Saturday April 13th, 2013
Today I rode out of Texas, across a bridge about 30 feet long, two lane, and arrived in Louisiana where there are potholes but no chipseal. The road surfaces in these places need attention, it seems to me and my bicycle, which I now call Ricardo. Linda, the zingy New Zealand woman, has decided all our bicycles need personal names and while I started with Binky, she felt that wasn't right so now my bicycle is Ricardo. Hers has some romantic name - can't remember it - but I'll check it out. Ricardo is a romantic older Italian who tries to take care of me, though I sometimes don't heed his advice, but he's a great ride. One guide came back from a bike shop today wearing a great teeshirt with a big picture of a bicycle in the middle and the words: Have some fun between your legs.... Whole new way of thinking about it. You can see how loopy we're getting after all these weeks.
So I wanted to mention animals, apart from the barking dogs that run out and try and chase me, and I've found that ringing my bicycle bell aggressively deters them. Amazing! I've used it several times, and in a group everyone lets me ride ahead and ring the bell and the dogs stop amazed, surprised, but they stop. Which is all we need. We did see a beautiful little black puppy today who looked lost but I resisted picking him up to bring home.
What we've been hearing are the croaking of eager to mate bullfrogs which is an amazing 'geeerack" sound very loud and you can hear over the traffic from the puddles and ponds and streams near the road. There's a lot of water round here - unlike Colorado - and the bullfrogs are out there, singing their love songs loud and clear. They are at least alive. I have seen squished armadillos on the pavement, with large black birds waiting to eat them and eyeing us suspiciously as we bike buy in case we touch their dinner. I have seen squished small furry animals, unrecognizeable, a squished long-nosed animal, very small and sad, and squished birds lying on the ground. If there's this many dead animals in a few days, there must be hundreds of them killed every week, every month, every year. It's auto-cide, like homicide, for animals, and it's a tragedy. The only live animals are a few birds here and there, not a lot, cows and baby calves, and horses and foals standing munching the rich green grass.
Anyway, today's complicated ride led us along all kinds of farm roads and side streets and across a very short bridge from Texas to Louisiana, which took all of two minutes to ride across, and two big signs, one saying welcome to Texas and the other saying Welcome to Louisiana. On either side the waters of a stream or lake had tall cypresses standing in them, the beginning of bayou country which is beautiful. Years ago I canoed through the bayou with our baby daughter in her carrycot balanced in the front. I still remember the silence and the swish of the water and the hanging leaves and plants.
We rode along mostly quiet roads with some shoulders and some traffic, turning let and then right, including Evangeline Way, shades of Longfellow, and then on to more farm roads. I rode about 40 miles and decided that I didn't want to do the next 20 so I sagged to Lake Charles, LA and the somewhat funky hotel. It once was a Best Western but is now the Richmond Suites and we were all looking for the first name so almost missed it. The pool water is green - not a good sign, and the hot tub was inoperative, so I had a hot shower.
Since we crossed a state line, we had margaritas for dinner, and a celebration that we are more than halfway across the country and we're done with Texas - phew. Linda whipped up fresh salmon, asparagus and a delicious cream sauce, mashed potatoes and fresh fruit with crème anglaise. I mean, it was gourmet style, fresh and delicious and we sat outside in our plastic chairs in the evening air and had a wonderful dinner for our first in Louisiana. .
Tomorrow we have a long ride to Lafayette LA, and then we go to St. Francisville and have day off there, which should be interesting. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
No comments:
Post a Comment