Where Did that Bring You? Back to Me: A Travelogue about Somehow going to Poverty Point Again
I am assuming considering the consistent traffic The Nicsperiment has received in its 20 years of existence that I must have some consistent readers. My high school Geometry teacher once told me that "assuming makes an ass out of you and me," but he himself was an ass, so I am assuming that he did a lot of assuming. However, if somewhere in those 20 years and 686,720 page views I have picked up consistent readers, and you are one of them, you likely read a travelogue I wrote seven years ago, titled 'The Nicsperiment's Nihilistic Nu-Metal Jaunt to Poverty Point." In that travelogue, I describe a trip I took to a remote corner of Northeast Louisiana, humorously detailing my very non-humorous ill-intentions for myself by framing the travelogue in the most over-the-top nihilistic language as possible. This trip came at the end of a difficult year where I'd realized that most of the goals I'd set for my life had failed. My career goals failed. My hopes for my marriage, which still existed then, had largely failed. Even my hopes for who I would be as a person had largely failed, just like I almost did at Geometry. However, a strange thing happened on this dark journey to the Poverty Point World Heritage Site, tucked away in one of the most remote corners of my home state: I found the will to live again.
When I arrived home, I had one clear goal: I don't ever want to feel the way I did when I was driving to Poverty Point again. And in the last seven years, save one dark night in 2019, I have not. In fact, I have felt progressively better every year since then, my mind and spirit progressively stronger. Thus, when my wife told me in early March of this year, "I want to talk to you about something," I wasn't completely destroyed by the result of that conversation. I grieved for a few weeks, and then my mind turned optimistically toward the future. Moments have been, like Geometry tests, difficult, particularly when I found myself working 80 hour weeks throughout this past summer, but I've been feeling great about life. As this year neared its end, I decided I should take one of my hiking trips to clear my head and reflect. I looked through lists of state hiking trails I haven't yet visited, and settled upon Black Bayou Lake National Wildlife Refuge, near Monroe, Louisiana. I picked a date, took off of work, made sure my son had a ride home from school, and eagerly awaited the trip. The day finally came, I dropped my son off at school, and hit the road. What happened next makes no logical sense.
* * *
I'm happy, I'm excited, but I'm stressed. After moving out of the bed I've shared with my soon to be ex-wife for nearly two decades and sleeping in temporary and far less comfortable beds for the last few months, I'm buying and moving into my grandparents' old house in rural Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana at the very start of the New Year. That excitement also brings some trepidation: will I be able to get everything I need in order to completely furnish a house on my own for the first time? Will the house be in livable condition? If not, can I remedy that? That trepidation spills into other things: what will the small handful of friends I haven't spoken to in a while think about my impending divorce? That spills into other items; My political and religious beliefs have essentially come back around to what they were before I left Pointe Coupee Parish for college at the start of this no longer new millennium. Will the friends I've made since then still want to be my friends? Will the friends in Pointe Coupee that I've lost since then want to be my friends again? Will my son pass Geometry?
I soon find my mind rebelling against these constricting worries. When I reach Woodville, Mississippi on Highway 61, I stop for gas, planning on leaving Highway 61 soon, once I reach Natchez. Then I'll drive through Ferriday, Louisiana, and head up toward Monroe. A few minutes earlier, I ate a smorgasbord of breakfast sandwiches I'd purchased at the Audubon Market in Saint Francisville, Louisiana. Maybe it's in response to my stomach's angry burbles, maybe it's in response to all the worries bouncing around in my enormous, potato sack-shaped head, but my mind rebels. I WILL NOT get off Highway 61 at Natchez, it tells me. I will drive all the way up to Vicksburg, Mississippi instead. We've never been to Vicksburg I tell my mind, I guess with my mind, meaning I am having a conversation with myself, and I suddenly realize that everyone with an internal monologue is actually kind of schizophrenic, and those supposed weirdos with no internal monologue may somehow be the sanest of us all. Well, I guess I am going to Vicksburg.
