long time, no blog

Day #29; Monday, May 5 (AKA Cinco de Mayo)
Start: Oberlin, LA
End: Washington, LA

56.5 miles

We left the Oberlin Fire Dept. and Cheif Kelly this AM and began riding through some quiet Louisiana countryside.

In Mamou we met a dutch couple over from the Netherlands for 6 months with their 2 year-old daughter and 4 year-old son. They have toured extensively in Asia before their children were born. They now travel about 25-30 miles per day and stop for their kids to rest often.

Pretty inspiring, maybe a little crazy (some might say a whole lot crazy).

Also today biked among fields of standing water with things sticking out of the water. We asked and found that these are the crawfish fields. They trap the crawfish and harvest them that way.

Stacy met some cattle she really liked. They ran along beside us. In the end, every steer in the field crowded into the corner of the field closest to Stacy as we took the photo.

Today was also the first day of riding in the rain. It didn't rain very hard or too long, but we got a little wet and dirty. We used the internet and made our previous blog update.

Day # 30; Tuesday, May 6
Start: Washington, LA
End: Morganza, LA
81.7 miles

Today we left a very poorly kept campground with very dirty (almost scary) showers in a town that was established sometime around 1729 (I think that is what the sign said, and I think the showers at the campground may have been built a couple of years after that). We rode through an area of flooding. This is flooding from the Mississippi river and is related to flooding responsible for shutting down our ferry--we were supposed to take one across the big river, but they have shut it down as the water is very high and the crossing dangerous. We got to stay in a much nicer campground tonight. It was new and the showers were clean. Stacy was a big fan.

Day #31; Wednesday, May 7
Start: Morganza, LA
End: Easleyville, LA
91 miles

Today was a long and exciting day, but unfortunately there are no pictures to accompany the words (I hate to do that). We had to take a detour from our route (as mentioned above, the ferry was out of service). We rode south to cross a bridge at Baton Rouge. We had been told we could contact the police dept. to request an escort across the long, narrow, and dangerous bridge. I called the night before our crossing was to happen and was told to call then next day and someone would help me then. I called mid-morning and was transferred 6-8 times (at one point I was transferred back to the lady I spoke with initially--I think I found it more entertaining than she did). I spoke with a couple of city police, state police, and county sheriffs.

Finally I talked with an officer that told me to call when we were at the foot of the bridge so he could send someone out. When I called again in about 90 minutes, he was out on patrol. The other officer said that Officer Curtin (to whom I had spoken initially) would be delayed but could escort us in 30-60 minutes. At this point I considered crossing sans escort. Then I was called back by an officer who informed me that they would not be able to escort us without a permit. They were not authorized to issue the permit and they could not tell me how to get in touch with the people authorized to issue a permit (I love red tape...doesn't it make the world run smoothly). Luckily we were offered a ride (after Stacy made a very polite request) by a woman with a pick-up truck. She let us load our bikes and gave us a ride about 1 or 2 miles to the other side of the mighty Mississippi. Our day was long but otherwise uneventful.