Category: Louisiana

The Schexnaiders are an amazing family, and they definitely need their own section in our writings. We first met Lee when James Thibodeaux took us into Abbeville one day. James and Beth had told us about Lee and Sheila, but without ever really seeing which house they pointed out, and without meeting them, it was hard to relate. On this particular day Lee had come home at lunch to care for one of their English Springer spaniel dogs that had a broken leg, so James stopped in to introduce us. Having only a few brief minutes to talk, we were nonetheless really entertained by Lee’s dry sense of humor, and we loved the house. As we left, Lee told us he’d have us over to dinner one night. We figured it was nothing more than the usual polite comment that people make.
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Now I must say that flying in what looks like a funky go-cart with wings and a lawnmower engine was never high on my list of must-do’s. In fact, flying in anything smaller than a 200-passenger jet was never on my list of want-to-do’s.

Suffering from a fairly acute sense of vertigo and fear of heights, not to mention the occasional bout of motion sickness, getting into a bucket seat supported by thin Dacron “skins” and aluminum struts and flying several thousand feet above the ground with nothing, and I mean nothing, between me and the ground (we’re talkin’ legs dangling in the fresh air here), didn’t seem like a relaxed thing for me to be doing.
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James Thibodeaux is the guiding light behind the airfield, and is the one responsible for getting it built. Piece by piece, he and Beth (his wife) and close friends built the airfield and cabin and hangar, and it’s his love of the place that keeps it going, along with the amazing crowd of people he has managed to attract.

When he’s not flying, which he’d rather be doing more than just about anything else, James manages a local orthopedic doctor’s real estate and whatever various business projects the doctor has going at any one time.
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June 7th, 2008

Shane Stelly is one of James’s ultralight students. He’s learning to fly an ultralight for business – his family owns Stelly Farms, part of which is an alligator farm. They raise and skin anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 alligators each year. The process starts with finding the alligator nests, which had previously been done by airboats or helicopters. Both methods are noisy and expensive; he said the airboats were always in for repairs, and the helicopters are quite expensive. So, buying and learning to fly an ultralight is a good alternative. Shane had asked James to teach him how to fly, and we met Shane at the airfield our first afternoon. I started chatting with Shane, trying to find out what he did, and I was absolutely fascinated hearing about the gator farm. I really, really wanted to go see it!
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June 5th – 17th, 2008

Hi Everyone,

Sorry about the long silence… on a trip like this we have discovered that there is an inherent conflict with staying in touch – we either go out and have the adventures or we stay back and write about them. We have chosen to be out having the adventures, but that sure slows down the writing side of things, especially when the adventures just keep coming, and coming, and coming, and coming…
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Getting out of Centerville

It should be no big surprise that we got bed at almost 2 a.m. on our last night in Centerville, considering how much fun we had with Russ and Paul, and considering how much we were getting done.

We managed to not only get rested after our hellacious Memorial Day weekend, but we got our blogs and photos nearly caught up, and we managed to send off nearly 30 pounds of gear and clothing back to Alex (we opted for not carrying our seasonal gear right now, but rather have Alex send it to us when we need it).
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We have died and gone to heaven. We are about 12 miles south of Centerville LA, down Hwy 317, staying with CouchSurfing hosts Russ and Paul. Back in 1989, Russ moved an old slaves quarters house onto his land, now measuring perhaps several acres. The land is bounded by 317 in front and by sugarcane fields in the back, and much of the surrounding land belongs to other family members. Everything is lush and green, and there’s a bayou – Bayou Sale’ (pronounced bayou sally) running along the property in the front.
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We got a great start out of Lake End Campground – leaving about 8:30 – and headed out towards the city itself, and the first major bridge of the day. Only about 4 miles into our ride we reached the bridge, and in trying to figure where we should be to cross it, we were chased down by a guy on a bike, wanting to talk to us about where we are going, what we are doing, etc. After chatting with this guy for a few minutes, we explained our problem, and he, Rudy Mendoza, told us the various options – one was to unhitch our trailers and carry them up 30 or 40 stairs, which meant two trailers and two bikes up all those stairs, and then ride the pedestrian walkway for about a mile, repeating the unhitching and stairway process on the other side; or we could go back a few blocks and ride the narrow bridge lanes with the cars.
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Saturday

We awoke Saturday really feeling happy, and very proud of ourselves. The air temperature had cooled down a lot during the night, and the morning dawned clear and beautiful. We hopped up on the bikes and took off for a short ride around the campground, to get ourselves oriented. We planned on getting food, cash, water, and doing laundry. We sat by the lake for awhile where Chelsea fixed my handlebars and a couple of other things, and just enjoyed the peace and quiet. We finally wandered over to the concession stand, hoping that they’d accept a debit card, as we had no cash, and we were quite hungry, and really didn’t feel like the several mile bike ride over to the store. After perusing the menu a bit, we wandered around in back, trying to decide what to do. Then the woman who worked at the stand came out for a short break, and we got to talking. What a love she was! She goes by the name Grannie, and was a native Louisiana girl who had spent 28 of her adult years in the Middle East with her husband. Now in her late 60’s , she’s been back in Louisiana about 10 years. Having been a waitress in a wide variety of locations over the years, and loving it, she decided to open this concession stand. Not only does she have this one, but she also has another one that her husband works (while she works this one). At one time she had five of them!
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Leaving the comfort of the hotel in Donaldsonville was really difficult. We hadn’t stayed at a hotel in nearly a year, and the comfort and privacy were awesome. This particular hotel even had a decent breakfast included with our room rate – hardboiled eggs, toast, biscuits and gravy, fruit, cereal, coffee, juices, etc., so we ate well before leaving. We had also been incredibly productive the night before – we got nearly all of our emails caught up, did some needed research and route mapping, uploaded photos and blogs, got our laundry done, and we each luxuriated in long hot showers. The storms continued unabated until well after we turned out the lights, which wasn’t until about 2 a.m., and we were incredibly grateful to not be out in all that rain and lightning and thunder.
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