A 2014 South Coast Summer Fest in doubt

Sunday morning coffee on Deer Island during the South Coast Summer Fest held late June 2013

      Amid the muted slap of small waves on the sand at the public beach in Ocean Springs, MS, five paddlers landed their kayaks on the gently sloping shore.  Their arrival on the beach after finishing a two-mile crossing of Biloxi Bay that humid Sunday morning, after a night of camping, s'mores, shish kebabs and a campfire on Deer Island, brought to a close the last scheduled event of South Coast Summer Fest: ten days and nights that attempted to turn the Mississippi Gulf Coast from Bay St. Louis to Pascagoula into Planet Kayak with dozens of kayak themed events on the beach and in the water.
      All types of kayaking were promoted in the late June festival.  The variety of events included kayak trips to secluded natural sites, kayaking instruction, kayak fishing demonstrations, kayak rides for children, twilight group paddles and races.  Each day of the fest, award winning film shorts about paddling the world over were screened in Biloxi.
     But this year may have been the last for the two-year old festival.
     While successful at building a "kayak community" and promoting safety on the water, the fest was not successful financially, putting a Summer Fest for 2014 in doubt, said Cynthia Ramseur, who along with Leah Bray, owns Natural Capital Development, an environmental consulting and project management company based in Ocean Springs, MS.  The firm organizes and underwrites the South Coast Summer Fest to promote eco-tourism along the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
      About 40 volunteers help with event.

Leah Bray

      Communities hosting festival events were enthusiastic but over all attendance to the five free community celebrations was disappointing, Ramseur said.   Paddle trips, most of them requiring a fee and appealing to eco-tourists wanting to go birding and see wildlife in the fragile environments near the coast, attracted about as many people this year as last.  Overall about 2,000 people, most of them from the local area, attended at least one of this year's events, she said.
     A final accounting of festival revenues has not yet been made but it looks like the festival raised about $2,000 to donate to the Mississippi Wildlife Federation, Ramseur said.
     The festival's fate could be decided late this summer when stake-holders in this year's fest meet to review the 2013 event, said Ramseur.
     Getting the green light for a 2014 Summer Fest is in part "up to the kayak community and if they want to support it," said Ramseur, one of three partners in South Coast Paddling Company, a kayak rental and eco-tourism business based in Ocean Springs, MS.
      However, more public money for production and publicity is the key to having a festival in 2014, Ramseur said.
     "We did not have the investment in local advertising.  We did not have paid marketing.  You have to have good financial support to run a festival this size," Ramseur said.
      Interest in kayaking along the Mississippi Gulf coast appears to be strong.  The Mississippi Kayak Meetup group, an informal Internet social network of area paddlers, has nearly 300 members in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana.  Many of those members volunteered for Summer Fest, leading trips, offering kayak instruction and free kayak rides for children.
     Several kayak touring companies along the coast cater to eco-tourists who want to see the wetlands of the area and an alligator or two.  Kayak rentals are available in Bay St. Louis, Biloxi and near Ocean Springs.
      One of the highlights of the Festival was the twilight kayak parade in Pascagoula.  Ramseur said about 70 kayaks, some of them tandems, participated while 350-400 watched from shore as the group, many of them in lighted kayaks, paddled past Lighthouse Park.
     At the other end of the coast, a short paddle of the dark waters of the upper Jourdan River near Kiln, MS, a joint effort of the Mississippi Kayak Meetup group and the Bayou Haystackers Paddling Club from Louisiana, attracted dozens of paddlers in canoes and kayaks.
     Unfortunately, the festival climax day, the 4th Annual Ocean Springs Kayak Festival, MS fizzled after a powerful lightning storm moved through the area the night before knocking out power in some areas.  Attendance may also have been dampened by Saturday's weather forecast: on and off thundershowers all day.
     "We had more than 3,500 in Ocean Springs last year but I think the storm the night before and the threat of storms all day Saturday keep people off the beach this year," Ramseur said.  That morning's Strawberry Moon Duathlon went off as scheduled with nearly 80 participants but other events were either canceled or went on with just a few participants as there were few in the sparse crowd sprinkled on the beach that even knew there was a festival going on. 
     Optimistic about the role a well-funded Summer Fest would play in promoting environmental tourism along the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Ramseur said the festival is a great way to highlight the beauty and diversity of scenery and culture along the coast.
     "There is so much diversity in such a short coastline.  The kind of culture we have, the many restaurants...it's a lot like New Orleans," she said.

