Cold morning, as it seems to be across the Southeast. At least the tent was dry. I was not eager to face the wrath of the northwest wind on US 90.
So I headed straight to food. Heard a few cajun accents, but not many, and got the FAQ rundown from an older gentleman who didn’t seem aware that I was chowing down on the buffet. He was hard of hearing so I practically had to shout. While I was in the middle of stuffing my face.
Crossed an endless series of bridges, some just over little country roads. Saw mostly farmland, surprisingly. Was expecting bayou and swamp, but all I saw all day was broken cane straw. Sugar? Don’t have a clue what it was. The shoulder was littered, sometimes covered, in the stuff. A few houses here and there, isolated patches of trees, but not an especially scenic or interesting ride.
Wind was at a cross-angle for the first ten miles but it blew hard and without compromise, keeping me at an angle. Then the road shifted, or the wind shifted, and I faced a headwind for the rest of the day. It was fierce, cold, and just plain uncivil. Made 9-10mph till the last ten miles when things got worse.
The shoulder disintegrated into deep gravel and there was constant truck traffic, so I had to grind along at 8mph while squirreling through chunks of cane. Miraculously, no flats at all. For the first time since I made Bay Saint Louis, Mississippi.
Passed a cop writing someone a ticket.
High temperature of 44. At least it was sunny. But when I made town and got off the bike, I was literally limping. My left toesies had lost circulation and were almost solid white. It took about ten minutes of rubbing and a hot shower to get em back to the world of the living.
Got a nice Best Western at the “business rate” and discovered that I could hear everything the next door neighbors were saying. So I turned on the tv to drown them out and found the perfect fix: the world’s most disgusting infomercial. You may have seen it before; it seems to play on a lot of cable channels. It’s the one from Dual Action Cleanse (basically a glorified laxative) where they show fake human waste and, even worse, talk about it for a solid half-hour. So how ya like that, neighbors? I cranked the volume and they were out within minutes. Woo.
Had some CFS at a nearby Chili’s. Didn’t feel like riding into town to find the real thing. But even though the menu said “country fried steak”, the usual bogus label at chain food places, the server didn’t give me a strange look when I said chicken-fried steak. And it was pretty darn good, hand-breaded and all. The highlight of my day.
It’s morning now. Cold, windy. Should be cross to tailwind today, at least. Route still uncertain. Far too many interstate chokepoints heading west. Probably three days to Texas, two more to H-town.
