| Cross-Country Ramble 33:
Across the Father of all Waters Date: 3/21/98 6:21:41 PM
Central Standard Time
After the gut-wrenching, knuckle-whitening, never-again sprint
across the long, no-shoulder I-10 bridge over the Sabine River into
Louisiana, the question of how we were going to get across the
Mississippi never left my mind. I am a natural fretter--able to fret
even when all is well--and this dilemma got my fret machine going
full blast. It got going especially well in still of the night. Even
while I was Cajun dancing at Borque's, part of my mind was worrying
away at the problem.
Getting across rivers is one of those problem that sort of snuck
up on us. Crossing rivers had been no big deal for the first 1700
miles of our trip. During the whole two months, we had only crossed
two rivers with water in them, the Colorado and the Rio Grande, and
for all the publicity they get, they are really more streams than
rivers.
The Mississippi is different. From everything we hear, crossing
the Mississippi involves big, heavily traveled bridges preceded by
long, probably narrow, causeways across the wetlands between the
Atchafalaya and the Mississippi. Going that way has got to make the
Sabine crossing seem like a picnic.
Finding a route that will work for us is a classic linear
programming problem--find the optimum solution within specified
constraints. Our routing problem is made more difficult by our
particular constraints: no biking in the dark, stay indoors at
night, bike no more than 40 miles per day, no shoulder-less river
crossings, and minimal hills. All my fretting wasn't getting me a
solution. In desperation, I broke the masculine rule against asking
for help, and issued a plea to my colleagues of the Touring
Newsgroup on the Internet. Several wonderful people responded and
told me where to look. Scanning the map, I was able to discern in
small print the letters "FY" which I took to indicate ferries at
Melville on the Atchafayala and at St. Francisville on the
Mississippi. The route jumped out at me. It would involve biking 50
miles, 5 of them on gravel, but it would work! Ecstasy!
I recalled that AAA maps have a little box that gives details on
ferry schedules. Should I bother to look? My fret machine springs
into action, and I look. The map says the ferry at Melville runs
only between 4-8 AM and 5-9 PM. We'll have to bike the 25 miles from
Washington to Melville after sunup and before 8 AM or we'll have to
bike the 25 miles from Melville to St. Francisville between 5 PM and
sundown. Quick figuring tells the sad story. We can't possibly make
it. Arghhhhh! The fret machine fires up again. We need some way of
being magically transported to Melville before the morning ferry
closes.
Divine intervention comes to us in the form of June, our B&B host
who had taken us to Borque's the night before. She checks out some
of the people she knows who own pickup trucks, and when they can't
help, she offers to transport us in her Jeep early the next morning.
Oh Joy!
After the preceding emotional roller coaster, the actual crossing
of the Atchafalaya and Mississippi Rivers is almost anticlimactic by
comparison. June gets up early, feeds us a great breakfast, and gets
us to the Melville ferry as the sun is coming up. We have the car
ferry to ourselves as we ride across. The sun breaks through the
clouds and lights up the marshes along the road. Temperatures are
cool. We have a breeze at our back. The gravel road turns out to be
hard-packed and no problem. Traffic is sparse. It seems like almost
no time has passed when we arrive at the Mississippi crossing. The
ferry takes us right into St. Francisville, and we find ourselves
biking on streets lined with wonderful 17th and 18th century homes
and mansions, including a neat 1835 Episcopal church situated in the
middle of its graveyard.
We're happy. We're relieved. That night, I sleep all night and
awake refreshed.
Ken
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