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Bicyclists celebrate new bike lanes on Esplanade Ave. in New Orleans.

WHITE LINE FEVER: Several bicyclists ride the new bike lane on Esplanade Ave. toward City Park during an informal celebration "welcoming" the lanes to New Orleans.

       A re-striping of traffic lanes on Esplanade Ave converting two narrow traffic lanes in each direction to one wider traffic lane and a bicycle route was "welcomed" by an informal parade of bicyclists who rode up and down the lanes for several hours the evening of Friday June 28.
       About 60 cyclists recruited from social media sites such as the New Orleans Outdoor Meetup Group formed ad hock pelotons to ride the less than two mile stretch of smooth asphalt with a white line separating car traffic from the cyclists, from Bayou St. John to the I-10 overpass (Claiborne Ave.) and back.
     Bicycles of all types were used for the ride from single speeds and fat tire bikes to at least one racing bike equipped with a high end Campagnolo gruppo; making the pale green stunner worth thousands.
     Cyclists have used Esplanade Ave., connecting City Park with the French Quarter, for years despite the rough pavement and narrow traffic lanes.    While there is still about a mile stretch of Esplanade Ave. from N. Claiborne to Decatur St. near the Mississippi River without bicycle lanes, (one lane already but still a tight squeeze between the traffic lane and parallel parking) the new paving and striping is a big step in making New Orleans more bicycle friendly.
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Jourdan R. & Catahoula Creek Paddle 6-15-2013

Five kayaks beach at the confluence of Catahoula Creek and Bayou Bacon to form the Jourdan River in Hancock Co., Mississippi.

  I hope you had as much fun yesterday (6-15-2013) as I did.  I paddled my sleek kayak with the dark green deck up the Jourdan River (in Hancock Co. MS), from McLeod Water Park upstream to Catahoula Creek and a little beyond, a distance of about six miles, one-way.
     A paddle trip on the lugubrious but scenic blackwater river, designated a "blueway" by The Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain (LTMCP), had been posted on the Mississippi Kayak Meet Up site for at least a couple of weeks.  But I didn't make the decision to drive the hour or so from New Orleans to the park put-in until the morning of the trip.  Hank Baltar, a Gulf Coast native and property manager, birder and fly fisherman had posted on the Internet the night before his intention to get an early start on the trip and "explore."   I introduced Baltar to the stream's quiet beauty in April and on that day the Navy veteran and soon-to-be  certified kayak instructor dubbed the stream his favorite.
     Internet sites for both the South Coast Summer Fest (see below) and the Bayou Haystackers Paddling Club, the long standing canoe and kayak club for South Louisiana, listed the event so it was no surprise that there were over two dozen canoes and kayaks launching at the park's east boat ramp that morning.
     I missed the "early" start by about half an hour, so by the time I got underway, Baltar, and three other long boat paddlers; Barry Mends, Jim Rusch and Nancy Phillips, were long gone.  I had my work cut out for me if I was going to join their group.  Luckily it was a glorious morning for a workout; blue skies dotted with puffy white clouds and a gentle east wind rippling the water's surface.
     The Jourdan can seem like two completely different streams depending on where you are on the river.  The lower Jourdan is an estuary of St. Louis Bay to the south, so it is subject to a slight tidal flow but has no real current.  From the park to where the river empties into the bay, the broad, lake-like Jourdan is a playground for speedboats, water skiers and personal watercraft.
     But about three river miles upstream of McLoud, the Jourdan begins to narrow.  Each paddle stroke requires more and more effort to maintain forward motion.   In the water around stobs and stumps tell-tale "V's" pointing upstream confirm what a paddler's aching arms and shoulders suspect: there is now a current to fight.  To stop paddling, even for an instant, meant a sudden stop, floating motionless for a moment or two then a drift backwards.
         After paddling non-stop for nearly a hour and still no sign of the lead group, I resigned myself to the fact that I was living the old Chinese curse; that I had gotten what I had wished for.  I began to paddle with greater intensity and resolve, leaving in sepia colored stream waters evenly spaced little whirlpools where my paddle blades had been.
       With the increased effort came increased scenic beauty. The river had become creek-like with a series of 180 degree turns, each rounding a pristine white sand beach backed by an unbroken forest of pines and hardwoods.  No noise from the surrounding highways and roads intruded on the scene and that while the land flanking the river is private, it lies within the NASA's Stennis facility protective zone set up decades ago so there are no man made structures to be seen, only trees, beaches and water.
     The feeling of wilderness is enhanced by the absence of visitors.  While the water in the Jourdan and its major contributor, Catahoula Creek are deemed navigable by the state and so are public, the land flanking the two streams is private.  Floating downstream with the current to McLeod is not possible because there is no public access to either Catahoula Creek or the Jourdan River upstream of McLeod.
     Paddling upstream from McLeod is no day at the beach and takes the power of two strong paddlers in a tandem canoe or a committed kayaker to make the five miles to Bayou Bacon.  Even those in boats with motors generally avoid the waterway's upper reaches because the shallow water there is strewn with propeller-eating stumps and downed trees.

