Holly Brunelle

I wish I could tell you that once in Vegas I settled in to a comfortable life.  

I did install myself in a cute little apartment, in a complex tucked next to the hills on the west side of town (and strategically chosen for its proximity to some of my favorite hiking spots).  Next it was the usual admin tasks: new license and registration from the DMV, updating things with the DoD and VA, a myriad of change-of-address forms, all mixed in with the drudgery and excitement of settling in to a new home.  I slept, and hiked, cooked my favorite dishes, and slept some more.  I painted, an ensō a day, and played with yarn.  I found the local library and began devouring books, and occasionally sat at a local monastery.  

It was nice to be home, a little unsettling, but nice.

As I checked off items on the relocation chores list, my days grew longer and I came face to face with the question I had been avoiding: what to do next.  I had hoped this journey would help me find a new ‘why’ beyond the caricature of grief I had been wearing for so long.  But instead all I had was new questions and doubts.  

In the years leading up to this journey, I had become interested in non-violent resistance.  I had studied Gene Sharp’s civil disobedience strategies, Phillip Hammack’s discussions of conflicting narratives, and Daniel Bar-Tal’s explorations of how delegitimizing and demonizing an enemy legitimates “intense, vicious, violent, and prolonged intergroup conflict”.  I had chosen my retreat locations in part, to study with teachers affiliated with U.S. anti-war movements.  But as I sat, first at one center and then the other, I had become deeply disappointed.  

It had begun with the self-righteous tone of some of the dharma talks, and grown as I was castigated for thinking the teachings might ease the psychological suffering of fellow veterans.  As the 70th anniversary of “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” approached* and the folding origami cranes increased in intensity**, retreat leaders began to demonize the workers at Los Alamos for their parts in military efforts.  I realized they were following the same patterns I seen in the research, using the same language and tone groups of my friends used when discussing the Middle East or other brown people.  Even more discouraging, when I asked after the workers’ inherent humanity or emotional or moral conflicts they might have with their work (such as those Oppenheimer had is his later years) I was swiftly dismissed.  I began to question the integrity of the group’s practice, and began to wonder whether lack of movement on disarmament was, in part, a result of this dissonance. 

During the drive from Florida, these doubts spread to the safety world.  During my last months in Connecticut I had begun to hear colleagues muse that human factors errors (such as controlled flight into terrain) were not the result of system design or incompatibilities, but rather that the pilots were “too stupid to live”.  I reflected as the miles passed, especially on the fact there had been little movement over the years on the types of accidents, those were crews operated at the edge of system limitations in response to mission pressures, that had killed so many of my friends.  Now, as my move-in checklist neared completion, my days grew long and my thoughts returned to these questions.  

I wondered why the usability testing that had proved so useful with our phones and video games had not circled back to aviation where it had begun.  I wondered why high reliability, a theory of shared mental models developed by researchers studying aircraft carrier operations, had been adopted so successfully by woodland firefighters and intermodal transporters but not by manufacturing industries.  I re-read the Columbia return-to-flight report, which questioned why and how NASA’s culture had so quickly returned to the conditions observed during the Challenger investigation.  And I wondered.  

And every evening, as the sun dipped behind the mountains on the west side of town, I went for a walk.

*These are the two atomic devices that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

** http://www.city.hiroshima.lg.jp/shimin/heiwa/crane.html

The last day of my road trip is a bit of a blur.  I remember stopping for flatbread at Laguna Pueblo, another rest break at the Petrified Forest Visitors Center, and chasing a train just west of Flagstaff.  I remember my fatigue, and anticipation, and nostalgia from previous drives and the stops I had made along the old Route 66.  I also remember feeling behind schedule all day; despite an early start it soon became clear I would not make my seven p.m. estimated arrival time.

One of the best things about living in Vegas is the view, and one of my favorite views is that first glimpse of the strip as you crest the rim of the valley.  If you arrive after dark from the south on I-15 you have a clear view of the Strip, a brightly colored ribbon nestled in an orange-thread lace.  Cresting Railroad Pass, my chosen route for the day, our famous skyline is in silhouette with all the casino and resort lights twinkling in the night and it feels like you are descending into an imaginary land.  Either way, it is a bright oasis after a long lonely drive.