I drive through the magnificent hills of rural Mississippi on my favorite highway, reach Natchez, and keep driving. The back half of Natchez is just as quirky as the front half, with a lot more kudzu. I guess there is some scatological joke I could make about body hair here, but I am trying to clean the kudzu out of my act. Highway 61 does some interesting things from here, including going down to two lanes for a mile or two, but I have to tell you, she is a mighty fine road. Eventually I hit Vicksburg and veer off on I-20, as I know it eventually goes through Monroe. There is a massive American flag on the opposite bridge, and all I can think is, Somehow, Americans got that all the way up there above the river. Rad. As a good American, despite my massive eating spree that morning, I turn off at my favoritely named gas station chain, T&A, and drink from its bounty, namely all of the junk food I can carry. I need to stress, I do not normally eat this way, except on road trips. On road trips, I feel like it is required. My greatest purchase is the pictured below Reeses cup covered graham characters, a body fat-engineering marvel. Indeed, the cups at T&A were bountiful.
At this point, I've winged it so much, I just keep winging it. I get off the Interstate for no apparent reason and head North. I see a sign for a town called Delhi, and I think, Woah! Does this predate New Delhi in India? That's like the capital of India! And they named it after here! Louisiana did it first! But why does this town, just regular "Delhi," sound familiar? And then I see the sign.
In 2017, I reached Poverty Point by crossing the Mississippi River at Natchez, driving through Ferriday and Tallulah, then taking extremely rural roads above Poverty Point and turning back South to approach the Site from the North. It was an erratic route that I originally planned back in 2017 to be as desolate as possible.
Somehow, in 2024, through automatic driving or happenstance, through random chaos, a blind and careless roll of the dice, through destiny, or because something called me to the spot, I have been led back to Poverty Point by a completely different route. When I went home from Poverty Point in 2017, I headed South and eventually reached Delhi, which is why it sounds familiar. And now I'm passing the same Poverty Point reservoir I passed on my way home in 2017.
And I'm still driving. Is this really happening? I'm supposed to be on a hiking trail 50 miles away. I keep driving, skeletal trees rising from the reservoir, no one about. I pass a giant sign in the middle of a secluded field, with a statue of a zebra on top. I drive further and there is a gargoyle on a brick post. I know not what these portents mean. Is this really happening? I reach the intersection in the middle of nowhere that leads to Poverty Point. The first time, back in 2017 as I approached from the North, I had to take a right here. Now in 2024, I have to take a left. And then I'm there.
I pull into the parking lot. I remember sitting in this lot after my previous visit here, watching Game of Thrones on my laptop, (I was running the entire show for the first time, up to the end of the just-ended 7th season back then). The episode I watched in that parking lot? "The Rains of Castamere." I just happened to have it in my pack back then, and I watched it spontaneously. It was a magical moment.
I get out, and unlike before, the sun is bright, and the air warm. I start to tear up, not like a full force gale, but my eyes are getting misty. Last time I was here was in a moment of complete emotional devastation.
And now?
It's just a place.
I walk past the restrooms to the visitor center/gift shop/museum. The
employees were having a Christmas party in another building when I arrived in
2017, leaving the visitor center empty, and by the time I had finished my hike
later that day, they had all gone home. There were no other visitors. This
time, there are not only several visitors traipsing around the parking lot,
but there's a cheery girl in her mid-20's behind the counter at the visitor
center. I pay her the $5 visitor fee and think of buying a shirt, but their
shirts are kind of whack, so I make a mental note to search for one online
later. She asks if I want to walk through the museum, but I remember every
display as clear as day from last time and tell her so. She sees my strange,
perplexed expression, the misty look in my eyes, but she doesn't have a clue.
I walk back out, and the small group of tourists in the parking lot are
waiting for the tram to leave, to take them on a tour of the site. There was
no tram the last time I was here, and I don't feel like a tourist, so I take
off walking toward Mound A.
Like before, I veer off the path for a moment to a smaller mound to the left of Mound A, which overlooks the seemingly limitless agricultural land around the Site. I remember that the last time I stood here, I was marveling in my disturbed, nihilistic state that the farmers in the scattered houses in this highly remote, seemingly soul-crushing area didn't just take one too many sleeping pills at night and end it all. Now, I notice that there are a series of houses scattered around the area, and I think about how wonderful it must be to exist here, walking a few minutes to visit your neighbors, likely family, and sitting in the cool light of evening, watching the sun set over this ancient ground. I think about the rural home awaiting me in Pointe Coupee Parish, numerous family members within walking distance, and I smile. Then I turn back toward Mound A.