     (One does not have to paddle far up the river to enjoy it.  There are several sandbars just a mile or two upriver of McLeod that make great destinations for sunning, lounging and swimming in the river.)
      Finally after several promises to myself that if I don't see them at the next bend I'm turning around, I see their yaks pulled up on a sandbar at the confluence of Bayou Bacon and Catahoula Creek, the official headwaters of the Jourdan R.
     (This point is 0.0 for mileage markers placed downstream by the LTMCP.)
    After a break, a little chit-chat  and some fly fishing by Hank and Jim, the group of four, now five, pushed off to see how far up Catahoula Creek they could paddle.
     (In the picture Hank is holding a fish he caught with a fly he tied himself.  The fish would fit on a dollar bill with room to spare.)
     Progress is slow into the gentle but persistent current of the shallow creek.  Only about a foot deep, we could see through the nearly clear water to the stream bed where each paddle stroke raised a plume of tan sand from the bottom.  After about a mile of determined stroking everyone agreed the creek had won so we decided it was time to head home.   But not before taking a break to cool off lounging in the shallow tannin-tainted waters of Catahoula Creek on a warm early summer afternoon.

SINCE YOU ASKED...
    2nd Annual South Coast Summer Fest, June 13-22, southcoastsummerfest.com.  A 10-day celebration showcasing coastal Mississippi's waterway and local culture.  Small festivals, tours of local rivers and bayous and promotion of kayaking as a sport with free kayak rides and classes make up most of the events.  Some events have fees, some do not.    The fest winds up in Ocean Springs, MS Saturday, June 22 beginning with a duathlon (2 mi. run, 2 mi. kayak, 2 mi. run), kayak rides and kayak classes, ending with a twilight paddle to Deer Island and an overnight camp out.  A collection of award-winning  film shorts now touring the country, featuring paddling adventures from around the world will be shown daily for the duration of the Fest at the Biloxi Visitor Center, 1050 Beach Blvd., Biloxi beginning at 11 am.  Free. Visit the website for location.
     McLeod Water Park, 8100 Texas Flat Road, Bay St. Louis, MS, phone: 228-467-1894, has about a half dozen tandem canoes for rent at a reasonable rate.  There is a $2 entry fee into the park.  No alcoholic beverages are allowed in the park, owned by the Pearl River Basin Development District and operated by the Hancock Board of Supervisors.
     The closest kayak rentals are in Bay St. Louis at Bay Breeze, phone, 228-466-3333 or visit baybreezecoastal.com.  According to their website, they also rent single speed, coaster brake cruising bicycles for $7.50 a day, an astoundingly low daily rate.
   A map of the Jourdan River Blueway is posted at the website of  The Land Trust for the Mississippi Coastal Plain, www.ltmcp.org.  The water trail extends from Bayou Bacon downstream to Bayou Talla.  Because the Jourdan River is a popular destination for power boaters and personal watercraft operators, paddlers should probably limit their exploration of the river to up stream of the park and to avoid paddling in the center of the river especially in warm weather when there is lots of boat traffic.  The river through the park itself is a no wake zone 

