Daily Miles: About 11 riding around the city
I had a fun day hanging out around the city. Last night we went down to Bourbon street for dinner and a few beers but spent most of the time walking around instead. Bourbon street is a certain type of craziness that rivals that of Las Vegas. It is basically a street over a mile long with bar after bar after bar, live music and bands, strip clubs, and people just getting drunk. Neon lights pepper the street making the waste water in the streets glow yellow and orange and pink. The street has a particular smell of piss and garbage and beer and shame. We went to a small little Irish bar and had a Po Boy and beer and caught up. We didn’t spend much time down there and went home early.
Today I went to the bike shop down the street to find some fenders. I’ve been thinking I ought to have them. I had to ride trough some wet ground and puddles yesterday and it wasn’t great.
I found some that might work and purchased them. They are a Planet Bike model and look pretty solid. They took way longer than necessary to install and were a bit finicky. It required a wrench I didn’t have in my tool kit but luckily Matt had something that would work. It required me to move my rear rack to a different position to get everything on right, but I eventually got them on there and they look pretty good.
I took a test ride through the city and went to a pretty neat park which was across the street from Tulane University. There were hundreds of what I assume were ducks in the large pond in the center and they made quite a racket as I circled the pond.
I headed downtown and to the French Quarter to see it in the daylight. It’s quite the scene down there even at 3:00 PM on a weekday. Live bands and street musicians clamored away on thier instruments filling the air on the streets with conflicting genres of music. Tourists with cameras snapped away at the oddities and scenery, encapsulating the day into bits of electronic information to look back on. Fortune tellers and mind readers lined the avenue before a large church to try and make a few dollars from unsuspecting tourists. They were dressed like gypsies and had strange hats and necklaces and coats. Street performers stood like human statues while gutter rats sat on the side of the street in fatigues with Mohawks and cats and dogs on leeshes trying to peddle beer money for the night ahead.
On bourbon street the salt and grit of the cobblestone streets added a level of obscenity to the day. This is the street that never stops. There is no open container law so anyone over the age of 21 can drink and party in the streets. When ordering at the bar you get asked if its for here or to go. People stammered around with big goblets of beer and wine and lush and pink faces, not caring about anything in particular and being loud and angry and maybe a bit lonely.
I retreated to the Mississippi River and watched the barges go along the water. They are big and laborous things but were quiet from where I gazed upon them. One had a hundred or so storage containers. All little boxes probably filled with TV’s and bananas and microwaves and picture frames. Litter boxes and diapers. Batteries and beer. Baseball bats and plastic silverware. Anything and everything going along the river to get sold to you and me and everyone else in America in supermarkets and dollar stores and Walmarts.
It’s quiet now and the bugs are chirping. It’s hard to imagine that it’s the middle of winter but it is. It felt good to not ride so much today but I’ll be excited to venture on. There’s some nasty weather comming but I can wait. When you don’t have to be anywhere in particular you are always right where you need to be.
I hope to explore more of this bizzare place tommorrow.
Po Boy & fenders = good zero day