urban bicycle journeys

My friend Chris had advised me that biking around Patterson LA might be somehow exotic.  Patterson is on US-90, eighty-something miles southwest of New Orleans; ten miles past Morgan City LA. As fate would have it, I drove off towards Patterson but got sidetracked.  Cycling around Berwick and Morgan City was just too enticing. I never made it to Patterson. It gives me incentive for another trip.

The journey began in front of our condo in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans. I loaded the Bike Friday in the back of our Ford Escape Hybrid before driving across the Mississippi and onto US-90 towards the bayou country.   I stopped for gas in suburban Marrero LA.  Asians, especially Vietnamese, have been moving to the West Bank, and they often put their own spin on more traditional New Orleans fare like the poor boy sandwich.  I did not even go inside but the gas station signage made me wonder about the multi-ethnic takeout spread.

I drove another hour through mostly wetlands to arrive at the Grizzaffi Bridge over the Atchafalaya River.  I parked on the riverfront in Berwick LA, directly across from Morgan City.  I pulled the bicycle out.

I started by bicycling around Berwick (population 4,700.)  At their waterfront park was a food truck also featuring Louisiana food cooked by Asians. AsianCajun?

“Downtown” Berwick LA did not look like much commercially. There were faded empty storefronts but the surrounding suburban area seems thriving.

There are enormous concrete floodwalls on each side of the Atchafalaya River in Berwick and Morgan City.  For those not from around here, the Atchafalaya River flows separately from the Mississippi, most of the time..  The multi-billion dollar issue confronting the Powers That Be is that the Mississippi River, if left to its own devices, without all the man-made flood control devices more than a hundred miles upriver, might during the next big storm permanently merge into the Atchafalaya River, leaving the million people in the metro New Orleans area without fresh water or port shipping access to the Gulf, not to mention likely washing Morgan City and Berwick from the face of the earth.  Morgan City is in the lower left side of the map below.  The Mississippi currently empties into the Gulf of Mexico on the far right of that same map, near Port Sulphur and Buras. The map also shows how the entire southern part of Louisiana is gradually fading into the Gulf. 

I cycled downriver, to see you far I could go.  I encouraged myself not to look at the map on my phone. 

The paved road ended after about five miles at a boat launch.   A levee continued with a paved path along the top.

The quietness was confounding as I continued bicycling on the levee path downriver until the path ended about three miles later at some type of flood control station.  I turned around and cycled back towards central Berwick.  Closer to town I was able to find a lightly used highway that circled around Berwick, also passing through wetlands.

There is a bike trail out here!  Just because the Berwick Trail existed I was obligated to ride the entire thing, about three or four miles. 

Circling back towards central Berwick I passed golfers at the Saint Mary Country Club.

It seems like eighty percent of the vehicles in St. Mary Parish are pickup trucks.  I biked through a suburban neighborhood.

I passed by a lovely fenced in plantation-looking compound.  This house looks quite old.

I wanted to cross over the river to Morgan City but bicycling on either bridge across the Atchafalaya is essentially impossible. The old bridge is closed and under repair.   In my older days I might have attempted to cycle across that new bridge but I had to ask myself “why I am doing this?”

Instead, I loaded the bicycle back in the car and drove the mile or so across the bridge and parked in downtown Morgan City (population 11,400.)   I proceeded to bicycle around the older neighborhoods and downtown.   

Below is a view of Front Street, downtown Morgan City LA.

Below is the view of the levee wall across the street from that view above.   The levee shows PICTURES of boats instead of the former view of actual boats, before levee walls were constructed.  Side note: in both photos essentially all the vehicles are pickup trucks.

There were several restaurants open downtown but I opted for Rita Mae’s, about a mile away, a Black owned restaurant I had learned about on Google Maps.

I was the only customer but later another single guy came in.  Rita Mae’s appears to do a lot of take-out.  The restaurant had a homey interior.

Their entire menu was on a whiteboard.

I selected the shrimp poor boy and gumbo. It was delicious, although the gumbo was a little salty.

My server, an older Black woman,, had a loud and passionate discussion with a takeout customer, a woman of similar age, about the deficiencies of the health care system and which heart medications one should be taking.  I later asked her if she was Rita Mae, the name on the sign.

“No baby, I’m seventy-one years old; Rita Mae is eighty-three!”

The view out of the window next to my table was fetching.

I finished eating and went outside to the bicycle, so I could noodle around the streets of the older part of Morgan City.  Virtually every house has some kind of boat parked in front or alongside.

Both Morgan City and Berwick have issues with the major highway US-90 and its bridge plowing through their old towns.  In Morgan City there was just graffiti, but in Berwick they made a playground underneath.  I wonder if anyone uses it.

It was time to load up the bicycle and drive home.  In central Morgan City there is a place called Sweet & Simple Coffee & Sweet Shop. (two ampersands!) I stopped in to get an oat milk latte, two packs sugar. They refilled my reusable cup for the hour and a half car ride back to New Orleans.