This time, I'm not alone. An older man of what appears to be Native American descent is helping his Caucasian wife down the steps. We great each other warmly, and then they walk back down the trail. I gaze up at this stepped path ahead that caused me so much torment in my pain seven years ago, when my legs, but much more than that, my mind felt so heavy. I climb the steps with ease and reach the top. In the seven years since I was last here, I've run seven marathons.
Like before, I veer off the path for a moment to a smaller mound to the left of Mound A, which overlooks the seemingly limitless agricultural land around the Site. I remember that the last time I stood here, I was marveling in my disturbed, nihilistic state that the farmers in the scattered houses in this highly remote, seemingly soul-crushing area didn't just take one too many sleeping pills at night and end it all. Now, I notice that there are a series of houses scattered around the area, and I think about how wonderful it must be to exist here, walking a few minutes to visit your neighbors, likely family, and sitting in the cool light of evening, watching the sun set over this ancient ground. I think about the rural home awaiting me in Pointe Coupee Parish, numerous family members within walking distance, and I smile. Then I turn back toward Mound A.
This time, I'm not alone. An older man of what appears to be Native American descent is helping his Caucasian wife down the steps. We great each other warmly, and then they walk back down the trail. I gaze up at this stepped path ahead that caused me so much torment in my pain seven years ago, when my legs, but much more than that, my mind felt so heavy. I climb the steps with ease and reach the top. In the seven years since I was last here, I've run seven marathons.
Then, I hear the cawing of a crow. The crow is still here. This time, I don't
have to lie down on the ground and have a spiritual reawakening that rekindles
my will to live. I am happy and I want to be alive. Outside of that one dark
night in 2019, I have never felt the way I did as I lied down on the ground up
here seven years ago again. The crow calls to me as it did seven years ago,
but this time not a call of resurrection, but a call of pride. I salute it. It
is a bird, but it is more than a bird, and I salute it, while standing on a
mound built in its exact shape. I have rigid, orthodox Christian beliefs and I
don't get into the New Agey, witchy side of things some Christians do, but I
feel this place has some power, or some power in relation to me, or maybe it
is a place that was built to bring people closer to God, and somehow,
thousands of years later, it has brought this particular person closer to God,
and I vow to return here regularly for the rest of my life.
I leisurely walk back to my car, taking a side path near a stand of trees. Is it only called a stand of trees because they are standing? If they are all knocked down, is it called a "knocked down of trees?" Who even invented English? After vacating all of the Bolthouse Farms and canned Starbucks Doubleshot Energy I had drank on the drive straight into the parking lot restroom's sparkling clean toilet, I get in my car and head toward the direction I think Black Bayou Lake is. I take the road through Poverty Point this time, and see a lot of cool terrain, and what look like unmarked mounds, ironically the nickname Earth's final untattooed girl has given her boobs. A side note, does anyone know the cheapest, yet most reliable method for removing tattoos? I don't want mine anymore.
I drive through a multitude of various crop fields, and past numerous churches and broken down general stores, and then suddenly I reach the red sea. Or more accurately, I reach the town of Mer Rouge, Louisiana, apparently named because there was once a bunch of red sedge growing on a nearby hill. I see a little food hut named Country Cream and decide to sample the local flavors. The window of the hut slides upon and I am introduced to the local flavor. He looks like his name is Cleetus, he can't be more than half my age, but he has twice as many tattoos as I do, though his tattoos make me feel better about mine. I notice there is both a burger and a "steakburger" on the menu, and I ask him which one is better. "Easy boss," he says, "I don't got any steakburgers today, so the regular burger is better." I order that and a malt, but when I start to grab my debit card from my wallet, he says, "I'll save you the time of pulling that out, boss. We only take cash." I express my sadness to Cleetus, whose presence I have enjoyed, and then I drive across the street to the gas station and buy a soda and a Slim Jim instead.