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Port Hudson and Audubon State Parks cut open days to five

     Two significant and popular state historical sites in West Feliciana Parish (Louisiana) have cut their operating schedules to five days a week.  The Port Hudson and nearby Audubon State Historical Sites are now only open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday thru Saturday.  They are closed Sunday and Monday.  (See companion story about increases in fees to visit Audubon State Historical Site.)
     A tight state parks budget forced the two-day a week closing and staff at the two facilities picked which days to close, said Jacques Berry, communications director for Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne.
     Port Hudson State Historic Site encompasses a significant portion of the battlefield, where in the early summer of 1863, more than 30,000 Union troops repeatedly attacked an entrenched Confederate force of 6,800 troops fighting to keep Rebel supply lines across the Mississippi River open.  Unable to breach the Rebel defenses by force of arms, Union troops resorted to a siege, cutting off all supplies to the beleaguered Southerners.  After 45 days the starving Confederates, reduced to eating rats and mule meat, were forced to surrender.
     The defeat at Port Hudson, along with the fall of the fortress upriver at Vicksburg, MS to Union General U.S. Grant the week before, secured Union control of the Mississippi River, cutting the Confederacy in half, turning the tide of war in favor of the Union.
     (The cut in the park's hours of operation comes on the 150th anniversary of the siege; May. 23-June 9, 1863.  The siege at Port Hudson, LA is the longest siege in American military history.)
     The park has a fine museum describing the significance of the battle, a timeline of the battle and how the troops held up under the stress of war.  A section of the original 4.5 mile-long earthworks built by the defending rebels has been preserved.
      Six miles of well maintained crushed stone trail leading to existing Rebel fortifications winds up and down the many ravines in the well-shaded 909-acre park.  The trails are popular with hikers looking for a shady place to walk in warm weather.  A lack of understory growth in the park makes for fair to good birding.  A list of bird species found in the park is available at the park museum.
     Audubon State Historic Site is also known as the park with Oakley House, the plantation home painter John James Audubon briefly lived in the summer of 1821.  The over 200-year old West-Indies style "big house" and surrounding out buildings have been restored and are open for tours which run on the hour.  On the surrounding grounds are well-shaded picnic areas, a formal garden and a short nature trail.
     Hired to teach drawing to a child of the plantation's owner, Audubon drew inspiration and sketched many of the birds found in his famous "Birds of America" while living there.
     Both sites are south of St, Francisville, the parish seat of West Feliciana Parish.
     For more information about Port Hudson call 888-677-3400.   For Audubon State Historic Site call 888-677-2838 or 225-635-3739.

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Louisiana State Parks raises camping fees

    


The first night's camping fee at this unimproved camping site at Fontainebleau S.P will be $20 after July 1.2013 (fee includes $6 reservation fee.)

      Just in time for the July 4th holiday, fees will go up for campers in Louisiana State parks beginning July 1st.  The fee hikes do not include the $6 reservation fee tacked on to the first night's camping fee.  The one-time-per-visit reservation fee is charged for both campsites reserved in advance and for last minute drive-ups.
     Fees as of July 1, 2013.  October-March; unimproved-$14; improved-$18; premium-$20.  April-September; unimproved-$14; improved-$22; premium-$28.  Canoe sites will be $14 year around.
     Fees have increased at the Audubon St. Historic Site.  Entrance to the grounds and the house tour of Oakley is $8  Entrance to the grounds only-$4.  There are discounts for seniors 62 and older and students.
     Fees at Port Hudson State Historic Site are $4 per person.  Seniors 62 and older admitted free.  Discounts for students.
     Both Port Hudson and Audubon sites are in West Feliciana Parish, near St. Francisville. 
     The fee increases were announced in a June 3, 2013 press release from the Department of Recreation, Culture and Tourism.  For more information go to www.LaStateParks.com.

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Tammany Trace: Not just a bicycle ride; its a vacation!




There are forested sections of the 27 mile long Tammany Trace in St. Tammany Parish Louisiana

(NOTE:  It was 20 years ago that the first section of the Tammany Trace, from Abita Springs to U.S. 190 in Mandeville opened.  This event will be celebrated November 1 & 2, 2014 with a variety of events held at trailheads along the Trace from Covington to Slidell.  Visit the parish website for the Trace for details.)  

