Maps (they don't love you like I love you)

Here is the story of how I got my first map of Louisiana.
(hypothetical subtitle: Maps! A multi-media love story)



(I don't necessarily understand the song or the video, but I like it. They don't love you like I love you, maps.)

On Friday, my drive to Bayou Blue was interrupted by a sheriff's officer directing traffic off the main highway. Having already made the drive, I knew where I was supposed to be going, and I don't have or use a GPS anyway (1. I am stubborn about technology, and in this case will use my degrees in geography as my excuse; 2. I like to pretend I am smarter than the GPS; 3. I hate that some people blindly follow the GPS machine without even consulting maps or using their brains; 4. I like maps; 5. I think I get a better idea of the area and learn how to get places better by studying maps and writing out directions by hand; 6. GPS machines aren't known to be entirely effective in many rural places still (see here); 6. etc. etc. etc.).

This is roughly the drive from my neighborhood to Bayou Blue (which is officially Gray, according to most Geographic Information Systems):

View Larger Map

I was directed off Route 90 about 15 miles before my exit. I have no idea why and haven't been able to find out why in the news. The road behind the officer was empty, no sign of an accident or anything, just one other car from the sheriff's department parked down the road, lights flashing. I exit the highway with a long line of cars*, surrounded by sugarcane fields, and I have no idea where I am. So I'm creeping along slowly, figuring, since I'm stuck in traffic going 6 MPH or less with so many other cars, surely I will find my way back to the highway.

Nope.

The traffic sat on the one road in a town I eventually identified as Raceland (thank you, water tower). When we got to the end of the road an hour later, there was another officer, directing traffic, but not in any particular direction. Some cars went left! Some went right! And because the road through the town kind of curved and I had no idea where I was, I didn't know which way to go to get back to the highway. I went left, figuring I was north of the highway, and had been heading west-ish last I could tell. No one else was going left though.

By this point, after drinking a travel mug full of tea and a full liter Nalgene bottle of water, I also really needed to make a pit stop. I pulled over at the first place I found, a nursing home with a few residents sitting on the porch who gave me the code to the door (apparently I did not find the front door, because I also had to go exploring to find a desk). A kind woman behind the desk let me use the employee bathroom and gave me some directions that she wasn't too confident in. I'm not sure she's ever been outside of Raceland.

This is the second time in Louisiana I've had to stop and ask for directions (oddly enough, both times at nursing homes because that was all I could find, but those are the only two nursing homes I've seen). The first time was trying to find the new NRCS field office in Luling, because Google Maps told me to take roads that don't yet exist. I learned from this that I need to ask humans for directions and take any electronic routes with a grain of salt (or cane sugar, perhaps).

So the Raceland woman's directions weren't especially clear or helpful, so I kept going the way that made the most sense according to my rough mental map. Lo and behold, I found Route 90! But after sitting for an hour on a not-so-straight road in the middle of nothing but sugarcane and oil pipelines, I had no idea how far I'd gone.

By some great stroke of grace, there was a tourist information center right next to the highway entrance.

The even nicer lady in the LaFourche ("la-foosh", see, my French is improving?) Parish Tourist Information Center was very happy to give me free maps of the town, parish and state. I was just a few miles east of Bayou Blue, and Route 90 was open from that point west. I arrived less than 20 minutes later, and was still able to squeeze in a visit to BTNEP ("bit-nep", not French), the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program, another organization I'll be partnering with in my work here.

Barataria is the name of a bay further south, and Terrebonne is the Parish where Bayou Blue and many of the first people I'm working with are located. Look! My Geography of Louisiana is improving, too! I met Kerry, the program director, and when I said something off handed about liking estuaries and having grown up near an big one in New Jersey, he answered, "Oh, Barnegat Bay." I think I will like working with his program.

And now I have some maps, too. I do like maps.

*To further the multi-media experience, Long Line of Cars by Cake is another song I rather enjoy, but there's not an official video for it, nor could I find one I liked enough to post on my blog, but I would encourage you to give a listen.