When I arrived in Deweyville I stopped at Nick's Coffee. After refilling my water bottles I sat outside on the walkway and leaned against the building. The parking lot was full, and only one parking spot remained…. the one directly in front of me. 

I’d been seated for about thirty seconds when a car slipped into that spot. As the two occupants climbed out and started walking towards me, we recognized each other at the exact same time. They were Bob and Bertha Babin, whose daughter I dated in high school, and at whose house I’d spent countless hours. They were on their way to Louisiana to visit family and decided to stop at Nick’s. It had been 25 years since the last time they had been here, but decided on a whim to grab a bite to eat. I was... flabbergasted. They were on a schedule and couldn’t chat long, but we spent about twenty minutes catching up.

My next stop was Orange (23,628), where a friend of mine, Kathy, lived. Upon arriving, I took my panniers to the guest bedroom, after which she gave me a tour of the town. The tour included the “drag,” a term with which I wasn’t familiar at the time (which goes to show how absolutely uncool I was), followed by a trip to the Dairy Queen where she bought me a banana split.

We drove around Orange (How did you drive a round orange? you may ask) and, when we ran out of town to see, decided to go to a restaurant to talk. Inside, it was too loud to carry on a conversation so we took our takeout to a softball field. There, we sat  in the car eating our enchiladas and although it became really hot, we kept the windows closed because of the mosquitoes.