Daily Miles: 53.3
Total Miles: 903.9
Max: 21.6
Avg: 14.8
Time on the Bike: 03:34:54
Last night was a torrent of rain and lightning and thunder. The totality of the sky opened completely and poured buckets of water on the earth beneath it, drowning and beating it into submission. The storm woke me up at 1:00 AM when violent bursts of thunder followed by the pounding rain on the roof of the shop shook the whole building. I checked the weather and the parish I was in was under a tornado watch for the next six hours. I was nervous but so happy to be inside, even if I may come down with bronchitis due to the rampant bacteria colonizing the shop.
Morning came and everything was wet. I had breakfast and chatted with Eric and Amaya about their travels. They have cycled over 119,00 miles since 2006 and have visited 102 countries. Pretty amazing.
They left before I did and I eventually slinked out around 8:30, a later start for me. I was only going about 50 miles today so I didn’t feel rushed.
Louisiana continues to disappoint me in ways I never knew were possible. You would think with all the money from oil and gas in the state they would be able to fix the roads- any road, even. There was construction on one road I was on for 3 miles and it was the worst riding so far of the trip. It was swampy and muddy and the shoulder was covered in rocks and sand and there was a steady stream of cars and big semis passing me. It was frustrating and infuriating. It definately was not a good cycling day.
I eventually made it into Baton Rouge and passed by Louisiana State University and their enormous Tiger’s Stadium. Into the downtown area they have a bike path on the levee paralleling the Mississippi River and I followed that for a while until I left the path and road for another mile to arrive at my Air BnB.
I’m at Emily and Jason’s home tonight and tommorrow night. They were nice and inviting and thier home is nice. Emily is an archaeologist for the state and that’s pretty neat. I’ve never met an archaeologist before.
I walked around the downtown area to buy some food at the grocery store in the afternoon. Baton Rouge is the complete opposite of New Orleans. It is clean and empty. Almost too empty. Everything closes early on Saturday night. It was 3:30 and most of the restaurants were closed.
I’m just going to relax tommorrow. I don’t really need a day off but I wanted to make sure I could watch the Patriots play tommorrow night. It’s important stuff. My father would agree.