This was not one of those times.

It was late July, one of the hottest weeks of the year, and close to seven p.m., one of the hottest times of the day.  As I approached the turn to the ring road, traffic slowed, drivers became aggressive, and I missed my usual first glimpse.  For the next hour it was stop-and-go traffic under yellow haze, my XTerra’s air conditioner straining as I made my way to the west side of the valley in the triple-digit heat. 

As I made my way across the valley, a previous road trip came to mind.  It was on this very road, in the opposite direction, thirteen years before.  I was a relatively fresh widow, still stung by a commander’s assertion that the accident that killed my husband and our eleven friends was “just the cost of doing business”.  Chewy was by my side (dog is my co-pilot) and I was on my way to Florida to begin graduate school.  My plan was to study aviation human factors, and use the thesis process advance our understanding of the effects of mission pressure on in-flight decisions.  Now it was just me, limping home, wondering whether anything I had done in the intervening years had nudged the needle in any way.  

Traffic slowed and sped as we moved from exit to exit.  Despite the hour and the sun’s angle, its light was still strong.  To pass the time, I watched the planes inbound to McCarran and, as I progressed past the airport, outbound.  The shadow from the range of the west side of town slowly crept towards us as we crept towards it, until finally its shade was upon us.  As traffic passed through the edge of night we seemed to collectively take a deep breath: the cluster of commuters seemed to thin, and we began to increase speed.  Soon I was exiting the highway and at my friends’ door.

I was an hour late for our scheduled mac and cheese.  As I lifted my suitcase from the rear seat, a breeze from a nearby canyon ruffled my hair with what felt like affection.  As I trundled up the sidewalk, I felt my body begin to relax.  I rang the doorbell.  It was nice to be home.

I was still wobbly as I loaded up the car.

I had tossed and turned during the night.   I would wake up, legs cramping, then chug some water.  I would wake up again, legs cramping again, and again, and again.  My body finally gave up around 4am and I got a good three hours sleep before I woke, head foggy.  Thankfully my headache had passed, but I was not rested. 

The day’s journey began with a slow drive towards the back gate along the flight line road*.  I had hoped to see one or more of the bombers assigned to the base, but all that was out was a lone C-130 transport plane.  Once back on civilian soil, I was met by a row of scraggily mesquite that, as I continued on, gave way to the requisite neighborhood of double-wide trailers.  I was on my way.

This was intended to be another easy-ish day, 500 or so miles from Abilene to Albuquerque.  The morning went smoothly as I rolled through the flat plains and cotton fields of West Texas.  I stopped for petrol in Lubbock, and continued my trek northwest.  It began to rain as I approached the New Mexico state line, a welcome relief from the summer sun.  Clovis brought road construction that reduced the highway to a single lane each way; I passed the time watching activity in the rail yard that paralleled my path.  After the air base (Cannon, home of the 27th Special Ops), the rain cleared, and the cultivated fields gave way to field crops and open rangeland. 

One of the things I’ve always found wonderful about the west is that the sky is so big.  In Florida there was scrub and humidity, in Connecticut rolling tree-covered hills and haze, and I always felt a bit claustrophobic.  But out here in the shortgrass prairie (and deserts) of the west, it feels like you can see forever.  As I cruised westward along the two-lane highway, I watched a pair of isolated thunderstorms to the south build, cap, and downburst; they were easily 50 miles away.  

I turned north at Fort Sumner and began my climb towards the foothills of the southern Rockies.  Here a surveyor’s theodolite had mapped a long, straight path across the dry plateau, with an occasional canyon (that fed the Pecos River during monsoon season) to interrupt miles of dried scrub and grass.  Fortunately there were storms to the north and west to entertain me as I continued my journey.  One to the northwest was particularly formidable: miles of towering cumulonimbus clouds anchored to the earth with a thick shaft of rain.  As the pavement eased to a northwesterly route, I got a better view.

