Sunday 17 February
We take "15" South from Ferriday to track alongside the Mississippi river for around 60 miles, passing three sets of flood control gates which resemble the Thames flood barriers in London. There seems to be quite a few buzzards around feasting on road kill and the trick is to sound the horn from 100 yards as these "big suckers" take some time to get airborne. Then a couple of miles further on we have to dodge a Louisiana meat pie in the road........a 2ft tortoise!

We arrive in Baton Rouge, as a staging post for New Orleans, and after checking into a motel we venture out for the afternoon and come across the USS Kidd on the Mississippi River. The USS Kidd is a restored WWII Fletcher Class destroyer driven by steam turbines. She took a Kamikaze hit in the battle of Okinawa which killed 39 crew and wounded 55. It takes us around 2 hours to tour the ship and really gives you an idea of what life was like aboard. As we get into the galley area, I spot an ice cream machine which has instructions on how to use it - "Proper temperatures are provided to the freezer by manually opening and closing a switch on the gauge board which operates a solenoid valve in the liquid line". Ice cream machine? Wasn't there a war on? They had time to mess around with an ice cream machine? Maybe an automatic expansion valve would have been the answer, to give a constant temperature and consistency? Shucks, is this me thinking about refrigeration? Thinking about work? I need to get out on my bike a bit more!!!

Tomorrow we head for the Big Easy - New Orleans!