Down in Louisiana where the alligators grow so grand

Eddie had gotten us in touch with a guy a little further west in Louisiana through the ADVrider forum. We met up with Richie in a small town along a river, and he had brought his boat to take us alligator watching. After consuming a lunch consisting of deep fried alligator Po’boys we hit the river, just like Captain Willard on a Kurtz-cruise.

It was a lot of them out there, and all of them gave us the evil eye. We had better stay inside that boat. They were indeed hungry, and ate everything they could come across, including logs, rocks, dogs, and people. Even lawyers they’d eat if they came across them.

We got from it shaken, though not disturbed. One had snapped off Klaus hand, another one had taken my foot but we had some pills against it so it grew out again quickly.

The drive back to Richies’s place went through some old sugar plantations while the sun set. Old black Joe had left and went to Detroit, but his houses were still lined up along the road. Rusty old farm equipment from the thirties painted the details that gave the picture the artistic look and the feeling of seeing something that pleases more than your eyes. It was a reminder of why it’s worth leaving everything behind for being on the road.

The weather was finally warm and nice; far from the US we got to know in December in the mid-west. Richie had a nice place in a small town called Thibodaux, and had some very well brought up and bright kids. Indeed a great family.

When we decided to hit the road a couple of days later Ritchie decided to join us. We took off in the morning. Now we were a caravan with four bikes. Things worked out nicely, at least the first hour or two. When we reached Morgan Town my head gasket blew again.

The good news was that it was 2 miles from Scott’s machine shop. The bad news was that we had one new head gasket left. We called up Scott again, and he was helpful as ever. He got the head to an automotive machine shop were the head was carefully planed again, and magnaflux tested. Things looked good, the gasket got copper coated and assembled again. Nothing could go wrong now, the head was super plane, there were no cracks and the gasket was coated.

We found a camping site for the night, and in the morning we all went to the Avery Island and looked at the Tabasco factory. They had a country store where you got samples of Tabasco sauces in all sorts of food, even Tabasco ice cream was presented.

After Avery Island Richie had to go home so we split up. Two kilometers down the road my head gasket blew. It was positive that it was the head gasket that blew rather than something else, as I knew how to replace it, besides it gave us a welcome break from the riding.

Tormod

This cocodrilo looked happy, though a bit retarded.

The crane below's engine, Ford flat head. Doesn't get much more classic than that.

Crane for loading sugar

The staff houses lined up at the plantation, from the time it was a very labour intensive industry

Ritchie testdrives the monster

Shelbi is the daugther in the house, a good photographer and cool enough to testdrive my bike.

Another plantation, the alley is planted to bring in air to the house. Long term planning...

Klaus had his birthday and got cake.

Coonass is the Louisiana breed of rednecks, we fit right in and got registred

Back at Scott's place. Here's Scott with his wife and a kit-custom they had designed and buildt, based on Buell and a very affordable bike to build.

The great news of the day, the head gasket blew on a new location, between cyl one and two, thus it was not the head or the block that was the problem!

When we stopped to get some gas this guy called Cody came and invited us to eat Crawfish and stay over at his family's cottage. Perfect timing and true southern hospitality.

At the cottage, Keith, Cody's uncle also dropped by. Great dudes.

The next day we went crawfishing, Cody had a few ponds with crawfish. They farmed the crawfish in the rice fields. The boat was driven by a hydraulic big wheel at the rear, and could go on land between the pounds. Freaking cool.