But wait, what was this?  

The storm began to fill my windscreen, and soon it was upon me.  My truck was slapped with rain and wind, with the occasional flash of lightning to make things interesting.  As visibility dropped I slowed, 50 mph, 40 mph, 30mph (trying to keep two to five seconds of visibility), with flashers on to warn my fellow travelers.  As I approached Santa Rosa, I met up with a fellow voyager, an 18-wheeler slightly more cautious than I.  I tucked in his slipstream, and we inchwormed our way north.  Ten minutes turned to fifteen, fifteen turned to twenty.  At twenty-eight minutes we turned onto the Interstate, and the storm seemed to intensify.

The lightning became more frequent; the thunder was so loud I jumped in my seat.  Water came off my big-rig friend in sheets and pooled on the cement highway.  At this point, too timid to stop for gas or pull over to the side of the road on my own, I continued on, occasionally taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself.  As we slowly made our way up the slope to the west of town, I began to wonder whether the storm would ever end.  Then suddenly, about eight miles west of town, sun and clear-ish skies.  

I pulled over at the next exit, and took refuge at a lonely petrol station packed with other vehicles.  I was number twenty or so in queue, so I rolled down the windows and took in the damp, sage-scented desert air.  My arms ached from gripping the wheel, and I slowly realized my headache had returned.  Albuquerque was still 160 miles ahead.

* Every AFB has a front gate (very fancy) and at least one back gate (less so).

It took me a few minutes to recover from my camera fail.  

As I cycled through the stages of grief for my broken device, I did what we all do: turned it on and off hoping it would self-correct (denial), I cursed my fumbling hands (anger), fiddled with the knobs and scrolled through the menu looking for a command that might help (bargaining), all to no avail.  Finally, resigned to its demise (and a little miffed I wouldn’t be able to get snaps), I headed out to explore the air park.  

Past the chow hall I went, and the fire department, and ‘round the north side of the roundabout and the US and Texas flags that proudly flew at its center.  I passed the Class Six (Air Force version of a package store) and the Burger King, and took note of them as possible dinner locations on the return leg.  It felt nice to move my body, to put one foot in front of the other after the long sits in my car.  

Over the years I have found an hour before sunset to be a good time for a walk; the shadows are longer, haze filters the setting sun, there is usually a breeze, and the people you encounter are generally more relaxed.  (In this case I had also wanted to get photos of the aircraft.)  As I walked I realized I had miscalculated; twenty minutes out and the air felt hotter than when I had left.  But there they were, towering above me, the first aircraft in the display. 

They were fast jets, the F-100, F-104 (made famous in that last scene in the Right Stuff where Chuck Yeager chased that demon in the sky), the F105, and the F-4 (with enough thrust even bricks can fly), which I remembered fondly from my early days at Nellis.  I was naughty and left the path to explore each jet and its placard which included not only type descriptors but details of the tail number’s actual missions).  It reminded me of the thrill I felt when I was first learning to fly, the possibilities and excitement available in the big blue sky.

Next was a cluster of Korean era warbirds (F84, F86, and others).  A little farther on, after a pair of trainers (T-37 and T-38), I came upon a cluster of early Cold War workhorses.  I marveled at the playfulness of their names (Voodoo, Tweety, Skytrain, Thunderstreak) and their personal histories (the lone C-47 had over 100 flights as part of the Berlin Airlift).  As I read each placard I was struck by their development histories: each had a specific mission and with it a rapid development and deployment cycle, sometimes as little as eighteen months from idea to flight.  Each of these aircraft were built for a specific purpose, built by men and women with a mission, so different than the drawn-out, design-by-committee multi-mission ‘platforms’ we see today. 

But what was this?  I was suddenly lightheaded, and a flush of weakness passed through me.  I’d let myself become so engrossed in the planes that I had missed that even with the low sun, the air was scorching.  Less than a mile in, I was too hot and too tired.  As much as I wanted to continue, after a quick pass around a group of light transports (including samples of the C121, C123 and Caribou, the same types my first flight instructor had shuttled around Cambodia and Laos the year I was born) I turned back.  

