The Long, Crooked Road...

(Flashback)

I was so inexperienced then… and so naive! So much yet to learn and do… and I didn’t even have a clue just how vast that void actually was!!! My phone rang (this was at a time before cell phones and widespread use of wireless communications). A riding bud of mine, a fellow Gold Winger, had an urge to go for an extended weekend ride, and I just happened to have the time away from work available, so… I cheerfully agreed to join him!

Like most folks in Florida at that time, we were both originally from another part of the country… in his case, the New York area. He had not ridden around the southeast much at all, and he was curious about the northeast quarter of Alabama… OK, that’s where we would go explore, and a tentative plan was evolved…

We met-up early that fateful Friday morning, and happily we pointed our steeds towards Hillbilly music, corncob pipes, overalls, and snake-handling religious zealots… or so we thought. We ran into rain in Georgia, and it stayed with us all the way to Gadsden, AL. We finally called it quits there, got a room, and settled in to allow the rain, as forecasted, to pass over us during the night. It didn’t. Nope, that front that was supposed to continue southeastward had stalled, and it now was expected to remain stationary the rest of the weekend. Nuts!

Neither of us wanted to return home, and neither of us was inclined to tour relatively unfamiliar roads in a steady rain either… What were we to do? Well, where ain’t it raining…? According to the weather guessers, Louisiana appeared to be OK, and… since neither of us had at that time toured that state… Hmmm…

By then, I’d ridden through that bayou/swampy area, but only on my way somewhere else. All I really knew was what one could learn by riding I-10/I-12, stopping now and then for gas or a meal, perhaps spending a night in some motel just off the super slab… Nothing at all, really. In earlier times I had read some of the history of that state and of its people… Interesting, but my riding resume was so short back then, that I’d always figured I’d just fill-in those blanks ‘someday’ when I’d exhausted other more exotic, distant and interesting venues…

We crossed into Mississippi and out of the rain… The weather was good, but the scenery… not very hilly and not particularly appealing. OK, of course, but we were seeking contrast with some sort of WOW factor… and none of that was encountered… We hoped Louisiana might offer at least something novel or unusual…

At our first stop in this new to us adventure destination, we consulted my trusty atlas… ‘Thibodaux, LA’ was the name of a town we’d heard of in songs, and it did sound rather exotic, so… That became our destination. It did not disappoint!

From hearing Cajun French widely spoken and even English with a distinctive accent, to the bayou running right through the middle of town, to the Jean Lafitte Cajun Culture Center we visited, this was turning out to be one heck of an adventure! We were both already hooked on this unexpected bonanza we’d stumbled into by the time we got a room… at a rather nice motel that also had a lounge… Yes, this was back in a time when those were still relatively easy to find…

After modest preparation, we sought a critique opportunity in the den of strange to us music and folks who ‘weren’t like us’… It wasn’t busy at all, which probably partially explains why these facilities are more difficult to find nowadays… but the bartender was bubbly and talkative… One other couple was already in there, and they proved to be much like our ‘nurse’! Dang, the conversations that followed were proving to be a highlight of this trip, even if nothing else exciting came up!!!

In time the conversation shifted to dinner… and our nurse had a good suggestion… WOW! My very first taste of Jambalaya, Crawfish Etouffee, red beans & rice, and… whatever else on the menu I couldn’t pronounce or figure out what was… This was exciting stuff, and I was instantly hopelessly addicted to this neck of the woods and to these interesting and wonderful people!!!

Once back at home, I hurried down to our library to read more about that area and the history of the folks over there. What a lesson that turned out to be… and what a wonderful new adventure that sent me on! Since that first accidental, completely unplanned visit, I’ve returned countless times, and I’ve spent longer periods immersed in the local lifestyle with ‘natives’, and I’ve grown to consider this an important part of who I’ve become… In time I was even made an ‘Honorary Cajun’, a title I carry proudly!

That unimaginable foray into the unknown proved to be the ‘gift that kept on giving’! As I learned more about those folks, and of their history, I predictably became curious about their origins… Back to the library I went (this was before Google), and… OK, so now I needed to visit ‘Acadia’, an area of ‘New France’ today comprising much of the Maritime Provinces of eastern Canada…

I subsequently traveled there on several road trips, and I became enthralled with what I discovered! I even enrolled in a ‘French’ class at our local adult education school in hopes of gaining even more insight and appreciation of those fascinating folks… I wasn’t able to finish that undertaking, however, but that’s another story…

Aside from the obvious, I was also learning about the need to accept ‘change’, to embrace the unexpected and view these things fairly and non-judgmentally; to not automatically assume change is bad or undesirable… that it could only mean loss, pain, or disappointment.

I’m still learning that lesson (old habits die hard!), but I now, at least, have a ‘database’ that informs me that the unknowns in life can also hold promise, hope, and unforeseeable joy… This ‘Honorary Cajun’ is mighty proud to be here… and to have travelled that long, crooked road that has led him to this point in his life!!!

DDT