I take a few more turns down a few more Louisiana highways, and suddenly I reach the outskirts of civilization, the hem of Monroe, Louisiana's skirt. The street to turn off toward Black Bayou Lake seems to run directly behind a strip mall, but I turn anyway, and sure enough, things start getting swampy and then I'm there. Due to my delightful detour that I definitely do not regret taking, the sun sinks low in the sky and I feel my time at Black Bayou Lake will not be extensive. The Welcome Building is closed, and I eschew looking at any maps and just wander off behind it until I find a trail to my liking. I enjoy a nicely planted woods, and soon see the lake, and then sun beginning to set toward it, to my right. Then I see a large, aggressive spider about six inches from my face. I take a step back and this spider is raring to go at me. I think about how I once heard that Bull Sharks have like ten thousand gallons of testosterone in their bloodstream, which is, if I actually did hear that and I'm not just making this up, why they are so aggressive, and then I start wondering if spiders can have testosterone too, and now I am at a computer and I could just Google that and find an answer immediately, but I am trying to stay focused here, but also I am writing in the present tense but also just mentioned that I am presently writing this, so I think I just blew the immersion factor--I'm sorry.
I go around the spider, duck under its web, and walk until I reach a cool, yet decidedly creepy hut in the middle of the woods, overlooking a smaller lake's dry bed, then walk some more and find a lookout tower perched above a similarly dried out and overgrown lakebed. The brochure for this place, aka the Google search pictures I saw the day before, showed a beautiful boardwalk over a beautiful, swampy lake, and there had been an actual big lake with water in it earlier in my walk, so I finish this fun, but dreary circle and head from that original trailhead, to where I thought the Google search pictures trail would be. Trailhead always sounds like some kind of pimple that I want to pinch between my fingers, but instead of white, viscous pus, a magical hike would flow from its shattered remains.
I thankfully intuit the correct direction and soon find myself walking on the boardwalk of which I've seen so many pictures. This is an unfortunately short trail, but a beautiful one, a long wooden pier that goes right out into the lake, turns parallel over it, and then heads into the swamp, then back to the Refuge parking lot. Thankfully, I'm here just when the sun is about to set, just like how someone will rush in and steal all the glory from someone else's full day of work, so the light is nice, and the lake is beautiful. I don't think the view from this short trail is worth a long trip, but if you're in the Monroe, Louisiana area and want to see something pretty, I think this is a great stop.
I ran into a man digging through the grass earlier on the trail who told me he'd lost his wallet. I told him that was unfortunate, and then, instead of offering to help, asked him if he knew when the park closed. He told me "sunset," and since that was now happening, and my stomach growled as fiercely as a dog who is angry at another dog because that dog is trying to take its food away and its stomach is growling, I decided I must find food. I saw a place named Clawdaddy's back on the highway earlier, so I head there, order an oyster po-boy and fries and eat it all like both of those dogs from the previous sentence are nerds and I am the jock dating the girl they're both in love with, but suck it nerds, cry into your pocket protectors because she's all mine, all in my belly, get back into that locker where I shoved you.
There's now some urgency, as I promised my cousin, The Rabbit, who also doubles as my best friend, that I would watch the Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul fight with him that night, and the fight starts in roughly four hours. When I drove home from my first trip to Poverty Point, I still lived in Pointe Coupee Parish, where I will live again in mere weeks, and I did not have to cross the river again back then. On that drive, after having a strange confrontation with Friedrich Nietzsche's ghost near Sicily Island, Louisiana, I actually put on the Game of Thrones Season Three finale, "Mhysa," an episode which brings some hope after the bloodbath of the previous episode, reflecting my new, positive state of mind. I then got home, and my wife, now soon to be ex-wife, was asleep on the couch, and my son was awake, and eagerly recounted all of the sports scores for that day. Now, in 2024, I have to cross the river to get back to Baton Rouge, a place I'll soon no longer call home, and the quickest route back with take me down my beloved Highway 61, but in the pitchest darkness, through the woods, where deer will assumedly be running a jolly stupid obstacle course, waiting to jump directly into my car. As a beautiful, alien moon arises in an early winter sky, I drive through towns I love driving through, like Ferriday, and Vidalia, and Natchez (I cross the river there), and then it is the dark of night, and the deer are everywhere.
