Saturday Afternoon

Saturday

Saturday noon had passed and I had ants in my pants. The weekend was slipping away and the bike sat there with a full tank of gas. It is much easier to take off if a gas station is not your immediate destination. Gas stations are like having to go through one expensive toll booth. I hate them. It's a neat bike and every pimply teenager getting gas wants to know all about it and then challenges me to a race. I tell them I'm on probation from Angola Prison and if I got a ticket they'll send me back to jail. Well, I did use that story until one of them ask me if I knew Ralph...In C. Block.
Avoiding the need for a new story, I took off on my favorite way out of here, up the Teche. I ended up in Lebeau where I saw a sign announcing the LeBeau Zydeco Festival.
The sign did not have directions. I went up and down 71 looking for it. Couldn't see it, couldn't hear it. I decided to blow it off and move on. I really wanted to hear some Zydeco. Zydeco combines many types of music, but mostly, it's rythum and blues with some Creole gri gri. (majic potion or a "spell") thrown in.
Up US 71 I went. 71 is straight and bumpy. I didn't care, I was riding in the wind and happy as a bird in free flight. I arrived in Bunkie and did the lights. On the way out I chose to veer left on Shirley Road, La.1177. I don't think I've done this or maybe it was from the other direction. Point: Every road is two roads, the way you're going and the other way. Remember that. First treat was the large country church above. There was a fellow working at the church and I should have stopped and gotten the scoop. It is much larger than the normal country church. Bunkie is very old and this one looks "established".

How could I have misssed this one on my previous journeys? Classic. Perfect.

Guess what bayou we're riding
along today.

I bet you thought you were through being drug up and down Bayou Boeuf. 1177 is part of the "Great Boeuf River Road". I know that designation has not been coined yet but it needs to be. Honest, the Boeuf is prettier and has more history, mile for mile, than the Cane, and, it still flows when it has water in it. It's been dry in Central La. 1177 brought me back to US 71 after crossing this neat one lane bridge below.

That's a one Gold Wing bridge.

I pulled into Cheneyville. I'd roamed Cheneyville in the "US 71" article but missed stuff. Surely they weren't there when I was here last. Has to be new stuff?

I would guess this was Cheneyville's garage and filling station. I can see Goober filling up the gas tanks. (Mayberry personality, an old TV show from the past reference). I hate having to explain American Culture.

By Gone Days Antiques. Cheneyville was a thriving antique center when I traveled up and down US 71 as a kid. My parents were antique nuts and this was a demand stop.

This clothes store is still in business.
Being Saturday afternoon, I missed the sale. I need a straw cowboy hat.

This was an old gas station that some community beautifier proceeded to muralize. It depicts Bayou Boeuf flowing through the area. Beats "urban" blight a bunch.