My progress slowed considerably.  I adopted a zigzag path, lingering in the shade of trees and aircraft to catch my breath and regain my balance before scurrying to my next refuge.  I briefly considered waving down a passing car and asking for a ride (a relatively safe choice on a military base), but decided to press on as long as I could on my own.  And, as the sun dipped below the horizon, I reached the last of the displays, and shortly thereafter, the Class Six.  I stumbled in and reveled in the air conditioned space.  After one tall ice tea from the fountain, and then another, I felt composed enough to continue.

By the time I made it back to my room I was lightheaded and a little bit pukey.  After a long shower and some ibuprofen I curled up in bed, hoping a good night’s sleep would clear my head for the next day’s drive.  

When I think of Texas, I always imagine wide open prairies and oilfields.  I do this even after time spent along the beaches and bayous of Texas’ Gulf Coast and the dry mountains between Alpine and Marfa.  So the Piney Woods of northeast Texas, a forest filled with loblolly pine, hickory, and oak, always comes as a surprise.  This was the landscape that met me as I drove west along I-20.  

The morning began with a quick hop over the Red River.  I had crossed it earlier in the trip, during an interval of horrible flooding and now, like then, the industrial structures of Shreveport disappointingly blocked my view of the water.  As I continued on, the buildings thinned and the highway became bordered with trees and open fields.  I tend to be a bit of a cynic about this, having seen many places where a thin strip of trees are used to block traffic noise in otherwise developed areas, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover during my first petrol stop (at a ‘travel station’ about a mile off-highway) that the forest continued for miles in every direction. 

Today was another abbreviated driving day, just over 400 miles to an Air Force Base just outside Abilene.  But as I drove (and despite my beloved 80-mph Texas speed limit), the miles seemed to drag on forever, and fatigued me in a way they had not on previous legs. By lunchtime (a Cracker Barrel along the south Dallas ring road), my leg ached, my arm ached, my butt ached, and I was spent.  I checked my flight plan; I was barely halfway to Dyess.  I continued on.

July was bright through my car’s windows.  As mile after mile passed, my eyes began to sting with fatigue from the sun and dry air.  By now the forest had given way to (familiar and expected) prairie, and the sameness of the miles added a touch of sleepiness.  I stopped at rest areas to stretch my legs, and added an extra fuel stop for some caffeine and distraction.  Relief washed over me as I reached the outskirts of Abilene.  I clumsily navigated my way off the highway, through town towards Dyess AFB and finally, with a quick flash of my ID*, I was in.  It was mid-afternoon, and once settled in my room (thankfully on the shaded north side of the building) I took some Advil, chugged some water, and lay down for some quiet time, hoping the combination would soothe my aching eyes and noggin.

During the drive from the front gate to the lodging office, I had noticed a series of static aircraft displays along the main road.  My curiosity had been sparked during my explorations at the Barksdale Air Museum that morning, I chose this for the route for my evening constitutional.  As the sun drew low, I headed out, hoping to snap some photos to add to my collection.  A quick search of my room indicated I had left my camera in my car, so I made a quick stop to add it to my bag.  

Then… I don’t know how it happened… as I lifted my camera from its designated cupholder it slipped from my hand and, after a quick bounce off the running board, hit the concrete pavement with a thwack! and skidded under my truck.

Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease I whispered silently to myself as I knelt down and fished under the still-warm drivetrain for my camera. 

I pushed the ON-OFF and held my breath. I heard the usual whirring, then more whirring, then even more whirring, then three short beeps.  Two words flashed on the display.  NoNoNoNoNo.

LENS FAIL. 

*As a ‘surviving family member’, I still have base access.

Barksdale AFB, located in the northwest corner of Louisiana, has a history as colorful as its namesake.

