Shall We Gather at the River?

On Friday morning we arrived in Mittie, Louisiana for a day of family fun.  Right off LA Highway 26 is the Ouiska Chitto River.  As rivers go around here, the water is clear and cool as it is spring-fed.  The beaches along the shore are white-sand - what you see on Florida beaches.  We like to rent canoes and enjoy a leisurely paddle down the 8.8 mile river between the Hwy 26 concrete bridge and Carpenter's bridge.

Russ and Benjamin arrived at our house at around 9 AM and we loaded the ice chest with pizza and cut up cucumbers, cantaloupe, and oranges.  We packed along plenty of drinking water and some homemade peanut butter cookies.  We arrived at the canoe rental place around 10 AM.  Canoes rent for $45 per canoe.  They drop you off and pick you up.  It takes around 4 hours to paddle to the pickup, but we take a little longer as we normally stop off on sandbars to swim and snack.

About to cast off at the drop-off point under the Hwy 26 bridge

And we're off.  Tricia and I in the lead canoe and Russ and Benjamin following.

Water is a little low, but we never had to get out and carry the canoe like last time

In no time, the guys passed us up.  Since school started on Friday, we were the ONLY folks on the river.  I kid you not.  It was quiet and peaceful.  We didn't see another soul for 5 hours until we got to the end.

The "boys in the boat" overtook us

We kept a sharp eye out for sandbars in the shade.  We'd pull our canoes up and swim, relax and have good conversations with one another.

Russ on the log

Russ brought two pizzas that we had packed in zip loc bags.  We pulled up and ate them up.  The favorite was a Garlic Parmesan Spinach and Chicken pizza.  There was a gentle current in the river, and we would wade out and enjoy the cool water on a hot day.  Fortunately, we had sun screen on and escaped without sunburns.

Time for lunch

And we're off again.  I was nice enjoying the stillness - so peaceful and the scenery was beautiful.

There are lots of logs in the Ouiska Chitto.  The guy that dropped us off told me that from time to time, they have to ride the 8.8 miles in a boat with a chainsaw to keep the river passable.  After big rains, it takes a trackhoe to clean out the debris.  

Rolling on the river

The Ouiska Chitto is bordered by cypress trees and other big trees.  There's always shade to get under.

Looking Back when we reached the end

At last we reached Carpenter's Bridge.  This bridge used to be wooden and rickety.  They built a new concrete bridge a couple of years ago.

Russ, Benjamin, and Tricia

We called T&J Canoe Rentals to come pick us up and took more photos as we waited.

Tricia, Benjamin, and Russ

I can't close out this blog post without giving thanks to God for Benjamin.  It hasn't been that long since his accident.  He has two rods in each of his legs and rods in his back from when he fell and broke both legs and his back.  He sat in that canoe for hours, paddling with no pain.  All Glory to God!

Kyle, Benjamin & Russ

They'll close for the season some time in September.  Tricia has some friends coming in and she's thinking about doing this again with them.  If T&J is closed by then, we do have a 3-seater canoe of our own.  This is such a nice thing to do and only 30 minutes away from home.  We highly recommend canoeing the Ouiska Chitto!

The Sunday Afternoon Drive

Sundays are generally a day of rest.  We wake up a little later, eat a big breakfast after morning chores and then get cleaned up for church.  Sunday School starts up at 10 AM sharp where we are studying the Book of Jeremiah.  Morning Worship begins at 10:45 and we are usually home by noon.  Sunday lunch is our big meal of the week.  Saturday night, Tricia made up some meatballs, made a roux, and added carrots, potatoes and onions and made a mighty fine meatball stew.  Served over rice, this is a meal that sticks to your ribs.

We sit around the table (Russ and Benjamin are usually with us) and we talk and then pour coffee.  We've been canning a lot of vegetables lately, so there was no dessert.  Usually we enjoy some dark chocolate truffles or some sort of homemade cake, brownies or pie, but it just felt like something was missing.  Sunday afternoon coffee without dessert is like rice without gravy or peas without carrots or James West without Artemus Gordon.  It's just not right!

I told the crew that I had an idea.  We'd do something old timey.  We'd pour our coffee into 'go cups' and go on a Sunday drive, stopping along the way and getting dessert.  I received a second to that motion.  All votes were in favor.  The motion carried.  As we were about to load up in the car, there was a knock at the door.  Our neighbors had picked mulberries and made homemade sweetdough mulberry pies.  They brought us four of them.  The Good Lord provided our dessert.  We love our neighbors!

We turned north on Highway 26 and enjoyed our sweetdough pies and coffee and just let the car wander around a bit.  Driving north out of Oberlin, we crossed over the Calcasieu River and looked down.  There seemed to be a few families sitting under canopies on the sand alongside the river.  We drove on.  Just north and west is another river called the Whiskey Chitto or Ouiska Chitto.  It is an Indian name, meaning "big cane."

The Whiskey Chitto is largely fed by springs, so the water is clearer than other rivers and bayous in the area and it has white sand beaches.  It runs for about 70 miles until it empties into the Calcasieu River around LeBlanc, Louisiana.  When wading in the Whiskey Chitto, you can actually see your feet!  We stopped, drove under the bridge, and took our shoes off.  We didn't bring towels, so we couldn't swim, but we waded and relaxed.

