March 27 - Day 27

Our third straight day of over 100 miles!  We made it to New Roads, Louisiana tonight. 

I'm certain there are very beautiful parts of Louisiana, but we didn't go through any of them today!  The areas we rode through were very depressed, typical housing looked like the picture below - but usually with much more trash in the yard (and a pack of 2-5 dogs charging out of the yard). 

Unfortunately the people didn't improve our impression of the area either.  Many were very rude and we had two very close calls with vehicles today - one of which saw us and thought he could beat us through an intersection - which he couldn't so we skidded to a stop about at the gas tank of his truck as he turned in front of us, didn't even stop to apologize.  The second was only about 2 miles into the day.  Some guy was doing about 60 - 70 down a small city street - since the other traffic was going near the posted 30 mph, he came flying into our lane - we avoided him then he locked up the brakes to skid around the people stopped at a red light which he ran through.  These two examples are why we are VERY vigilant about our surroundings - we call out every car in front of us, behind us, or beside us - so we both can be watching their behavior.  We both knew both of the above situations were going to be bad before they happened because we were already watching them - just those few extra seconds gave us enough time to react.  

Even with the bad, we had a very good day overall - the weather was nice after is stopped raining around 10:00.  Temperature was great - felt like about 75 degrees most of the day and we even had some tail wind for a while.  And, we had one of our best meals in a gas station restaurant for lunch.  The waitress was friendly and we got some real, home style cajun food. 

All of the cemeteries here are above ground due to a high water table and flooding. 

Watch out for those bicycle riders as you go to work tomorrow!