Riding from Mississippi (can't remember where we are) into Louisiana

 

 

 

From Janie:

 

Tuesday, October 30.  From Natchez MS to St. Francisville LA.  70 miles.

 

Jody rode from the hotel.  Nicole (welcome back!) jumped me ahead about 5 miles.  I rode 5 miles on a side road, in beautiful woods, rolling hills, then came to the gravel road.  Called Nicole, rode back another 5 miles.  Jody continued on US Highway 61, a four-lane, divided highway.  I rode in The Little Darkness for awhile, catching up with Nicole.  When we came to a stretch with shoulders, I jumped out and got back on the bike.  The shoulder ended in about 200 yards and I decided 'why not'.  Rode on down the road. 

 

When we got to the Louisiana State border, there they were - beautiful, broad shoulders.  I rode the rest of the way in to the hotel.  35 miles in about 2 1/2 hours.  Pretty good ride for me.

 

We took very quick showers, then jumped in the car, headed to the Louisiana State Prison Museum, located just outside the gates of infamous Angola State Prison.  We'd missed, by a couple of days, the last rodeo - yes, you read that right - of the year.  Every Sunday in October, the inmates participate in a rodeo.  We watched a film clip at the museum.  One of the strangest rodeo events ever involved men on foot trying to grab a poker chip tied by string to the forehead of a bull.  No kidding. 

 



Bull's head in the Louisiana State Prison Mueum.

Note the red poker chip on the bull's forehead.

Can't make this stuff up!

Jody, just outside the prison gate.

Janie, outside the prison gate.

You'd never know this is the front gate to Angola.

 

Concertina wire along the fence, top and bottom.

 

We talked to a woman in the gift shop at the museum who had worked at Angola for 40+ years.  Her children and grandchildren worked there, as had her now deceased husband.  Her great grandchildren lived on the prison grounds.  Four generations, in all, had lived there.  A very good job, she called it.  Her co-worker at the museum had retired after some 35+ years working there. 

 

Fascinating museum.  All about prison movies, prison reform, the rodeo, the death penalty (hanging, then electrocution, now lethal injection), prison breaks, women in prison, women in prison administration, inmate-made illegal weapons.  We had only about 45 minutes before the museum was to close.  More than we could see and read in that time.

 

We bought matching sweatshirt there that say:  'Angola.  A Gated Community.'  Pictures to follow in the next couple of days.

 

On the way back to the hotel, we passed a junkyard full of old equipment, boats and trucks, rusting away to nothing.  Stopped for a photo.

Old truck, rusting beside the road to Angola.

 

The prison, the largest in the US, is nicknamed Angola after the plantation that once stood on its site, worked by slaves shipped in from Africa.
     ~BBC