       The Tammany Trace, a 27-mile asphalt recreation trail (no motorized vehicles) stretches across St. Tammany Parish (LA) straight as an arrow and flat as a pancake. On its way east from Covington to Slidell, LA, the popular path passes through several natural landscapes common to south Louisiana:  torpid bayous flanked by tall bald cypress and upland pine forests among them.
      Wildlife?  The Trace passes through Fontainebleau State Park where early morning riders may see wary deer foraging near the trail.  Lucky riders might see a bald eagle or soaring osprey from the nearby 19,000 acre Big Branch Marsh National Wildlife Refuge or hear the steady drumming of the endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers that make their home amid the tall pines there.
     And as can be expected in one of the fastest growing parishes in the state, the view from the Trace can also be one of subdivisions and strip malls.  Yet in the four towns touched by the Trace there are museums, historic districts, art galleries and antique/curio shops along with a variety of eateries for every taste and pocketbook, most of them within a few blocks of the path.
     (The Trace, as it stands now, is not 31 miles long, the distance given in the promotional material distributed by St. Tammany Parish officials.  The right of way does go 31-miles but the paved Trace stops at the Slidell city limits.  This distance is 27.35 miles.  The trail stops a few yards past the Carollo Trail head.)
     St. Tammany Parish has long been a natural playground for New Orleans residents seeking a convenient escape from the summer heat in the city.  Beginning in the 19th century, ferries would ply Lake Pontchartrain taking passengers to and from New Orleans and resorts in Mandeville, Abita Springs and Covington.  The air in this "Ozone Zone" was said to be healthful and spring water at Abita Springs restorative.
     The railroad to Covington was finished around 1900 and operated until the mid 1980's when it was abandoned.  Key in the demise of the railroad was the building of the 24-mile causeway across Lake Pontchartrain linking the north and south shores in 1956.  The deal for the purchase of the railroad right of way by St. Tammany Parish was signed in December of 1992.  The first stretch of the paved trail, eight miles connecting Abita Springs with US 190  in Mandeville was open in the fall of 1994.
     (Even after the Trace was built through Mandeville, the highway provided a de facto barrier for users queasy about dashing across the busy highway to continue despite a user actuated stoplight.   Later a tunnel was constructed under the road to allow Trace traffic to continue on through Mandeville without having to face down the heavy, highway traffic.  A tunnel is planned for the grade-level Trace crossing of  LA 59, a busy three-lane highway between Abita Springs and Mandeville)


These two railroad cars, the Pullman car General Jackson
 built in1942 and a baggage car, built in 1921,
parked at Hoffman Rd. for years, were recently hauled away
to be refurbished and put into service by a company
 offering luxury vintage railroad journeys,

     The western trail head is in downtown Covington, a quaint southern town on the cusp of celebrating its 200th anniversary.  Founded on the banks of the shallow Bogue Falaya River, the parish seat is a market town with many tony boutiques, coffee shops and antique dealers either right on the trail or only a block or two away.  The Covington Farmer's Market sets up shop at the trail head each Wednesday.
     Heading east the first town is Abita Springs, 3.5 miles from the Covington trail head.  Here a small museum (open weekends) adjacent to the trail, explains the town's history as a health resort in the early 20th century.  The notion that the combination of piney woods, mineral springs and pleasant scenery might be healthy got a boost from federal health officials when this "Ozone Belt" was named the healthiest region in the country in the early 1900's. 

For a "health" of a different sort, walk across the trail to the Abita Brew Pub.  Once the brewery for the popular beer, now brewed a mile away, the building is a popular casual restaurant with outdoor seating.  The fabulous root beer, sweetened with Louisiana cane sugar, is a treat for kids of all ages.
      A couple of blocks down the Trace housed in a depression-era service station, is the Mystery House, an eclectic collection of off-the-wall exhibits and dioramas, most of them created by artist John Preble.  The Mystery House, aka UCM Museum, is ground-zero for the Louisiana Bicycle Festival held each year the Saturday before Father's Day.  (In 2013 the date is June 15.)  The festival offers food, music, bicycle rides, a bicycle flea market and some of the weirdest working bicycle creations you have ever seen.

