Category: United States

We got a great start out of Lake End Campground – leaving about 8:30 – and headed out towards the city itself, and the first major bridge of the day. Only about 4 miles into our ride we reached the bridge, and in trying to figure where we should be to cross it, we were chased down by a guy on a bike, wanting to talk to us about where we are going, what we are doing, etc. After chatting with this guy for a few minutes, we explained our problem, and he, Rudy Mendoza, told us the various options – one was to unhitch our trailers and carry them up 30 or 40 stairs, which meant two trailers and two bikes up all those stairs, and then ride the pedestrian walkway for about a mile, repeating the unhitching and stairway process on the other side; or we could go back a few blocks and ride the narrow bridge lanes with the cars.
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Saturday

We awoke Saturday really feeling happy, and very proud of ourselves. The air temperature had cooled down a lot during the night, and the morning dawned clear and beautiful. We hopped up on the bikes and took off for a short ride around the campground, to get ourselves oriented. We planned on getting food, cash, water, and doing laundry. We sat by the lake for awhile where Chelsea fixed my handlebars and a couple of other things, and just enjoyed the peace and quiet. We finally wandered over to the concession stand, hoping that they’d accept a debit card, as we had no cash, and we were quite hungry, and really didn’t feel like the several mile bike ride over to the store. After perusing the menu a bit, we wandered around in back, trying to decide what to do. Then the woman who worked at the stand came out for a short break, and we got to talking. What a love she was! She goes by the name Grannie, and was a native Louisiana girl who had spent 28 of her adult years in the Middle East with her husband. Now in her late 60’s , she’s been back in Louisiana about 10 years. Having been a waitress in a wide variety of locations over the years, and loving it, she decided to open this concession stand. Not only does she have this one, but she also has another one that her husband works (while she works this one). At one time she had five of them!
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Leaving the comfort of the hotel in Donaldsonville was really difficult. We hadn’t stayed at a hotel in nearly a year, and the comfort and privacy were awesome. This particular hotel even had a decent breakfast included with our room rate – hardboiled eggs, toast, biscuits and gravy, fruit, cereal, coffee, juices, etc., so we ate well before leaving. We had also been incredibly productive the night before – we got nearly all of our emails caught up, did some needed research and route mapping, uploaded photos and blogs, got our laundry done, and we each luxuriated in long hot showers. The storms continued unabated until well after we turned out the lights, which wasn’t until about 2 a.m., and we were incredibly grateful to not be out in all that rain and lightning and thunder.
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We loved getting up today and being so organized, and we especially loved getting up in such beautiful surroundings. We did have our breakfast right when they opened (I got beignets again!), and we were on the road before 9:30 – our best yet.

The road was pretty, and the ride was uneventful, except for my getting a pinch flat from our slime liners. The slime liners are supposed to prevent flats, but apparently they pinch the tubes and can cause flats if the tires are under inflated. That’s exactly what happened to me – the tires were inflated within the right range, but I guess the slime liners need them to be really inflated. The repair went quickly – Chelsea is really getting good at all this – but it was still hot and dirty work. We had a tail wind, so we went a lot faster, and made it the outskirts of Donaldsonville. We were hot and tired, and made our way into a gas station convenience store.
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We had an awesome evening last night with our hosts Phyllis and Reuben – we stayed up until almost midnight just talking to them. Both of them are possibly 5th generation locals, and listening to them was like listening to an audio history book – it was just amazing. We covered everything from Louisiana politics, to the presence of the oil refineries and chemical plants in Louisiana, to Katrina, to hunting and fishing in Louisiana, to local history. Like with Judith in Norco, I wished we had had a tape recorder going for most of it. Not only was the conversation amazing, we also had a “real” dinner – shrimp etouffee, salad, sweet potatoes, stewed chicken and rice, and sliced strawberries with cream. How can you beat that?
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Hot and windy. That pretty much sums up today. After an unexpectedly slow start – almost noon, we headed on down the road toward the plantations. The head winds were the first thing we noticed, and they were really intense. We started drafting each other – which we rarely have needed to do – switching places every two miles. We got down to only 5.5 miles an hour for several miles! The heat had kicked up pretty high, and there was no shade at all. We did get to see one of the plantations, but it’s open by appointment only, and we somehow missed the second one completely (also open by appointment only). I think it was a combination of the heat and wind, and to make matters even more challenging, there was infinitely more traffic today – it didn’t even feel like the same road. Today we had huge semis, gravel trucks, over-sized loads – you name it.
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I’m sitting down to do the blog before dark falls, and Chelsea is in the bathroom hand washing our cycling clothes with our new Campsuds – supposed to be good in cold water, hot water, and salt water. She’s finished the first round, and she’s wheeling her trailer out onto the porch in the sun, using the cargo rack as a drying rack. We’re hoping to catch some of the wind outside to speed the drying process. I’m going to have to type fast, as the sun will be setting soon, and we have no electricity. That’s not a problem with the lights, but the laptop will run out of battery. I checked our Verizon signal, and there’s just about none, so we won’t be uploading this tonight.
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Getting back on the road

It’s nearly 10 p.m. and Chelsea and I are headed out tomorrow morning early for our first real riding day of this next phase of our trip. We spent 3 months in Delray Beach, back at home, getting things all buttoned up for our next four years south of the border, then we took a 21 hour bus ride to New Orleans, where we spent the next 11 days. In New Orleans we managed to go on two picnics to Lake Pontchartrain, an overnight trip to the Algiers section (by bike, with lightly loaded trailers), see two evenings of Wednesday on the Square, get a huge amount of bike trip tasks done, and see the French Quarter a number of times.
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May 15-19, 2008

Norco is a small Louisiana town about twenty-five miles west of New Orleans. It’s quite a pretty town, with well-kept houses and lots of trees and green lawns and flowering bushes in the yards. Surrounded by the Mississippi River, Lake Pontchartrain, the Shell Oil refinery, and the Bonnet Carre Spillway, there’s no place for the town to grow.

The town has been affected by several major explosions over the years from the Shell Oil refinery right on its boundary. Norco is located in an area along the Mississippi known as the “Chemical Corridor” or the Cancer Corridor” because of the number of petrochemical plants located along the route. Environmental and civic groups claim that the entire area has continued to have chronic releases of chemical pollutants to the air and water over the years.
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New Orleans had a big impact on us for a number of reasons. The city itself has an amazing history and there are many sights to see; the impacts of Hurricane Katrina won’t be forgotten anytime soon; it was the start to a new phase of our bike trip; it was our first use of the Couchsurfing website; we had a extremely busy and productive time getting things done for our trip; and we did some great bike riding.

Hurricane Katrina

We first saw New Orleans in June of 2006, just a few months after Hurricane Katrina hit, and it was still shattered. The ride into town over the interim I-10 highway was traumatic – houses, apartment buildings, whole malls were gone. Some buildings were standing, but the insides were gone, just completely sucked out. Roofs were missing block after block after block, walls were gone, and what was left wasn’t worth much. Though many restaurants and places of business were open in the French Quarter, the city seemed to be running at half-volume. National Guard troops were stationed prominently, patrolling areas; and signs proclaimed “We Tear Down Houses. New Orleans Demolition. $30,000 Grant Money”.
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