March 26 - Day 26

Today we completed our trek through Texas and reached our 2000th mile completed. We ended up in Mamou, LA after 103 miles of riding.  The day wasn't as easy as yesterday, but it was a very pleasant day of riding.



We left the cattle ranches and BBQ joints behind and entered into catfish farms and crawfish shacks.  crawfish season is at it's peak right now.  They flood fields with water and place traps to catch the crawfish.  Then after crawfish season the fields get planted into rice - which keeps the crawfish there and provides another crop - pretty good way to get two crops off the same piece of land each year. 

Today was haircut day as well - everyone was getting pretty shaggy.

There is a lot of pulpwood production in this area.  We went by about every phase of the timber production today.  Here is a field recently clear cut - notice the new pine trees coming up.  Pine trees need a lot of light, so that is why clearcutting is used for the final harvest. 



Then as the trees grow, they thin them out with an intermediate cutting, leaving the timber stand looking like this.

Then they clearcut and the timber gets loaded onto semi trucks

Which ends up in a small operation like this, or to any of the huge paper and plywood plants around here.  Most of the wood is turned into pulp - although some forests were being grown for telephone poles as well.

So, we got to see the whole process within 100 miles.