Located on a former cotton plantation east of Shreveport, construction began in 1931, with mule teams used to turn under and grade the landing areas.  The first aircraft, which included the Boeing P-26 Peashooter*, arrived in 1932, and when the airfield was officially opened in 1933, it was the largest airfield of its time.  The outlying lands were ideal for gunnery and bombing practice, and during WW2 entire units trained there for the war, including General Jimmy Doolittle’s 17th Bomb Group (famous for their raid on Tokyo).  After the war, the base was assigned to the newly independent Air Force, christened Barksdale after a local son, and assigned the airport identifier BAD.

Lieutenant Eugene Barksdale joined the Army in 1918 and quickly volunteered for the aviation section. He earned his wings with Britain’s Royal Flying Corps and became a founding member of the 25th Aero Squadron, a group of day pursuit pilots who patrolled the skies over the Western Front (Luxembourg, Belgium, and north-eastern France).  After the war he became a test pilot, and in 1924 he and his navigator performed the first instrument (above-the-cloud) flight using a flight (turn-and bank) indicator and earth indicator compass**.  Lt. Barksdale was killed two years later during a spin test of the Douglas O2 observation aircraft.

Since World War II, Barksdale AFB has served as an anchor for Strategic Air Command’s bomber fleet.  Over the years, its dedicated service training and hosting air crews and later, defensive Strategic Air Missile (SAM) sites, were peppered with a series of notable events.  Its long runway (11,753 feet) served as a stopover for the Shuttles during their Boeing 747 rides from Edwards (the alternate Shuttle landing site in California) back home to the Cape.  In the early 1990s, they hosted (aircraft) as part of US-Soviet Open Skies for Peace surveillance operations***.  The first strike of the first Gulf War, a record breaking 35-hour sortie, was flown by B-52s that alighted from the field; forward-deployed personnel performed the first strike of the subsequent Desert Strike and Desert Fox missions.  And in September 2001, the base provided safe haven to our president after planes were piloted into the World Trade Centers and Pentagon.

I had arrived the evening before, and after a quick stop at the BX, a nice walk through base housing (which had a surprisingly French flavor), and some time spent watching a family play a game of catch in the courtyard, I had turned in for the night.  Now I was wandering the static displays of the Barksdale Global Power Museum, which is home to most of the aircraft stationed at the base over the years.  Wandering its paths brought back fond memories of my early flying years: Rusty Gardner and his P-51 White Lightning doing a low pass at my home airport, watching one of the (then) few flying B-17s at Castle AFB’s annual airshow, the six blips of a NASA SR-71-equivalent on a radar screen as they passed through our ranges during Air Traffic Control training.  They even had a well maintained B-47 Stratojet, the common ancestor of most swept-wing, multi-engine jets flying today.  It was heartening to see the airframes of my aviation childhood up close again, and that they were still respected and loved.

All too soon I was back on the road, headed west towards my next waypoint.

* Really.  The P-26 “Peashooter” was the first all-metal monoplane pursuit (fighter) aircraft.  More info here: http://www.aviation-history.com/boeing/p26.html

**https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=985&dat=19240412&id=_YwrAAAAIBAJ&sjid=VvcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=464,4000730

*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIGJw-h0F-U

I was back on the road again.  This day’s destination: Barksdale AFB, Louisiana in the northwest corner of the state.  I woke up with the sun and was on the road shortly thereafter.  I had one quick stop en route, and expected to arrive mid-afternoon, in time for a stop at the BX* and a nice long walk.

I began my drive headed north along Bayou LaFourche, glimpses of water and boats visible between the businesses lining its shore.  At Raceland I turned west on Route 90 and began my trek in earnest, across the pine forests of the bayou, through Morgan City and the Atchafalaya River via elevated expressway, and then past miles of cane-field lined highway to New Iberia (home to fictional detective Dave Robicheaux).  At Lafayette the state route became Interstate 49 as it crossed Interstate 10; it was just after noon and I was well ahead of schedule.

At Opelousas, I glided down the exit for Route 190 for my quick stop at a friend’s house.  During a visit earlier in my travels she had expressed dismay that, due to a family emergency, she had not been able to make jam earlier in the year from the cornucopia of figs from the trees that bordered her backyard.  To cushion the blow, I had picked up a pot of fig jam for her at the farm store in Sarlat.  My plan was to leave it on her kitchen steps with a note, and be on my way.