I have to get home alive so that I can watch Mike Tyson and then move back to Pointe Coupee Parish and father my son and uncle my nieces and family my family and friend my friends, and I grip my steering wheel like a dog grips an oyster po-boy, eyes constantly scanning the road for The Deer of the Apocalypse, brights on except on the rare occasion that another car approaches. Every time I take Highway 61, I feel like I am driving through the 1950s, but now I just want Ozzie and Harriet and The Korean War to end so that I can get back to Mike Tyson punching a reality TV star in the face. I suddenly get a text from The Rabbit that he's sick, likely highly contagious, and that he wants to watch the fight together at our separate houses while on the phone. As the deer laugh hysterically at Leave it to Beaver in their forest homes, I slow down a bit, and still end up getting home in time for several of the undercard fights, until Netflix decides it likes buffering better than airing an actual live sporting event. Most of The Rabbit and my conversation for the rest of the night involves troubleshooting Netflix, though I find that if I rewind to about three minutes before the actual live event, Netflix stops buffering and runs as smoothly as a smarter person than I am taking a Geometry test.. We both watch Mike Tyson look like a 60-year-old man fighting a 27-year-old man for about 20 minutes, until the fight ends, then we call it a night. Father Time remains undefeated, but if there's one thing the last seven years have taught me, it's that I don't want to give him any assistance.
I leisurely walk back to my car, taking a side path near a stand of trees. Is it only called a stand of trees because they are standing? If they are all knocked down, is it called a "knocked down of trees?" Who even invented English? After vacating all of the Bolthouse Farms and canned Starbucks Doubleshot Energy I had drank on the drive straight into the parking lot restroom's sparkling clean toilet, I get in my car and head toward the direction I think Black Bayou Lake is. I take the road through Poverty Point this time, and see a lot of cool terrain, and what look like unmarked mounds, ironically the nickname Earth's final untattooed girl has given her boobs. A side note, does anyone know the cheapest, yet most reliable method for removing tattoos? I don't want mine anymore.
I drive through a multitude of various crop fields, and past numerous churches and broken down general stores, and then suddenly I reach the red sea. Or more accurately, I reach the town of Mer Rouge, Louisiana, apparently named because there was once a bunch of red sedge growing on a nearby hill. I see a little food hut named Country Cream and decide to sample the local flavors. The window of the hut slides upon and I am introduced to the local flavor. He looks like his name is Cleetus, he can't be more than half my age, but he has twice as many tattoos as I do, though his tattoos make me feel better about mine. I notice there is both a burger and a "steakburger" on the menu, and I ask him which one is better. "Easy boss," he says, "I don't got any steakburgers today, so the regular burger is better." I order that and a malt, but when I start to grab my debit card from my wallet, he says, "I'll save you the time of pulling that out, boss. We only take cash." I express my sadness to Cleetus, whose presence I have enjoyed, and then I drive across the street to the gas station and buy a soda and a Slim Jim instead.
I take a few more turns down a few more Louisiana highways, and suddenly I reach the outskirts of civilization, the hem of Monroe, Louisiana's skirt. The street to turn off toward Black Bayou Lake seems to run directly behind a strip mall, but I turn anyway, and sure enough, things start getting swampy and then I'm there. Due to my delightful detour that I definitely do not regret taking, the sun sinks low in the sky and I feel my time at Black Bayou Lake will not be extensive. The Welcome Building is closed, and I eschew looking at any maps and just wander off behind it until I find a trail to my liking. I enjoy a nicely planted woods, and soon see the lake, and then sun beginning to set toward it, to my right. Then I see a large, aggressive spider about six inches from my face. I take a step back and this spider is raring to go at me. I think about how I once heard that Bull Sharks have like ten thousand gallons of testosterone in their bloodstream, which is, if I actually did hear that and I'm not just making this up, why they are so aggressive, and then I start wondering if spiders can have testosterone too, and now I am at a computer and I could just Google that and find an answer immediately, but I am trying to stay focused here, but also I am writing in the present tense but also just mentioned that I am presently writing this, so I think I just blew the immersion factor--I'm sorry.
