not very secure.
Mark and I were scheduled to do dinner that evening, but shopping was very limited. Not just in Oberlin, but in other communities nearby. We were going to spend the night at Chicot (pronounced shee-coe) State Park. Mark and I went to the grocery store when it opened up at 7:00am. Everyone else hit the road (except Harris who stayed behind in order to ride with Mark and me). We wanted to make a dinner with a local flair. It was a small store with a little dining area in it and also a very large meat counter. Mark picked out some locally made venison sausage and I picked up some onions and green peppers. We also bought the ingredients for red beans and rice along with locally made Cajun seasoning. We ended starting our ride about an hour behind everyone else. We didn’t care, no one was getting dinner until we arrived in camp.
Outside of Oberlin we saw rice fields and crawfish farms. I took a picture of a farmer working in his crawfish pond. Crawfish, crawdads, and Mud Bugs are all different names for the same thing. Crawdads look like mini lobsters. I also took a picture of the wheeled boats they use while working in the ponds.
The flat road was a little rough, but there was light traffic and it was a beautiful, sunny day. We were only 50 feet above sea level here and I can now better understand how hurricanes can cause so much damage this far inland.
We reached the town of Mamou, LA at lunchtime and encountered several of our group taking a break at the Mou Latte Coffee Shop. Here is a picture of us on their facebook page. I am third from the right in the group photo.
Some of us had lunch at The Krazy Cajun Cafe. I had the shrimp étouffée and it was great. It came with a salad and fried okra. While we were there the waitress overheard us talking about the crawfish farms we saw and she told us how the crawfish were trapped and harvested. She had an actual wire trap and showed us how they were used to trap crawfish. She was a sweet lady. She also told us a story about when she was a little girl. It seems frequently when she arrived home from school, her mother would hand her a string with bait (hunks of fish) and she would go to a nearby canal and catch a few. When she had enough, she would take them home, her mother would boil them and give them to her as a snack.
But wait, there’s more! We were also on the Facebook Post!
After Mamou, the next town we rode to was Ville Platte. As we entered town, two dogs came after us, snarling and barking. When they were close to Harris (riding in front), I hit my Sonic Blast boat horn and unlike the last three times, it worked and the dogs stopped their attack. This was a very poor town and the people we encountered were not very friendly. I was happy to leave and ride on to Chicot State Park.
Our campsite was about four miles into the park. There were a lot of deciduous trees, a change from the yellow pine woods we saw in Merryville. We also crossed a body of water with Cyprus trees growing in it and saw above ground burial sites due to the hight water table. We were definitely in bayou country.
The dinner that Mark and I prepared was a success. They ate it. We didn’t tell them it was venison sausage until afterwards. We had pita chips and pork rinds for appetizers, too. The pita chips went fast and the pork rinds not so fast. Not very adventurous eaters.
It is supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow. There is also some discussion about going back to Mamou in the van tomorrow morning to visit Fred’s Lounge. Mamou is called “The Cajun music capital of the world.” Fred’s is only open Saturday mornings from 8:00am to 2:00pm and the most important thing to know is that there is live music, it is Zydeco and you may have to dance. Bon temps!
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