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NOLA Trip, Day 1: A Missouri Yankee in Mardi Gras Court

I woke up this morning to find that Bryan and his mom had taken the car to buy king cakes–eight of them. We went to New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood for lunch. Oysters. And so it begins: two items already crossed off my ‘to eat’ list.

Today’s big parade was Endymion, and we made arrangements to meet Bryan’s cousins Rick and Judy and their family in “Mid-City”. We thought they’d have good advice about where to park, and where to stand. (Bryan asked “So have you been parking in the same place for this parade every year for the last twenty years?” Judy thought for a moment and said “No, I think it’s more like thirty.”) Also, we like them.

We waited in front of a huge building, still standing ruined and empty and paint-tagged five years after Katrina. The parade started at 4:15, and the first floats and bands reached us about two hours later. Here’s an interesting side point about bands in Mardi Gras parades. Normal parades have well behaved crowds, obediently sitting on the curb, like we did for the parades of my childhood, politely waiting for a wave or a handful of candy. This is different. It’s not that Mardi Gras crowds are BADLY behaved, it’s just that they’re crowd-y, and they actively push in toward the street, taking over the space, looking and waving and yelling and catching things. The out of town bands don’t know how to control this, being from places like Wisconsin where people wait meekly at the curb, and they end up shoved to the center, the whole band in a sad little knot walking in the middle of the street, a three-lane marching unit reduced to a lane and a half, sort of in crisis mode, looking worried and bumping into each other as they play.

So the NOLA high schools have BOUNCERS — this is not a joke — and they precede the band and they shove people back. “BACK TO THE LINE, PEOPLE, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO MOVE IT BACK RIGHT NOW.” Big guys and black women in track suits, out ahead. “KEEP IT BACK, PEOPLE.” And then the band comes through, and the band DOES NOT GIVE UP this space, and the guys on the end walk that lane line and if you’re in their way you’re just going to get knocked down, or hit with a drumstick, BOOM BOOM BOOM right in the head. So they put the BIG kids on the outside — the hefty burly band kids next to the pushing crowd, the little ones in the middle of the band, protected. And they keep that street, and it’s THEIR STREET.

The special throws for Endymion this year were a special stuffed football (in honor of the Saints’ great season) and a stuffed, embroidered penguin (because a baby bird was born on this day last year and named Endymion in honor of the krewe.) We caught enough beads to fill a huge bag, two of the footballs, and an amazing array of other junk: doubloons, cups, stuffed animals, a blinking necklace, fabric roses. Mandy didn’t get the special penguin, in spite sitting on Bryan’s shoulders and shouting requests for them at nearly every float. We’d only seen two penguins the whole time. They were pretty rare.

After every float had passed, we turned to leave. Back to the last float, headed toward the car, Mandy was in mid-gripe about her penguin-less-ness when she squealed and pounced on something lying face down on a patch of bare dirt. It was a penguin.

We got back to Metairie about ten, when the Isis parade was just reaching the spot a block away from the house. Mandy stayed with Aunt Dot while Bryan and I, along with his parents, walked down and waved at some more floats and got another half-shopping bag of stuff, including a couple of their special throws for this year.

(Stupid, stupid, I know. It’s like materialism but in a totally useless way, a strange combination of silliness and greed. What in the world am I going to do with plastic boxes full of beads? But it’s a new thing, and it’s funny, and we’ll have lots of nifty things to share when we get back to Little Rock.)

Click to see the photo larger.

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Hooray, SNOW!

Last night we went to bed smiling as the Who Dat Nation celebrated the Saints’ victory in Superbowl XLIV. This morning we awoke to a snow covered yard.

Really? Did hell freeze over because of a football team?!?!

Who cares? We finally have enough snow to play in! Mandy and Bryan built a snowman (Bryan’s first-ever) then they had a snowball fight and built a snow fort which, fortunately, didn’t see any action. I drove to work but didn’t stay long; I did a perfect donut in the parking lot (right in front of the surveillance camera) and was home for lunch.

The snow came down in big, fat, heavy, wet flakes and the weather oscillated between rain and snow most of the afternoon. We took a nap and then built another snowman before suppertime. The roads are ok tonight but will probably freeze over, and Bryan and Mandy already know they’re staying home again tomorrow.