She must have seen me pull up, because by the time I reached her door it was open, framing Minerva in fancy dress, arms wide and ready for a hug.  I had caught her and her daughter on their way to a church function.  After a certain amount of peer pressure I joined them, my car trailing behind hers as we made our way through town and into the surrounding fields.

Back in the day, when I was a young airman at Air Traffic Control school in Biloxi, I liked to frequent a night club favored by locals that was housed in a barn far about a half hour’s drive from the base.  It was loads of fun: we would dance to local southern rock and country bands well into the night far from the gaze of our military stewards.  One night a multicultural group of us hopped in a mini-van and headed out; as we turned on to the graded road that led to the club’s door, a darker-skinned colleague became agitated.  “Where are you taking me?” he queried, “The name of the movie is Mississippi Burning!”  As Minerva’s car made yet another turn that took us deeper into the countryside, I gained some insight into his trepidation.

We drove and we drove, with an occasional red octagon (stop sign), red flashy light, or turn slowing our progress. After about thirty minutes there was a house, then another, then a bar. Ahead was a school, and just past it, white lines stenciled across the pavement formed a crosswalk.  This is where we turned in, to a well-ordered parking lot between the school and a small, white church.  Cars parked, my friend and I regrouped and joined other worshipers making their way into the building.

Occasional visits to Protestant churches with friends both in the northeast and the south had me accustomed to simple, occasionally austere sanctuaries, and this was what I expected as I entered the building.  But I had missed the name of the parish: St. John Berchmans, after a sixteenth-century Flemish Jesuit associated with a Reconstruction-era healing miracle that had occurred in nearby Grand Coteau.  Once through the mud room, program in hand, I crossed the threshold to find myself in a small basilica filled with golden light.  The four rows of gold-wood pews were arranged in the traditional form: split two-by-two by a wide center aisle with natural-wood columns (topped with arches lined with verse, ornamented with hand-pained images**) dividing the columns again.  The pews were filled with men, women, and children dressed in festive Sunday-best, the air above them teased with colors from the leaded windows that lined the gallery.  At the head of the church was a simple white triptych, with a lectern, wooden chair, and altar arranged between it and the congregation.  Jesus on the Cross, with flames on the glass behind him, looked down the aisle over all of us.  Minerva, her daughter, and I took a seat in the back left corner, and it seemed like everywhere I looked, I found some new detail to take in.  I spent the hour alternating between listening to the liturgy and taking in the rich visual field.  When the service was complete, we continued to a second town for the post-celebration meal.

As the sun drifted to the horizon, my schedule pulled me back to the highway.  As I picked my way north, the wheels of my truck ka-thunk-ing on the concrete slabs of the highway, my mind marveled at the twist of fate that had brought such an experience to my door.

* Base Exchange, sort of like a Target, see https://www.aafes.com/about-exchange/

** Photos and history of St. John Berchmans here:  http://www.stjberchmans.com

I have noticed during my travels that there are some places the Catholic church is more present and vibrant than others.  It was this way in New Mexico, where the Catholic missions are infused with First Nations traditions, and it was this way in bayou country, where French Catholicism is blended with Cajun mysticism.  These places seem to revere locations where Mary has walked among us (think Rocamadour or Lourdes), and my final stop of the day would be the local equivalent.

But first, a snack.

It was slim pickings out here at the edge of the earth: a 7-11, a MacDo’s, a sit down fish place, the petrol station quik-e-mart.  I finally stopped at Jo-Bob’s Grill, a combination fast food, convenience store, and bait shop positioned high above the water line on steel pilings*.  A bag of Cajun fries in hand, I retreated to the air conditioning of my car and was soon back on the road.  After a stop in Leeville for a walk along a quieter spot of Bayou LaFourche, I continued north towards Galliano.

