Day 16 Liberty, TX to Patterson & Alexandria, LA

3/23 - Day 16 Texas to Louisiana (Patterson & eventually Alexandria)
   
     It was 72 degrees when I got up and left Liberty. I think the high in Austin was only 59 on Sunday so I'm thinking it's going to be a nice day. I had a 3 hour & 45 minute drive to my 11:10 tee time near Patterson, LA, at The Atchafalaya at Idlewild Golf Course.

             (pronounced At Chaw Fall I ya  (falaya, like jumbalaya with an f instead of jumb))

     When you cross over the high arching Lake Charles bridge on Interstate 10 you are in Cajun country. My drive continues about an hour east of Lake Charles, to Lafayette and then south to the Patterson area. The Louisiana interstate highway section I drove may have been the nicest section of any interstate I have ever been on. Very smooth, well maintained, and unlike Texas, Louisiana doesn't forget about the need to pee occasionally on a car trip. After turning south, HWY 90 is mostly concrete and the tire noise rolling over the joints reminds me of parts of old US 2 west of Spokane, before it became asphalt pavement.

      Idlewild is a nature preserve  and state park. There are gators, snakes (some poisonous like Copperheads & Cottonmouths), all kinds of birds and according to my playing companion, Tyler, there are also bears in the woods. NOTE: Some of this golf course is actually below sea level. The Bayou country is really flat, and dips in this contoured golf course probably flood badly in big rain storms. Tyler is also tasked to work down here occasionally. He said SOME of  the people in this area are quite strange and described them as "Swamp People". Probably not many swamp golfers I imagine!

     This land is SO flat you could see until the curve of the earth (aka "The Horizon") if it wasn't for the thick trees. What would pass for a hill here, we would barely consider a rise. Tyler lives in Lafayette and had never played this course before either. After we talked and he knew where I was coming from he asked if I had stopped at a "Buccees" (pronounced Bucky's) travel stop. I told him no and he said they have awesome food and they are only in Texas. Next time I'm in Texas I will have to try them, because my golf companion in Las Cruces told me the same thing!

     This will be the last time on this trip I get to drive the golf cart out on the golf course (off the cart paths) , though I didn't know it at the time. It's a good to very good golf course, but has way too many bunkers that are not well maintained. They should keep the ones that guard the greens and a few tee shots and let the rest go to grass. It's just easier & less expensive to maintain. This is a great layout. Give it a shot if you're ever in the area, It's about 90 minutes from New Orleans. Got a pretty neat old southern style clubhouse too (except for the corrugated steel roofing, which cheapens the whole effect) and the restaurant (when operating out of Covid-19 restraints) serves Cajun. I had originally planned on eating here, but no such luck today.

     Tyler is a young father of two. Works for AT&T in sales and his wife is a nurse, a recent prevailing theme for my golf companions. He is playing the blues, 6520, 72.1, 131 slope. I played the whites, 5932, 69.5, 122 slope. I had a reasonably good front nine, bogey golf, shot a  45. The back wasn't as good as I screwed up both the par 5s and only managed one par on that side.

     Had a good time and after golf I drove up to Alexandria, LA (pretty much due north) to spend the night. Turns out THIS was the last golf day in Louisiana for a while. Alexandria has a course I was going to play (Links On The Bayou, a well rated track), but their parish (county) had closed them down a couple of days earlier.

     Tyler told me about a good Cajun restaurant on the HWY I would be travelling to Alexandria. I found it, but due to the shutdowns they were closed as they decided to shut down on Mondays and Tuesdays until the health crisis passes. So now I have a new reason to hate Mondays.

No pictures. No explanation!