Laundromat Angel | Morgan City, Louisiana

I love a good industrial port city and Morgan City definitely fits the bill. I do some banking and tour around a bit but laundry is critical. The crowded laundromat parking lot is full of homeboys, large families and other rough looking folk loitering outside which has me going into reverse. A lap around town, demonstrates that this is the only option and I return to the same intimidating scene. 

On The Road

I enter and fill two front loaders noticing that it seems cleaner than it appeared from the outside. Thinking that if these folks see my computer they might try to rob me when I’m in doing my laundry, I return to the van to work. Best to get in and out of here. Well, I go back in and find one of my loads sitting in two inches of water. The attendant is nice and helps me get them into another washer but this means I’ll be here another two hours. Annoyed and a bit pissy, I return to the van and work on my now camouflaged with newspaper computer. When finally packed and ready to go, I can’t find my wallet. I search and search and begin to unload the van. A woman, who looks like she has emptied all her polyester bedding from her trailer into her barely running beater, yells “Honey, you lookin fer your wallet?” Stunned, I nod and she says she saw it atop of the washer and turned it in to the attendant. I thank her profusely, feeling the shame of my preemptive judgment of her, this place and its patrons. I’m such a cracker from the north.

Casino Royal Swim | Lake Charles, Louisiana

April 19-20, 2012

Southern heat is unrelenting and we are wilting as we try to make good time. We get as far as Lake Charles, near Lafayette, Louisiana and the casinos are shouting out their existence via billboards along the highway. Feeling lucky, I pull off to one that looks promising called L’Auberge Du Lac. I put a call in to my friend Frannie, who knows casinos inside and out. She landed Diesel and me a free week’s stay in Vegas last year. But this isn’t Vegas; there are no deals on rooms; and I am in desperate need of a shower. 

I pull into the parking lot that has arrows to the RV side, of course every casino’s parking lot would be open to RVs. So I clean up as best I can and hit the seafood buffet, give myself a tour of the beautiful air conditioned casino, lose a little money and stop for a night cap before heading back to the van. In the AM, I cruise out to the pool area and see that it requires checking in. When the pool opens I figure I'll give it a shot and tell the attendant Room 417 and see if I can’t just bluff my way in.

 I have time to kill so I decide I should actually make sure there is a room 417 and head to the elevator. Walking down the deep-carpeted hallway, I see room 417’s door open, and surprisingly this 40 something blond woman comes out who looks lot like me. I join her in the elevator and making small talk, ask if she is going to the pool. She shakes her head and says she is joining her husband for brunch. Spy quality feelings fill me as I smile over my good sleuthing and we depart on the first floor as I head to the pool. “Christine Hendrick room 417 please” I say with such authority, that the attendant replies “of course” and hands me a towel, a key to a locker and a wrist band so I can come and go from the pool area. Now, I don’t know where that name came from but it has such an “above suspicion” air that it works.

I enter a landscape architect’s dream. The pool is a river that snakes its way around sculptural islands, under bridges, fed by waterfalls and with a strong current to it. I find myself floating by a swim-up bar sunken into the side of the river with a thatched roof. I think, “Would Ms. Hendrick charge a drink to Ms. 417’s hotel bill?” Debating this moral dilemma proved too long for the current, which had moved me past my temptation and was happily distracted by a surprise waterfall under a bridge. I finish my slumming in the Jacuzzi and washed my hair in the bathhouse. This takes the miles I have traveled right out of my bones. I’m soft and relaxed returning to the van. Feeling lucky? yep, like I just won the jackpot.

From the 4th Floor...would you call this a Pool Complex?