The Holy Mary Shrine was built by a local parishioner in the lot adjacent to his home in Golden Meadow.  He was in the habit of stopping in at Our Lady of Prompt Succor to pray, and one day in 1974 he had a vision of Mary during one of his visits.  He describes her as standing where the statues of the Blessed Sacrament had been just moments before, a beauty beyond words, her eyes a deep blue.  After gazing at her for several minutes, he put his head down, thanked God, and when he looked up again she was gone.  He went home and told his wife, and together they built a shrine to honor his vision.  In the beginning it was a simple rendering of Mary carved out of a red cypress tree; today it includes a row of pews cornered with statues of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, all sheltered from the sun and rain with an aluminum siding roof and eaves.

I have long had a soft spot for this type of home-grown memorial.  It started with the descansos, home-made crosses or markers that remember traffic (and increasingly motorcycle) fatalities, that sprouted on the side of the road in the ‘90s.  My affection grew during a trip to rural Netherlands in the early 2000s, where many of the fields had a small statue of Mary, Isadore, or another patron saint placed in a corner to watch over the crops.  In Golden Meadow, candles, flowers, and other offerings left at the shrine bore witness to the difficulties of life in the lower bayou.

It had been a long day and I was tired. My plan was to head north the next morning, so once back at the ranch I began loading up for the drive out.  Once finished I curled up and, as I watched the sun set, found myself slowly drifting to sleep.

Note:  A friend graciously shared this link to pictures of Jo-Bob’s:  https://local.yahoo.com/info-190472874-jobob-s-gas-grill-grand-isle?p=jo-bob%20s%20gas%20&%20grill

 

I was back on Route 1.  This stretch of leveed highway parallels the Gulf shore, and a brownish-green marsh stretched between me and open water.  My destination: the end of the road, and possibly pirates.

As I made my way east, wetland slowly gave way to low dunes, and after a flyover bridge I found myself on a barrier island.  Here industry gave way to the tourist economy: the main road was lined with shops and restaurants, while side streets were lined with rental cottages and elevated vacation homes.  Most were elevated on pilings the designers hoped would protect them during future storm surges, providing space to shelter cars, trucks, boats, and the occasional RV from the sun.  It being summer, streets and yards were packed with families and other constellations of revelers enjoying time away from their day-to-day lives.  The balconies of the larger homes sported drying towels and fishing poles.  After some twenty minutes of slow moving traffic the homes thinned again, leaving dunes to my left, a tank farm to my right, and the tip of the island ahead.

During the Napoleonic Wars, the U.S. outlawed trade with both Great Britain and France, two major sources of goods for the recently-acquired New Orleans.  This created opportunities, and a local smuggler and pirate, Jean Lafitte, set up shop on the barrier islands one hundred miles south to fill the need.  For the next few years, merchants made their way across Barataria Bay to his Grand Terre warehouses and slave pens for auctions, and he was mysteriously effective at evading capture by local soldiers and customs officials.  In 1814, as the War of 1812 spread south, Lafitte was approached by the British and asked to join their fleet’s attacks along the Gulf Coast.  Lafitte chose to warn the Americans instead and, after some initial resistance from Jackson, was instrumental in the American victory during the Battle of New Orleans.  When the war was over, his men were pardoned, his Grand Terre station coopted by the government as a coastal defense fort, and Jean Lafitte and his brother Pierre moved west to Galveston, where they served as spies for Spain during the Mexican War for Independence.  While Fort Livingston (as their enclave is now known) is accessible only by boat, I’d heard it is possible to get a glimpse of it from the bay’s west side*.

I entered Grand Isle State Park and made my way along the estuary to the visitors center.  The weather here was cooler than in Port Fourchon, with a stiff breeze coming in off the water. There was an observation tower, a roofed deck perched atop five flights of stairs.  I gave it a try but, as expected, abandoned the effort at the fourth turn of the stairs**.  This left the pier that led out over the dunes and the beach and over the water. As I moseyed toward the waves, I watched two families on the beach below, the adults sunning themselves on towels, the youngsters playing near the water’s edge.  To the other side, sandpipers and gulls alternately probed the beach for food and scurried away from the wave wash, and pelicans perched on the stones of a decaying jetty.