There was a family across the creek swinging on a rope swing and swimming.  Another family down the river was spraying each other with water guns.  A pickup truck under the bridge played Johnny Cash.  We watched a group of little minnows swim by.  Tricia and I then walked out on a big tree that had fallen and found a nice, shady relaxing spot to sit and watch the water run by.  Shall we gather by the river?  The beautiful, the beautiful river...

After a while, it was time to go, but as we drove back home on the 30 minute drive home, Tricia called to check on canoe rental service.  Just a mile down the road. there is a business that rents canoes.  They take up upstream and drop you off and then picks you up 4 or 5 hours later at a pickup point.  We're going to plan on doing that on an up-coming weekend.

Our evening services at church start at 5 PM, so we let the car wander on back home. It was a nice, relaxing Sunday afternoon.  

Rolling On The River

On Saturday morning, we assembled at Houssiere Park in Jennings on the banks of Bayou Nezpique for our Second (Not so Annual) Boat trip down Bayou Nezpique into the Mermentau River and on into Lake Arthur.  I'll share the sights and adventure in photos and narration below.

Image Credit

Tricia's brother, Orlando, and his son, Vincent, came in from Spring, Texas with their boat for the trip.  My Mom and Dad brought their boat.  Russ, Laura, and Benjamin joined Tricia and me, too.  We put the boats in the water and then drove the trucks and boat trailers to the boat ramp at the end point of the trip in Lake Arthur.

And we're off!  At about 11:15 am we struck out for a "three hour tour."  This time we had two boats!

Tricia had commemorative t-shirts made up for the event!

It was a beautiful day, but it was HOT!  The water level was down about four feet from previous highs that we gauged from the water line on trees lining the bayou.  The water depth in the center of the bayou ranged from 34 feet to 43 feet.

We mostly took it slow, but sometimes it would get so hot that we had to speed it up to get the wind moving.

Beautiful cypress trees with cypress knees lined the bayou.  We kept a watchful eye in the tupelo gums as wasp nests as big as your head hung from the limbs!

Egrets sat in the shade and picked fish out of the shallows to snack on.  Turtles sunbathed on logs and fish jumped out of the water.

Shade!  That seemed like a good idea.  We pulled up to someone's dock and enjoyed the nice shade.

They had a nice arched bridge.  What a picturesque spot!

Bayou Nezpique flows into the Mermentau River.  Here we are going under the Mermentau River Bridge in Mermentau, Louisiana.

There is a ship building operation on the southern side of the bridge.

We jumped in a swam for a bit - with an open eye for alligators.  We saw small ones on this trip - no "tree shakers."

Although it is not really visible due to thick tree cover, we saw the Le Petit Castle in Mermentau.  You can see a photo of it and learn about it's interesting history BY CLICKING HERE.

Soon we were approaching the Lake Arthur Bridge.

And into the Lake!

And our destination was in sight!  The Regatta Restaurant on the shores of Lake Arthur.  The restaurant has a dock and is accessible by boat.  It took us about four hours to make the trip.

We got a table and enjoyed a meal of crawfish cornbread, shrimp and oyster po-boys and good fellowship.

It was time to go and we slowly made our way back to the boats.

As the sun shined over the lake, we looked for the cut to lead us back to the boat ramp.

A big blue heron guided us in.

As we passed by, he bade us farewell and spread his wings and flew off.

We'll bid you farewell, too.  Until next time!

Against the Wind

While vacationing last week, Tricia and I had the opportunity to kayak.  I've never really kayaked (is that a verb?) before.  It's a lot easier than canoeing, I thought.  It was so peaceful and relaxing.  With both of us paddling, it wasn't really work.  It was serene.  We just glided over the water, taking in the beautiful scenery.  One time, however, going over some rapids, we had to get out and carry it.

We quickly learned that you could paddle upstream but that you were going WITH the wind.  Conversely, you could paddle downstream, but you would be going AGAINST the wind.  It's hard going against the wind!  My wife and I have gotten to where we think exactly alike (on most things).  We remarked about going against the wind and we both immediately began singing Bob Seger's song, "Against the Wind."  We both laughed.  We're kind of strange like that.

But it got me thinking about that song.  What a great song.  I cut & pasted the lyrics below.  To me it is a song about changes - about the passage of time.  About relationships that once seemed so strong, but now are distant.  I love the line, "Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then."  When you are young, you think things are hard, but often as you get older, things get harder.  It's a song about being young once and then growing old, searching, getting lost, being free and then finding yourself tied down by "deadlines and commitments." 

I think the message in the song is that you never give up.  It may not be easy, but you keep striving.  You keep running against the wind.  Here are the lyrics:

Seems like yesterday
But it was long ago
Janey was lovely she was the queen of my nights
There in darkness with the radio playin low
And the secrets that we shared, mountains that we moved
Caught like a wildfire out of control
Til there was nothin left to burn and nothin left to prove

And I remember what she said to me
How she swore that it never would end
I remember how she held me oh so tight
Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then

Against the wind
We were runnin against the wind
We were young and strong we were runnin against the wind

And the years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
Found myself further and further from my home and I
Guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was livin to run and runnin to live
Never worried about payin or even how much I owe 

Movin' eight miles a minute and for months at a time
Breakin all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searchin
Searchin for shelter again and again 

Against the wind
Little somethin against the wind
I found myself seekin shelter against the wind

Well those drifters days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out 

Against the wind
I'm still runnin against the wind
I'm older now but still runnin against the wind

Well I'm older now but still runnin against the wind

If you wish to listen to the song, you can click the arrow below:

We're older now, but still running against the wind...