     The Trace turns south to pass through a lush wetland cut by muddy bayous, the landscape occasionally marred by the fresh concrete, brick and aluminum siding of new subdivisions backing into the green vista.  Just shy of eight miles from Covington, riders will arrive at the Trace Headquarters at the end of Koop Rd.  Here a green caboose serves as an information center and ranger station.    Home to a major playground complex open to all children with or without special needs, this trail head has lots of parking and is often the starting point for group rides on the Trace.
     The Mandeville trail head, 12.15 miles from Covington, is designed to look like a turn of the century train platform.  Here a unique splash fountain for the kids keeps them cool in the summer.  The open-air amphitheater here is busy with events and a farmer's market is held here too.  The snow cone concession next to the trailhead, Shivvers, rents bicycles.  (Visit tammanytrace.com for a calendar of events at the trailhead.)
      In Mandeville, riders can leave the Trace and ride south about .7 mi. to Lake Pontchartrain and the bike path along the seawall there.  (Do not ride Gerard St.  It is narrow and busy with traffic.  Almost any other street to the lake will have lighter traffic.) The path runs along Lakeshore Dr. where a number of seafood restaurants blend in with the "old money" raised plantation style homes facing the lake.  To the west the path ends when the seawall does.  To the east riders can connect with the Tammany Trace.  Just follow the seawall path east.  It ends at the playground and boat launch at Mandeville harbor. Cross Lakeshore Dr., which also ends, and ride north along the path flanking Jackson Ave.  This path intersects with the Trace.
     After crossing Bayou Castine, the Trace passes for almost 2.5 miles through Fontainebleau State Park.  The large park offers camping for RVs and tents and a sandy swimming beach on the lake.  There are no bathrooms near the beach.  Vacation cabins in the park, damaged by Hurricane Isaac in 2012, have not been repaired as of 10-23-2014.  A fee is charged to enter the park and for camping.  All state parks in Louisiana honor the federal senior (age 62) pass for half-price camping.
     Here's a weekend get-a-way idea.  Drive from the city to the park, set up, then bicycle to Mandeville, Covington, Abita Springs or Lacombe for morning coffee and meals.  Have a "near bike" experience.
     Just west of the park entrance a spur trail crosses busy highway U.S. 190 to Pelican Park, a popular recreation complex with ball fields.  Next to Pelican Park is Northlake Nature Center where  riders can access several dirt mountain bike trails from Pelican Park.  Roadies can park and lock road bikes in Pelican Park and walk the trails.
     East of Bayou Castine the trail can seem remote as it passes through undeveloped sections of the state park.  At the park's eastern border, the path crosses Bayou Cane.  Here paddlers launch into the popular bayou from an unimproved sand and shell bank.  The bayou forms a border between the state park and Big Branch Marsh NWR.
    Riders can visit the working-class community of Bayou Lacombe by taking Lake Rd. (LA 434) a short distance north.  Here are a bicycle/kayak rental and a few stores and eateries.  Main St. has some beautiful old live oak trees and there is a small museum featuring rural life of the area.
       (John Davis Park in Lacombe, described in the parish Tammany Trace website as a parking area is actually not on the Trace as shown on the parish map but north of the Trace a couple of blocks.  Use N. 12th St. to connect the Trace and the park. 
     Completed in 2008, the drawbridge crossing Bayou Lacombe is the trailhead for Lacombe.  There is no road to it so there is no motorized access to it but at the bridge there are restrooms, a drink machine and a bench on which to sit and gaze at the shaded bayou. The bridge is usually down--meaning trail users can cross it--from sunrise to sunset, though there is a bridge tender there during the day just in case one of the half dozen or so sailboats upstream of the bridge wishes to pass downstream.  The bridge stays open for boat traffic all night from sunset to sunrise.  There is a digital clock on the bridge displaying the time it will open for boat traffic for the night.  Pay attention.  There is no easy or safe detour if the bridge is up.
     East of the bridge the trail passes through a lovely grove of young pine trees next to the trail.  The section of the trail has a remote feel.
     The current eastern terminus of the trail is at the Slidell/Carollo trail head, 27.35 miles from Covington, where there are restrooms and a St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's substation.  Two convenience stores are nearby at highway LA 433 and US 190.   The paved trail extends east past Carollo TH about a quarter of a mile to dead-end in an undeveloped wooded area about 50 yards from US 190, at the western city limits of Slidell.  The exact trail's end is a splash of gravel in the weeds known as Neslo Rd.  To the north is a large shopping center but to reach it riders have to cross the busy highway.  Leaving the Trace here is not at all recommended unless you have an untamed hunger for fast food and a big box store shopping experience.     
     Beautiful as it is the Trace can be dangerous for the careless.   Numerous streets and a couple of highways cross the Trace.  Assume they are all busy with traffic even if you don't see any.  Bicyclists riding the Trace should NEVER assume cyclists have the right of way at any cross streets. Come to a complete stop at stop signs.  Put your foot down.  Often vegetation growing near the intersection prevents a driver from seeing the Trace until they are right on it.  Earlier this year a teenager time-trialing on the Trace, raced through a stop sign without stopping between Covington and Abita Springs and was killed.  A "ghost bicycle" painted white, was placed at that intersection as a memorial.