I go around the spider, duck under its web, and walk until I reach a cool, yet decidedly creepy hut in the middle of the woods, overlooking a smaller lake's dry bed, then walk some more and find a lookout tower perched above a similarly dried out and overgrown lakebed. The brochure for this place, aka the Google search pictures I saw the day before, showed a beautiful boardwalk over a beautiful, swampy lake, and there had been an actual big lake with water in it earlier in my walk, so I finish this fun, but dreary circle and head from that original trailhead, to where I thought the Google search pictures trail would be. Trailhead always sounds like some kind of pimple that I want to pinch between my fingers, but instead of white, viscous pus, a magical hike would flow from its shattered remains.
I thankfully intuit the correct direction and soon find myself walking on the boardwalk of which I've seen so many pictures. This is an unfortunately short trail, but a beautiful one, a long wooden pier that goes right out into the lake, turns parallel over it, and then heads into the swamp, then back to the Refuge parking lot. Thankfully, I'm here just when the sun is about to set, just like how someone will rush in and steal all the glory from someone else's full day of work, so the light is nice, and the lake is beautiful. I don't think the view from this short trail is worth a long trip, but if you're in the Monroe, Louisiana area and want to see something pretty, I think this is a great stop.
I ran into a man digging through the grass earlier on the trail who told me he'd lost his wallet. I told him that was unfortunate, and then, instead of offering to help, asked him if he knew when the park closed. He told me "sunset," and since that was now happening, and my stomach growled as fiercely as a dog who is angry at another dog because that dog is trying to take its food away and its stomach is growling, I decided I must find food. I saw a place named Clawdaddy's back on the highway earlier, so I head there, order an oyster po-boy and fries and eat it all like both of those dogs from the previous sentence are nerds and I am the jock dating the girl they're both in love with, but suck it nerds, cry into your pocket protectors because she's all mine, all in my belly, get back into that locker where I shoved you.
There's now some urgency, as I promised my cousin, The Rabbit, who also doubles as my best friend, that I would watch the Mike Tyson vs Jake Paul fight with him that night, and the fight starts in roughly four hours. When I drove home from my first trip to Poverty Point, I still lived in Pointe Coupee Parish, where I will live again in mere weeks, and I did not have to cross the river again back then. On that drive, after having a strange confrontation with Friedrich Nietzsche's ghost near Sicily Island, Louisiana, I actually put on the Game of Thrones Season Three finale, "Mhysa," an episode which brings some hope after the bloodbath of the previous episode, reflecting my new, positive state of mind. I then got home, and my wife, now soon to be ex-wife, was asleep on the couch, and my son was awake, and eagerly recounted all of the sports scores for that day. Now, in 2024, I have to cross the river to get back to Baton Rouge, a place I'll soon no longer call home, and the quickest route back with take me down my beloved Highway 61, but in the pitchest darkness, through the woods, where deer will assumedly be running a jolly stupid obstacle course, waiting to jump directly into my car. As a beautiful, alien moon arises in an early winter sky, I drive through towns I love driving through, like Ferriday, and Vidalia, and Natchez (I cross the river there), and then it is the dark of night, and the deer are everywhere.
I have to get home alive so that I can watch Mike Tyson and then move back to Pointe Coupee Parish and father my son and uncle my nieces and family my family and friend my friends, and I grip my steering wheel like a dog grips an oyster po-boy, eyes constantly scanning the road for The Deer of the Apocalypse, brights on except on the rare occasion that another car approaches. Every time I take Highway 61, I feel like I am driving through the 1950s, but now I just want Ozzie and Harriet and The Korean War to end so that I can get back to Mike Tyson punching a reality TV star in the face. I suddenly get a text from The Rabbit that he's sick, likely highly contagious, and that he wants to watch the fight together at our separate houses while on the phone. As the deer laugh hysterically at Leave it to Beaver in their forest homes, I slow down a bit, and still end up getting home in time for several of the undercard fights, until Netflix decides it likes buffering better than airing an actual live sporting event. Most of The Rabbit and my conversation for the rest of the night involves troubleshooting Netflix, though I find that if I rewind to about three minutes before the actual live event, Netflix stops buffering and runs as smoothly as a smarter person than I am taking a Geometry test.. We both watch Mike Tyson look like a 60-year-old man fighting a 27-year-old man for about 20 minutes, until the fight ends, then we call it a night. Father Time remains undefeated, but if there's one thing the last seven years have taught me, it's that I don't want to give him any assistance.
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