April 23rd
Mile 2345 to 2691, 346 miles
Outside of Lafayette it’s green lush forest between farms and muddy rivers.
Historic brick and stone buildings, an occasional plantation looking mansion among the more modest homes.
We passed crawfish ponds, baby sugarcane and corn fields. The forest has the fragrant sweet smell of flower blossoms. It’s sunny and the air is warm.
We pulled up to Grayson’s BBQ and right behind us the local Sheriff stopped in for lunch with a big friendly smile. The waitress asked “you wanna eat here? Go find yo self a seat in the back”. We had some of the freshest, tender BBQ ever! Funny old building, plastered with faded business cards and generations of newspaper articles recognizing Grayson’s award winning BBQ. They’ve been in business 65 years. The staff was sweet and welcomed us to “yall come on back now ya hear.”
So far the recurring theme of the south are abandoned homes in the process of being reclaimed by nature, run down small towns, Dollar General, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree and the Waffle Houses all within walking distance. So weird and sad.
We stopped before dark and found another hotel with a hot tub and good company. As always we love meeting new people. Mostly the hotels are full with traveling workers during the week. It was laundry day and we had to get in the lineup to wash, nice that a lot of the hotels have this service available.