A ghost bike memorial for rider who died in a
 crash at the intersection of the
 Tammany Trace and Josephine St.

     Several years ago an adult rider training on the Trace was paralyzed from the neck down after hitting one of the steel bollards at the edge of the Trace at a cross street.
     Ride carefully as the pathway is only 10 feet wide and can be crowded with people walking, jogging, skating, pushing strollers or skateboarding.  Toddlers on bikes with training wheels can stop and turn into your path in an instant.  When approaching from behind try to let other Trace users know you are there even if they are using ear buds.  A simple "passing on the left," or just "Hi" will let them know you are there.  If you have never been riding a shared path when a jogger or child suddenly stopped in front of you, apparently for no reason, you have not ridden much.
     There is a 20 mph speed limit.  No pets are permitted on the Trace.  Wear  a helmet.  As we head into deep summer, reconsider any plans to ride the Trace in the middle of the day.  There is not a lot of shade.  Drinks lots of fluids and don't leave a trail head without topping off water bottles.  And stay off highway U.S. 190.  Two lanes, too busy and no shoulder.

BICYCLE RENTALS:
Brooks Bike Shop, 416 Gibson, Covington, LA. Phone 985-237-3658. (On the Trace near the Covington trail head.)
Shiver Shack, 2020 Woodrow St., Mandeville, LA Phone 985-246-9595. (Across from the Mandeville trail head.)
Spokesman Professional Bicycle Work, 1848 N. Causeway, Mandeville, LA. Phone 985-727-7211.
Bayou Adventure, 27725 Main St., Lacombe, LA. 985-882-9208. In addition to renting a one-speed cruiser or a sit-on-top kayak at the bait shop, co-owner Judge Shannon Villemarette, a Justice of the Peace in Lacombe, can marry you too.)

MUSEUMS:
Bayou Lacombe Rural Museum, 61115 Saint Mary St., Lacombe, LA 70445.  Phone 985-882-3043.
Abita Mystery House and UCM Museum, Phone 985-892-2624.  Admission $3.  Open seven days a week.  ucmmuseum.com.
Abita Springs Trailhead Museum, 22049 Main St., Abita Springs. Phone 985-871-5327.  Open Friday and Saturday 10 am to 5 pm and Sundays noon to 5 pm.

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Lafitte Corridor: Nine years and no trail yet



Hikers in the 9th annual hike of the Lafitte Greenway walk through a section of the greenway between Jefferson Davis Parkway and Carrollton Ave.  Paving of a 2.4 mile trail on the 3.1 mile green way might begin late this year

