Day 7: August 2, 2014 Frog Weather Comment via blog

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I got another two trails for one deal tto start the day. The Jefferson Highway is another auto trail that I'd like to drive someday. I know a little bit about it and knew that its southern terminus was in New Orleans. I probably even knew some of the details but it just wasn't on my mind for this trip. If it had been, I would have known that there is a marker at Saint Charles and Common and at least tried to catch a glimpse as I drove by. That intersection is the next one following yesterday's turn on to Saint Charles and is, in fact, included in the picture I posted. Although I'm not certain, I don't believe that the Jefferson Highway and the Old Spanish Trail share a path all the way from that intersection to here but they do share some so I once again got in a little of both auto trails both yesterday and today.

In short order I was headed up an over the Mississippi River on the Huey P Long Bridge. The bridge is at a bend in the river so that traffic moves southeast across the bridge to leave New Orleans. That Chevy and I kept each other company for many miles.

It was clear and dry as I clocked about sixty miles on US-90. Then, just before I moved onto LA-20, a few drops of water hit the windshield. Before heading down the two-lane, I pulled to the side and raised the top. Not because of those half dozen raindrops but because of the ominous looking sky ahead. It was a good move because some pretty solid rain started falling within a couple of miles. It's amazing how a little rain can make a tall skinny bridge look taller and skinnier.

Rayne, Louisiana, has lots of painted frogs and I had already snapped pictures of a few when I saw the cemetery. As I pulled over to photograph it, there was a ding from the Roadside America app on my GPS. I had pulled over merely because I though the above ground vaults were picturesque. The ding was to alert me that they were setting the wrong way. According to Roadside America, this is the only Judeo-Christian cemetery in existence with the graves oriented north-south rather than east-west. In the churchyard across the street, a sign next to a frog named Father Joe supports the claim. In addition, it turns out that Rayne considers itself the Frog Capital of the World and has a really large frog statue by the police station. The GPS app never did ding to let me know about the big statue and the ding for the cemetery should have occurred at least a fifth mile from the cemetery not when I was parked next to it. I blame both of these malfunctions on the misaligned bodies.

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