#2: [09-Oct-24]

08-Jan-2000 -- Someone e-mailed the Degree Confluence Project Website to me and that was all it took. This was right up my alley! I fly a powered parachute and consequently have plenty of maps and a GPS. The Decambre confluence was about 65 miles away and looked like an easy first project. I invited my girlfriend and her son to participate. They readily agreed so that night I loaded the coordinates into my GPS and downloaded a map.

We left our hometown of Jennings at about 8:30am the next morning and headed down I-10 east to Crowley. There we took Hwy 13 south to Kaplan and then Hwy 14 east to Delcambre. A short jaunt north on Hwy 89 put us in the general vicinity but then my game plan took a dive! My DeLorme maps showed parish road numbers (Louisiana has parishes instead of counties) and most of the roads in the state have been changed over to proper names within the last few years.

We were lucky and had Lake Peigneur as a landmark (lakemark?) to use for some dead reckoning. As a side note I seem to recall that back in the 80's (?) this lake sprung a serious leak and the whole lake mysteriously drained into a large hole in the bottom of the lake. It turned out that a massive salt dome under the lake had developed a fissure and caused the catastrophe! These large salt domes were also used for the storage of oil during the Government's energy reserve storage crisis.

Back to our adventure, the renourished lake served to guide us to what turned out to be the correct road, now named Lopez road. We followed Lopez road until I felt like we should turn onto a road now named Wilmer road. I parked in a field off Wilmer rd. and started walking with my GPS. Good news I was able to get within 200 feet of my confluence point. It lay in the middle of a cow pasture. Easy pickings! Except for the electric fence and a bull giving me a good stare.

I got back in my truck and drove to an adjacent residence to see who owned the field. A very nice fellow by the name of Tommy Robicheaux explained that it was family property and that we could climb the wooden part of the fence by his house to gain access to the field. He assured me the bull probably wouldn't bother us!

I helped Jacob and Monica over the fence and then brought out my "Bull Protection Attack Canine Squad", Nellie (my Rat Terrier) and Pepe (my girlfriend's Chihuahua)! I then grabbed my GPS, tripod, and camera and feeling much safer with our two fearless dogs (total combined weight of 13 lbs) guarding us, we five set off to find the point. After about five minutes of walking around cow pods in the pasture I finally realized that my GPS wasn't going to stay on dead zero for long so the second it read 30N 92W I staked it.

The confluence is presently a cow pasture. To the south is Wilmer Road and across that lies a cane field. To the north is an over grown grassy field. To the west is an oak grove and to the east are some very curious cows and a bull. This land has alternately been used for cotton, sugarcane, and pastures for cattle. It was formerly owned by the Lopez family and then through marriage became Trahan property. Thanks to Mrs. Trahan for taking a moment to share this information and to her son-in-law, Tommy for letting us make fools of ourselves walking in cicles in their cow pasture. The rest is history and that's no bull!

     -- Doug Miller