As I have mentioned a time or two, I adore traveling. If I had unlimited money, I'd spend vast amounts of it on extravagant, frivolous traveling. So today was my cup of tea.
We got up early, which is pretty much the only thing I don't like about traveling. At least, on trips to the track, when getting up early is part of the plan. I stayed up too late last night, determined to get a run in - we didn't get back here until 9:30, and so I didn't finish running until almost 11, and so morning felt just too darn early to me. At any rate, we got up and at 'em and headed to the track. It was overcast and foggy and so humid, and really looked like it might be a miserable sort of day. I'm learning that maybe it's just like that here in Louisiana, because it turned into the absolutely most gorgeous day. One of those days that makes you celebrate sunshine - not too hot, just perfectly sunny, blue skies, puffy white clouds - just a "happy to be alive and outside" day. I was so glad that I had a reason to be out in it!
We spent the morning running qualifying rounds, and then running for class around lunchtime. We got lunch at the concession stand at the track, and I had a crawfish sandwich - that's practically mandatory in Louisiana, right? Eating a little adventurously was one of my goals for vacation, and so I'm giving it a go. L and I both want to try alligator, and I want to have gumbo and jambalaya, too. Anyhow, we ran class after lunch and Stuart didn't win. However, he ran a good time and nothing is broken on the car, so that's always a good run. And he has some ideas about something new to try that might improve his time, so there's something to occupy his time between getting-to-race times.
After Stuart was done racing for the day, L and I did some exploring around the track. We took the golf cart down to the drainage ditch area where we saw the alligator yesterday and HE WAS THERE AGAIN! Again, someone saw us there and asked what we were taking photos of, and saw it, too, so we have proof that we didn't make it up. Which I felt like I needed, since Stuart pulled up on the mo-ped a moment later, and it was gone. Again. Although it did scare the bejeebers out of me this time, since it thrashed in the water - I think I shrieked like a little girl and jumped about three feet into the air.
After that, L and I went further down to the end of the track, since I'd seen on Google Earth that there was a bigger lake down at the end. We had to drive the poor golf cart through a field to get to it, but there was a pretty little mowed path that ran along beside it, and it was so tranquil - frogs chirping, birds, enormous dragonflies everywhere. If it wasn't for my tense phobia that an alligator was going to fling itself out of the water at us, it would have been very lovely, I think. I stopped about every 2 feet to check out the water's edge.
We spent about 45 minutes or so exploring down there, and then headed back to our pit area. On the way, since we were going past the alligator's area anyhow, we decided to stop and peek, just in case. And yup, sure enough, he was out again. And so was a nutria, which I had never seen before. Essentially a beaver-sized rat with the most disgusting teeth I've ever seen. Day-glow yellowy-red. The stuff of nightmares. I have awesome pictures, which I'll add if I ever find my downloading cord. It's packed somewhere practical, I'm sure.
After all of that excitement, we headed back to the pits, and spent the rest of the afternoon eating Chex Mix and scotcharoos, playing card games, and sewing. (Well, okay, that's what L and I did. Stuart watched other men race.) :)
This evening, we had signed up for a swamp tour, and I was SO EXCITED. A pontoon, in the real swamp - alligators and Creoles and crawdad catching and swamp people, etc, etc - I was really ready to go. So we joined some other racers who had also signed up, a nice group, and headed to the meeting place, along with the woman from the track who had arranged the tour. And the tour guide never showed up. We waited about 45 minutes; L and the woman's son ran around and petted stray dogs and tried to catch lizards, etc. Such a disappointment. I'm hoping that maybe somehow it will get rescheduled for tomorrow night - I'm taking along jeans, sneakers, sweatshirts,bug spray etc, just in case (that's all the stuff they told us to wear tonight for the boat ride).
So we decided to, instead, go see the Mississippi during daylight. There is the scariest bridge EVER at the edge of this town, possibly called Sunshine Bridge, that spans the Mississippi. (I sure hope it's called something more dignified than that, but I suspect that I'm out of luck). I have an absolute phobia of bridges - irrational, but true, so I was nervous about this. We drove over it last night, in the dark, on the way to dinner. Today, however, being able to see the barges and everything made it so fascinating that I wasn't even too scared. And that's good, since we wound up driving over it about 6 times - thanks, GPS. We got a little mislead about how to get to our dinner destination.
We stopped on the far side of the Mississippi, parked beside one of the pylons, hiked through a grassy partition, and put our hands in the Mississippi. I don't know why that was so moving for me, but it made me kind of emotional. L and I collected shells - kinds that I've never seen before, and L found a fish stringer (which she, of course, kept).
All in all, quite a day.
I can't wait to see what we'll discover tomorrow!
Carla
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