PAVING OF A PORTION OF THE 3.1 PROPOSED PATH COULD BEGIN BY END OF YEAR

     In May of 2004, just as a lark,  Bart Everson and two friends hiked a 3.1 mile section of derelict abandoned railroad right of way linking Basin St. with Canal Blvd.  He saw through the garbage, visualizing instead a green space with a paved trail used by walkers and bicycle commuters to connect the French Quarter with lower Lakeview.
     Each year the hike has been reenacted, sometimes attracting 150 participants in shorts, boots some pushing bicycles or baby strollers.  They make the urban trek past abandoned and rusting businesses, the city's former brake tag inspection station, through the shards of broken glass and waist high weeds to promote the building of a park and trail in the right of way.
      Looks like they are going to have their way.  This year's hike may have been the last year of walking the greenway as a weedy and trashy urban eyesore.
      Fliers handed out to this year's group of about 50 hikers on the 9th annual hike sponsored by the Friends of the Lafitte Corridor (FOLC), proclaimed construction on the path is projected to start by fall 2013.
      Funding, most of it from a Disaster Recovery Community Development Block Grant will provide for just the basics; the trail, landscaping and some signage.  Many more facilities have been proposed for the land that will become the city's first park in two decades, but they will have to wait until funding becomes available.
     At several stops along the trek of the future greenway (the park is the greenway, the Lafitte Corridor includes blocks of housing and commercial enterprises flanking the greenway) volunteer guides gave hikers insight into the greenway's future.  The lunch stop was at the western end of Bayou St. John where the proposed trail crosses the existing Jefferson Davis Parkway path.  Under a big tent hungry walkers were treated to po boy sandwiches from the nearby Parkway Bakery and Tavern. 
     There was music along the route: a brass band at the lunch stop and a jazz trio at Bud's Broiler on City Park Ave. where the hike ended.
     Rain postponed the hike from the previous Saturday which may explain the much lower turnout than previous years.   However weather for the May 18 event was warm with partly cloudy skies.
    

Original FOLC board members Daniel Samuels and Bart Everson.

TRAIL WILL NOT CONNECT BASIN ST. WITH CANAL BLVD.

     The first phase of the trail starts at Basin St. and dead ends at N. Alexander; a distance of about 2.4 miles.  The remaining .7 mi. to Canal Blvd. is an active railroad with a train servicing a brick yard several days a week.
     An agreement allowing the trail to be completed to Canal Blvd, could not be reached between Norfolk-Southern, the railroad with the right of way between N. Alexander and Canal Blvd, and the city,  FOLC members said.
     (This means trail users will forced to detour using surrounding streets to connect with Canal Blvd. and City Park.)
     The project appears to be grinding along at a snail's pace for many reasons.  After the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 the city was focused on reconstruction, not park creation.  Later, after bids had been accepted and a planning firm selected, the whole process had to begin again after an election brought in a new administration.  But those familiar with public capital improvement projects say things are moving about as fast as can be expected.
     While the Lafitte Corridor trail itself has yet to see any signs of the construction outside of a little grass cutting, businesses within the corridor are busy preparing for the greenway's eventual opening.
     The trail passes by Mid-City Market, a small shopping center under construction in the footprint of a shopping center and car dealership on N. Carrollton Ave. destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Mid-City Market developers, at the urging of the city, have included access to the trail providing trail users easy access to the Winn-Dixie, Office Depot and several food outlets and other businesses in the development.
     Where the tracks and City Park Ave. intersect, Shannon McGuire, owner of one of seven Bud's Broiler franchises, is getting her business ready for the trail's opening.  McGuire, who made the hike with the group, said she is installing bike racks and an area with piping to spray a cooling mist on overheated summer trail users.
     The building now housing Bud's Broiler has a history.  It was built in the 1920's as a ticket station for passengers boarding trains--pulled by steam engines in the early days-- of the Southern Railway, McGuire said. (The tracks were laid 1905-1908.)   Later, when the railroad moved its passenger service to the "new" Union Station on Loyola Ave, the small two-story frame building on City Park Ave. became the city's first Bud's Broiler in 1952.  (The Southern Railway became part of Norfolk-Southern in 1982.)
     The cozy burger joint has since become a treasured tradition in New Orleans, serving charcoal broiled hamburgers, hot dogs, onion rings, French fries, hot pies and shakes to hungry patrons 24/7.  McGuire has modernized the menu expanding the sandwich offerings.  Seating has been expanded with tables outside on the sidewalk and a patio in the back.

Bud's Broiler, 500 City Park Ave. N.O., LA. 504-486-2559

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