The forty minute drive from Lake Fausse Point State Park to Henderson and Interstate 10 took me along scatter rural houses and a waterway on my left and a high grassy levee on my right. At one point I couldn’t stand it any longer so I stopped the RV and walked to the top of the levee to see what was on the other side; about the same thing as the road side – a fifty foot wide channel and then woodland.
I needed to find a post office so I could mail a box home which caused me to stop at a small store in Henderson and ask where it might be located. The customer that I asked was a tall, dark skinned man wearing a wide-woven rope belt. He shook his head and said something that I didn’t understand. Cajun? Native? Creole? The young woman next in line said that she was going right by it and to follow her when we left the store. The Henderson Post Office was a 10 by 10 gray shack and didn’t take boxes. But I got to talk to locals and see the town again – all of it based on the waterways of the area. The young woman said that she worked at a sport fishing float camp.
This part of Louisiana is flat as a table top so when I saw the freeway rise up, I got excited as what I might see. What a surprise! More woodland as far as the eye could scan but between the interstate lanes was a causeway of water and the freeway was elevated twenty feet above it on concrete pilings. And it was this way for eighteen miles! Every few miles the woodland swamp would part showing an expansive lake cypress tree islands then close back in toward the freeway. I was experiencing the mighty Atchafayala Basin home of the bayous, lakes and the Cajun people. Impressive but with great reluctance keep the accelerator pedal down. I had told Gail that I would be at her house around 3.
Five hours after leaving morning camp I had cross Louisiana and was knocking on the front door of Mississippi. In a few minutes I had Snee-Oosh backed up to a brown water channel next to Gail’s house on Anchor Lake near Carriere [CareREAR], Mississippi.
The rest of the afternoon was spent getting to know my host. She truly was a Katrina survivor. I sat transfixed as she told me “her story” something that she doesn’t usually share because of the memories that come crushing back in. When the hurricane hit, it was seven days later that her feet finally touched solid ground. Strong person.
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