And there it was: a stripe of brick on the opposite shore.  Pirates.

I leaned on the railing and took some deep breaths.  It had been a long four months, and fatigue was catching up with me.  My eyes drifted to the waves; the regular rhythm of the swells began to relax the knots in my body and mind.  A shrimp boat chugged through the pass towards open water; a helicopter circled on approach to a nearby base.  A man walked towards me, tackle and pole in hand, set up further down the railing and cast his line.  I scanned the horizon, and the city of oil platforms that stretched along it.  I stood, and breathed in the Gulf air, and slowly began to relax.

* https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fort-livingston

** Remember the bridge thing?

The road was blocked.

I had stayed on an extra day to catch my breath and re-visit a few favorite places, the first of which was to be the beach where Chewy and I had roamed seven years before.  So after a morning spent sleeping in and reading, I headed south along Louisiana’s Route 1.

One thing about southern Louisiana is that it is slowly sinking into the Gulf of Mexico.  There are many reasons for this, and I won’t go into them here, but it is, and as I drove I could see the effects.  Once past the levee and floodgates (lock)* homes and shops gave way to oilfield contractors and the local fishery** and quickly, open marshland.  The road had been raised and improved, wooden power lines had given way to well-designed catenaries, and a cherished family church (previously clinging to a small rise of earth) was gone.  Just before Leeville, signs directed me to a toll booth and the new bridge, an eight-mile span that rose over the ship route (fortunately to a level I was comfortable with) before paralleling the old Route One to the cut-off for Port Fourchon***.  I paid the three dollar toll and was on my way, my truck’s tires ka-thunking below me.

Port Fourchon is Louisiana’s southernmost port.  It is located at the tip of a thin strip of land between two bays that empty into the Gulf, and is home to businesses that support the offshore oil and gas industry.  At the end of the bridge I continued on past the well-tended homes of Pointe Fourchon and soon approached the port itself.  Several ships rose between the rows of oil tanks: multi-purpose supply vessels, one complete with crane; an oil-spill response vessel; and even a mobile drilling unit.  I continued on, past the Casino and public boat launch, and over the narrow bridge that crossed the last bit of water before the beach.  But there, just past the strip of pavement that led to the Chevron dock, was a gate.  It blocked the road and framed a sign that strongly discouraged continuing past that point.

I had come too far to abandon my quest so close to my destination, so I found a strip of sand, parked my vehicle, and proceeded on foot.  Within a couple of minutes I could see open water and, after the road crested the dunes, the beach.  And when I did, my heart fell.

I had forgotten Deepwater Horizon.

I remember the day of the breach clearly; I had been at my desk in Connecticut when word filtered in that there was a fire on a rig in the Macando Prospect.  When queried, our field service reps advised several of our helicopters were involved in rescues, including evacuations and medical flights.  It was only later, as we watched the attempts to cap the line during the months that followed, that we learned the severity of the event.  Living in the North, I had the luxury of letting it slip from my mind.

The place Chewy and I had hiked was now something like a beach… but not quite.  A concrete and steel-cable fence had been built halfway between the dunes and water, and it was piled high with rocks, gravel and debris.  In the space between, what I remembered as beige sand was now grey slurry, evidence of the spill still evident after all these years.  Just offshore were a series of breakwaters, also new since my last visit, and the water between them and the beach was flat and drab.  As I looked around I realized the fauna had changed as well, less green, more yellow and brown.  I sucked in my breath and the wind buffeted my face and whipped my hair.  The place Chewy had frolicked was gone.

After a few more moments taking it all in I turned and, the wind now out of my sails, hiked back to my truck.

*South LaFourche Levee District: http://slld.org/aboutus.html

**A really interesting fisherman’s collective http://louisianadirectseafood.com/about-us/

***The state of Louisiana some spiffy photos and video from construction here:  http://www8.dotd.la.gov/la1project/news.aspx

Vessels berthed at Port Fourchon: http://www.chouest.com/vessels.html  Video (includes a crane ship): https://vimeo.com/135402632