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Sometimes you just need to camp

It’s been a long, icky sort of week, so we decided this weekend to camp at Lake Ouachita State Park. We planned to stay in the campground and go for a couple of bike rides from there. Mandy’s had a bad cold, though, so the 25-mile route Bryan had planned for Saturday was scrapped in favor of just exploring the state park.

Since the park’s mostly oriented toward fishing and watersports, it’s very quiet in the wintertime. It was nearly deserted on Super Bowl weekend. We took the outermost walk in tent site, on a little peninsula, and had the whole place to ourselves. The water was glass-smooth and the woods were completely silent. It was almost like backpacking, but with a lot less work, and a warm bathhouse.

We call this ‘Still Life with Camp Shoes and Kleenex.’

Mandy spent a pleasant, chilly evening sniffling and poking at her campfire. We had grilled brats and chips and beer and cream soda, which felt like a special treat compared to our usual fare of freeze dried backpacking dinners.

The low overnight was around freezing, and the morning didn’t warm up as expected. This, combined with Mandy’s persistent cold, meant that we cancelled our Sunday ride and rested after breakfast instead.

It wasn’t a weekend of high adventure, but we enjoyed the quiet lake and the winter woods.

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Go, Mom, Go!

All week, the weather forecast has indicated that yesterday we’d get a half inch of ice topped with up to several inches of snow. We were tremendously excited. We were all off work/school on Friday, but all we got was a very disappointing half inch of frozen rain and stupidity. Which we were determined to sled on. Before breakfast, I sanded, waxed, and resanded the runners of my old sled.

After a few test runs in our neighborhood, we drove to a nearby subdivision with a good quiet hill, complete with a good ninety degree turn at the bottom.

Here’s the SleddinCam Bryan set up, because he’s cool like that. And yes, it obstructed the pilot’s view just as much as you’d think from this photo. But I didn’t care. Check out the video from that run down the hill…

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9091541&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

Below are some ice-covered pretties that Bryan photographed while waiting for me to walk back up, because I got waaaay farther than he did due to my superior skill at hurtling down hills. Remember, I was raised by teenaged boys. Sometimes it shows.

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They fly?

Here is a photo of the type of “squirrel” we’ve been dealing with in our attic. This one appeared in our living room tonight without any invitation, probably due to the cold weather we’re having again. It (and the others I’ve removed over the last few months) are apparently southern flying squirrels.

Our cat Jose chased him into the kitchen and we thought he would take care of everything. Except all he wanted to do was play with the stupid thing. I was called to the scene to dispatch the squirrel and save the women folk and in short order peace was restored to the homestead.

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Unicycles on Ice

On Friday, there really wasn’t enough snow to play in, but enough sleet had fallen that the streets in our neighborhood were pretty slippery. So we thought a good idea would be to see if Mandy could ride a unicycle on it. I’m hard pressed to make this sound like a responsible parenting decision.

I think that up to now she has had the impression that she rides the uni in a straight line; this afternoon’s tracks in the snow prove otherwise.

And yeah, in retrospect, we probably should have had her wear a helmet today.

Be sure to note the noise made in this video by the still-falling sleet. It was a good day.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=9097312&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1

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Roof vent goopy-goop

With the eight inches of rain we received in two days back at Christmas time, we became aware that the ~23 year old house had a leaking roof vent.

So we took a clear afternoon and got out the ladder, some roof vent goopy-goop, latex gloves and proceeded to smear each vent with a layer of sealer.

We’re hoping the sealer does the job and when we wind up replacing the roof (original to the house) we’ll replace all the vents outright.

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Lynn Rides Again

Lynn Brucker rides a unicycle at CRF Hamilton Valley.
Lynn Brucker rides a unicycle at CRF Hamilton Valley. Also in the photo (l-r) are unknown, Lynn Brucker, Mandy Harris, Matt Goska, Joyce Hoffmaster, and Mike Carter (the one from Arkansas).

Mandy brought our unicycle to Hamilton Valley at New Years to show off her new found unicycling skills and in conversation with the Bruckers, Mandy found out that Lynn used to be able to ride a unicycle.

