Sunny day, lazy day - Part the 3rd (at long last)

The short version of this is . . . I didn't do laundry. There . . . I said it.

What I did do was go for another ride the next day. Turns out it was another beautiful, cool day with light breezes, partly cloudy skies, and . . . well . . . isn't that enough?


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I headed to Farr Park, about 5 miles downriver from me, partly in hope of seeing if the bald eagle's nest remained occupied. I'd heard about it and had gotten a fair idea of where it could be seen in the batture from the levee. I didn't want to bother the nest but I enjoy birds and seeing bald eagles is a good thing.

As I headed out I had to make the usual choices for route. The levee was my immediate goal so there weren't too many choices - basically, over to Spanish Town Road / 3rd Street / Lafayette / River Road or 6th Street / North Boulevard / River Road - for the first choice. I don't much care for the 6th / North option so STR it was.

The next choice - how to access the Levee? There's only one "authorized" access point to the levee path in downtown and it sure wasn't designed by someone who rode a bicycle. To get to the access you have to get to South Boulevard via St Phillip, a sometimes trafficky street that feeds a major southbound thoroughfare out of downtown. South Boulevard isn't that bad in itself.

The other option is a dicey bit of River Road that runs between the casino parking garages and the casino hotel. The surface is pretty beat up, there's usually motor traffic going in and out of the garages and the parking lot, and the street runs parallel to and on the same grade as the railroad tracks that feed and empty the refinery complex just north of downtown. Not pretty. At the end of that stretch is a stop sign that requires a 90 degree turn onto South then a short sprint to the access point.

From under the Bridge it looks like this.

One of the Casino parking garages in the distance.

Welcome to the Levee Path

That access is in a curve where River Road becomes South Boulevard under the Mississippi River Bridge / I-10. You have to cross a band of gravel kicked to the side of the curve by the motor traffic then push up a short steep section while dodging bollards and warning signs. That's followed by a brief flat then another incline. There's a smaller intersecting path that allows access for the golf carts hauling gamblers, too lazy or too infirm to walk, from the parking lot to the casino. More often than not the golf carts have to really gun it to make the incline with their load of obese hopefuls and we're often in conflict.

Coming down there is even more fun as the relatively steep decline requires dodging the same bollards and signage keeping motor vehicles (mostly) off the levee while braking to avoid the gravel and being shot straight out into traffic passing in the curve. It can be fun to attempt an exit there at speed but "fun" is interpreted differently by different people. Most would say is was anything BUT fun.

Me? I prefer the unauthorized access via the "Labyrinth" between the LASM and the USS Kidd.

Granted, it's not really a labyrinth but a handicap access ramp that cuts back and forth from the railroad tracks running between the street and the levee to the top of the levee. Built back in the 1980s (maybe?) it probably doesn't meet the current ADA guidelines for slope but, hey, it works on a bicycle and I've never seen anyone in a wheelchair on that facility.  In fact, the labyrinth is mostly, from the smell of it, a urinal for the homeless and the drunk.

At last . . . on the levee and heading downriver. The first thing I noticed was the river was up. Not flood stage up but way higher than it had been. The USS Kidd had been sitting there by the batture with air under her keel for months and now, somewhat suddenly, she was riding high in the Big Muddy. Hard to miss, that.

As I headed past the casino (no golf carts this time) and under the bridge I noticed the barge traffic, lots of barge traffic. The River had been so low that the Corps had imposed restrictions on barge loads. With such low water the barges wouldn't haul as much weight meaning more frequent and lighter trips meaning higher costs. A lot of traffic just stopped while waiting for the water to come up; now that the water was up so was the traffic. The diesels in the push boats and pull boats and auxiliary boats were chugging and spewing away in the river and along the banks of the river.

Amphibians in a piquant diesel sauce

I stopped at one point where the high water had flooded the batture a little. The relatively warm weather and the high water had gotten the amphibians all excited and they were chirping and croaking and buzzing back and forth loudly enough to overcome the sound of the boats. I love the sound of those places on the batture when froggie goes a'courting. While far from a herpetologist (though I did dabble in it back in junior high school) I am convinced there are different populations of amphibians in various sections of the batture when flooded based on the sonic differences alone. If anyone reading this (assuming . . . ) knows for sure, I'd love to hear about it.

 At this point, turning to get back to riding I noticed how beautiful the light was. It had taken me quite a while to leave home and my late start put me by the frogs with an hour or so of light left in the day. There's something about the quality of light just then combined with the high thin, though broken, clouds that gives everything a slightly metallic blue-gray edge backed by an increasingly yellow-orange quality. As time passed the twilight gathering behind me added that great slow fade to blue-black . . . but that's getting ahead of things.

Not too much further along three white pelicans came in low over the levee behind my right shoulder. They were skirting the tops of trees in the batture at the edge of the River headed across to the south and west. Odd yet oddly majestic in appearance these big migratory birds are another seasonal favorite of mine. I love it when they arrive in December or January and miss them when they leave.

A little while later I made it to Farr Park and a bit beyond to the eagle nest. I was in luck as there was one adult bird there, back lit by the setting sun, perched on a branch high above the ground near the nest. Because of the light I couldn't tell if it was the male or the female. Luckily, a young couple was there and they let me borrow their binoculars for a minute or two of enhanced peeping-tomery. With the enhanced sight I could distinguish the eagle was male. People can be so nice!

It was really beginning to get on to sunset, the sun was more red than yellow, the twilight in the east more pronounced, so I headed back upriver. On the way, as I neared the LSU campus, I noticed once again what I had taken for a parasail earlier but it was too far up and away for me to be sure what it was. Now, as the sky darkened and the thing leaded for landing I could see that it was an ultralight craft of some ilk, kind of a glider with a push motor behind the pilot. What I had taken for clever handling in, around, and through thermals at the end of the day was really motor-driven pilotcraft. Slightly disappointed to know there was a motor involved. I watch the flier approach the ground but didn't watch him land.

The transition from day to night as it passes through twilight is one of my favorite things to experience. The light changes so much, the sounds change, temperatures, everything slowly shifts from one form to another.

I could see the edge of night come across the sky as the sun fell below the rim of the earth. The first planets and stars appeared, cars on River Road now featured two bright spots, and the new lights in the upper tiers of Tiger Stadium began to cycle through their purple and gold routines. Lights lining the Mississippi River Bridge came on and the Capitol, lit up from above and below, guided me home.