Narrow roads without shoulders rising a foot or two above the backwater are common in rural Louisiana. Photos by the author and Mark Wilson.
I often return to Louisiana (LA) Highway 553 here in the lowlands surrounding the town of Monroe. It?s a road close to home that I take when the sun is bright, the road is dry and I have time. I imagine all riders have a road such as this.
Spring buds are unfurling beside Forty Oaks Farm Road as I head toward the country. Children in schoolyards scream and chase each other under a warm noonday sun as I ride by, while men from Cajun prairies farther south deliver the year?s first harvest of live crawfish.
The author and his Tiger 800XC. Any bike will do on LA 553.
But I want something besides crawfish for lunch today, so after a left onto U.S. Route 80 and then another half mile, I stop at Belle?s Ole South Diner. I order fried catfish and substitute sweet potatoes for grits. Soon I?m biting into a thin rough coating of deep fried cornmeal surrounding thick, warm fish cooked so closely beyond its raw point that it almost disintegrates on my tongue. I linger over my catfish for a while, and then I resume my ride east on U.S. 80. I cross the Ouachita River on Louisville Avenue, and turn left onto Riverside Drive, which leads me into Monroe?s garden district and onto Forsythe Avenue. Stately old homes displaying white columns, wavy glass and money occupy this place. Here and there surrounding the houses are manicured lawns with massed azal...