So on the last morning of the Expedition, Lynn tried out Mandy’s uni on the sidewalk in front of the bunkhouses. I was loading up the car when Aly tapped me on the shoulder and told me to grab my camera so as to document the moment.

I shot the scene with my Pentax K10D shooting away at 3fps, hoping to catch something but not knowing if it would be success or failure. Lynn made two short but successful rides and the image shown above is a composite from this second ride. Remember to click on the image to see it larger.

If anyone can identify the guy on the left, please let me know in the comments. Thanks!

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Jellybean Storage Epiphany

I’m pleased to report that with this past weekend’s hike, I’ve perfected my jellybean routine. Really, this is such an important point that I’ve removed mention of it from the actual backpacking blog entry and made it an entirely separate post. That’s how important it is that you understand.

For years, Jelly Belly beans have been a sort of ritual for me. I always hike with a baggie of them, and I eat them one at a time and make a note of what flavor they are. For years I’ve fought ripped jellybean bags and been frustrated by floppy Ziploc and sticky beans spilled out in pack pockets and left to fuse themselves together in the damp darkness.

I recently had a Jellybean Storage Epiphany and bought this fabulous rectangular Nalgene from the Container Store. It fits perfectly in my hipbelt pocket and makes me very happy. I cut out the ‘flavor guide’ or whatever it’s called, cut it in half, and stuck it to the sides of the bottle with packing tape.

And then I asked Bryan to take these excellent photos of my Jellybean Bottle. That’s how important it is that you understand. (Thanks sweety!)

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Ouachita Trail, Section 3

I wanted to start out fresh, west to east, to see if we could hike the whole 220-mile trail in a year or two. I even bought the newest edition of the Ouachita Trail guidebook, just for the occasion. We’d intended to take Martin Luther King’s three day weekend to do section one. The 90% chance of rain on Saturday changed that, though, because none of us wanted to start out a January backpacking trip with a day of rain. The revised two-day hiking plan called for section three instead, starting from Queen Wilhelmina State Park.

In the parking lot there, we met a dayhiker from Texas. “How long have you been making HER do this?” he asked, gesturing toward Mandy, next to the car, fiddling with her hiking poles. I understand that most twelve year olds don’t think carrying a 20-pound pack seventeen miles is a great weekend, but we assured him that Mandy was in the woods because she wanted to be.

Before long we left our dayhiker behind, doing a pencil sketch at a pretty overlook. Some time after lunch, we picked up a cache of water we’d left near the FR 516 road crossing, and pumped our bottles and platys full, too, since day two’s hike will be along a ‘razorback ridge’ with unreliable water supplies.

We camped in the creek bottoms past the crossing. Bryan and Mandy enjoyed their Mountain House freeze-dried beef stew, and Mandy expressed great disappointment that tomorrow night we’d be off the trail, so she wouldn’t be able to eat the macaroni and cheese she’d picked out. I’m glad they like this stuff, but I still can’t find freeze dried food I like. I’m going to start eating oatmeal for supper, too, I guess. We dutifully hung our food and toiletries from the trees. Since we found evidence of a previous fire we built a small one, too, though it was chilly enough that it really didn’t help a lot.

There are plenty of evident camp spots on this section of trail, many with fire rings. We saw one right next to an old, old stone wall mentioned in Ernst’s trail guide. I can’t help but wonder what story the wall could tell. Who lived here, way back when this narrow road trace was the way to school, or to the store, or to the neighbors’? How far away were those things? What was life like, in these woods, all those years ago? We run across evidence of people living here seldom enough that, when it happens, it’s worth spending some daydream-time on.

Day two’s hike was similarly pleasant and uneventful, except for sore feet and tired hips. The weather was nice; quite warm for January, but still pretty chilly in the wind. Bryan, with his Adventure Watch, pointed out that we were finding the mile markers exactly a half-hour apart: we were still making two mph, even on this very rocky section of the trail. Just at dusk, we arrived at the Highway 71 road-crossing. We loaded up the truck and headed back to pick up the Subaru, and some supper, and to start the long drive home in the dark.