Sunday, April 10, 2011

April 10, 2011. Lake Charles to Lafayette, LA. 84 miles.

Here is the bulletin we saw when we signed in at the end of the ride yesterday.Carol made the margaritas and Linda cooked a superb supper of salmon, couscous, and salad, with cheesecake for dessert. What could be better than that? After dinner Dianne and I retired to our room to play a couple of games of Scrabble, then it was lights out.Breakfast at the hotel started at 7 this morning, and the snack table was set up at about the same time, so we were all on the road by 7:30. We knew it was going to be a long hot windy day. Dianne, Kathie and I rode together most of the day,which was fun. The terrain is very flat, but there were 2 full pages of cues today, so we had to be on our toes.


We saw this white mare in her corral; she looked at us and then went back into the barn and trotted out her foal to show us. It was a pleasure to watch.
Then, a mile or so down the road we saw this turkey strutting his stuff for all the chickens in the neighborhood. There is no drought here, like we saw in Texas. We saw flooded fields that were planted in rice, and others with cages in them (like above) that are used for harvesting crawfish. The rivers are high and muddy, unlike the dried riverbeds in Texas. We commented on the difference in terrain, weather, and land use as soon as we crossed the state line yesterday.

The 42 mile sag stop was at Guidry's Grocery, in Mermentau. Charlie Guidry, whose family has owned this store for over 50 years, came out to greet us, gave us directions, and donated several gallons of drinking water to the sag car.
We had planned all day to eat lunch in Crowley, but the first several restaurants we tried were closed.... while we were looking for a place to eat, my seat bag fell off.... a young man in a pickup truck stopped and asked us where we were going, and was kind enough to tell us what places were open, and dug around in the back of the truck and found a piece of cord for me to tie my seat bag onto the handlebar bag until the end of the day. Life is good!
There were several lots containing little prebuilt houses that are used for people displaced by hurricanes. (yes we are in the hurricane zone now). Everything is different here.We arrived at Lafayette after 4 PM. 84 miles is a long day in the best of conditions; it seems even longer when fighting the wind and frying in the intense sun. As soon as I arrived at the hotel I texted Bill that I was here, took a shower, and fixed my seat bag. Life is good. One more very long day of riding and then we have a rest day in St. Francisville.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Quite a trip today! I love that you stop to "smell the roses" or at least take pictures of the turkeys. I am thinking that is my favorite picture of Carol and I LOVE the idea of a whole pitcher of margaritas!

Hoping that tomorrow isn't as windy and perhaps a tad cooler would be nice too, huh?