Day 26 - Kinder to DeQuincy - Two Far 2021 - Sooo... Far

May 4, 2021

Day 26 - Kinder to DeQuincy

A warm welcome

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Alain AbbateI can see why you were worried about rain, considering that the first 7 miles of your ride were below sea level (at least according to your Garmin).
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2 years ago

We've been watching today's weather forecast for the last few days. When we went to bed last night, the forecast predicted a 30-40% chance of thunderstorms all morning, with increasing storms in the afternoon. Kerry thought we should plan to ride anyway, so I set the alarm for 6AM. When I checked then, the rain chance was down to about 20% until noon. The goal was to be in by 11:30. We had a forty mile route, so we got ready and were rolling at 7:14. It was a good ride, almost all on US 190 again. The traffic was light and there was a good shoulder most of the way. We were on a mission to beat the storms.

Leaving Kinder, we saw the Kinder Rice Drier. Does it serve the same function as a grain elevator for corn? We'll be in Texas tomorrow, so we may have missed our chance to learn about rice drying and storage.

These are the piney woods of southwest Louisiana. The vegetation has changed significantly in the last day.

Kerry spotted this old caboose - still on the rails, not on display someplace.

More roadside flowering weeds -

We haven't seen many with really orange flowers.

And I'm learning enough to know that this is some kind of thistle. These plants were abundant today.

We were almost to DeQuincey before I finally spotted some cows.

Soon after we left Kinder, we started seeing a significant amount of tree damage along the road. There were a few damaged buildings and roofs covered with blue tarps, but not many. The tree damage looked worse and worse as we approached DeQuincy.

I didn't do a good job at all of getting pictures of the trees destroyed. There were many huge trees completely uprooted.

We learned that two hurricanes hit here in 2020 - Laura in August and Delta in September. Very little structural damage is evident in the part of town we've seen. The staff at the hotel tell us that the town has been successful in recovering quickly in large part because it's a community where everyone pitches in and helps.

We can say for sure that it is a community of warm and friendly people. We arrived at the hotel quite early - about 11AM. We were welcomed and offered a place to park the bike and make our selves comfortable while our room was cleaned. We decided to walk a block to get some lunch and bring it back to the hotel's breakfast room to eat. At the Popeye's, only the drive in was open. We walked up to wait our turn in line. The man in the car ahead of us said walkers would probably not trip the intercom to order, so he told the girl inside he'd sit there while we ordered. We walked behind him to the next window to get our food and found out that he had paid for our lunch. We learned that his name was Ryan, so thank you Ryan, for that generous gesture!

Back at the Heritage Inn, we were eating lunch and hearing about the recent hurricanes when one of the staff asked if Evalin could take our picture. Evalin works for the local weekly newspaper and had just gotten a call from her friend, Ryan Ware, who told her two long distance cyclists were in town. Evalin took our picture and interviewed us for her article. When it's published, we'll be sure to post it here.

Our mission to stay dry was successful. After we ate lunch and talked to Evalin, we were going to ride the half mile into town and look around. When Kerry stepped outside, it had started to rain and he could hear thunder, so we passed on that idea. It's been storming here ever since, with some severe weather and tornado warnings in nearby towns. We are happy to be safe and dry here.

Texas tomorrow!

Today's ride: 41 miles (66 km)
Total: 1,129 miles (1,817 km)

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