September 26, 2022
Day 5 - A Necessary Rest Day in Natchez, MS
So Long Louisiana, I'm Not Going To Miss You
Statistics, Useful & Otherwise;
Found Money Today; $0.01 Cumulative; $0.28
Lodging Cost Today; $0 (points) Cumulative; $346.91
I slept late this morning, no alarm. I tried to do laundry in the motel's guest laundry last night, and sacrificed $5.25 in quarters before discovering that neither of the 2 washers worked properly. I suppose I could have asked management to refund my money, but since I'm using points and getting 2 free nights which comes with 2 free breakfasts and 2 free dinners, the small loss seems trivial. But I had exhausted my 3 days worth of cycling outfits and I needed clean clothes, so I tossed a laundry pod into the bathtub and agitated my clothes by hand and left them soaking while I ate dinner. Then after rinsing and wringing out what water I could, I ventured back to the laundry to try the dryer - fortunately it worked, otherwise I would have used some cord to make a clothesline in my room. You gotta do what you gotta do.
I called ahead to some of my upcoming stays to see which ones have laundry on site or nearby, then spent most of the morning planning future lodging. I set out on this trip with only about half of it planned out with regards to lodging, and am planning out the 2nd half now. I'll wait a bit to actually start making reservations for the 2nd half, because you know - stuff happens. So for each overnight stay I'm picking a place to stay and then developing a backup plan just in case. It will be fine, it just takes time, so best to do it now and avoid a panic later if things get bottle-necked. You can't just ride an extra 50 miles at the end of a long day if your lodging choice isn't available (well, us normal mortals can't do that, maybe the racers and athletes could).
I did a bit of bike maintenance this afternoon; adjusted the seat a little and did a thorough check of the tires. Then I repacked most everything, cause it just always seems to take me a few days at the start of a tour to get everything packed where I want it and can find it.
I was glad to discover that I'm staying in a certified town, cause otherwise, you know - maybe I wouldn't get credit for it or something.
The "Found Money" Game. It's just a little game I play - the rules are simple; once I start a tour, any money I find as I go along is collected with the goal of having enough at the end of the tour to buy a coffee. Or a beer, whatever. It's just a silly game, but if you never play games how do you have any fun? I've had to pass up a couple of coins I spotted that were in the middle of a busy intersection - it's just a game, I'm not going to do anything risky for a nickel. Maybe for a quarter, but not a nickel.
ACA Maps of the Great Rivers South Route. There are 48 maps in the series, each covering about 30 miles or so. They are numbered from north to south, so since I am riding south to north I followed map #48 first and am counting down as I ride through each map. I am currently on map # 41 - now you know.
Statistics I Have Posted. My daily posts have included statistics, some of which are straightforward and some perhaps are not. The "Found Money" stat is explained above. The "Bad Drivers" stat is a new one I decided to start on this tour. Anytime a driver passes too close or does some offensive or overly aggressive move, I will log it under this category. So far I have noted 2 instances of bad driving, and both of these consisted of drivers in Louisiana passing closer than they should have. The roadkill stat is also a new one for me, just thought I would note the highway destruction I see. This is a minimum stat, because I won't see everything and will likely only see it if it's on my side of the road. I'm keeping up with the lodging cost because other cyclists tend to ask what it cost for the tour. Note that I will have several days of $0 cost because I get hotel points on credit cards - so make your own adjustments if you wish. I'm not keeping up with meal/food costs because that's highly individual. But for cyclists considering this tour, if you adjust for my $0 hotel nights and add in for the cost of food and your transportation to and from both ends, you will have a good estimate for the cost of this tour. Of course, if you camp some, your costs would be less.
I had to do some deep consideration before deciding whether to post this next section. Eventually I decided to do it; I said at the beginning I was going to be honest and call things as I saw them. And so I am. Here we go.
Summary of Louisiana. I started to write this last night, but wanted to sleep on it and give it some time so I can properly describe my thoughts. I wanted to carefully consider what I say, because my first reaction was to just write "skip the Louisiana part of this route." Some parts of the route through Louisiana was good, some was just okay, a significant part was not-so-good riding on the shoulder of highways, and some was plain bad. Unfortunately there were some parts that are probably unsafe because of the human element as well.
I don't really know where to start, so let me start at the beginning and try to express the good and the bad. New Orleans was good. Assuming you are comfortable with riding in traffic, you will do fine in downtown New Orleans and along St. Charles Avenue as you depart. And it's a cultural delight to ride in the heart of the Big Easy. Leaving the city on the levy trail was also good; the trail is smooth and you can't get lost. When you leave the trail it's a different story. I'll just quote my own writing from that day; "If you are looking for a serene ride on low-traffic roads, this isn't it. But it was a safe ride because there was always a shoulder. Experienced cyclists would do well on today's route, but parts of it weren't pleasant because of the highway-speed traffic whizzing past."
The next day I traveled through Baton Rouge and once again I think it's best if I just quote what I wrote at the time; "Most of the riding today was not enjoyable. Rolling along on a shoulder on a highway with heavy traffic whizzing past isn't very relaxing. It's safe enough, but it's just not something you would do for fun." Before getting to Baton Rouge one travels through the communities of Carville and St. Gabriel. At a store stop I encountered a fellow drinking liquor from a bottle at 10:00 in the morning. And I saw others that day at different spots doing the same thing. Some of these folks have just given up. The ACA route goes through communities with very modest homes. I don't mean that in a demeaning way, many of these homes were better and nicer than the home I was raised in. But some weren't, and some were trashed out. I suppose I felt a little guilty because my bicycle cost more money than the cars these folks were driving.
Baton Rouge itself was a different story. Once I got off of the busy Highway 30 shoulder it seemed okay. The sidewalk that serves as a bike path wasn't great but it was much better than the shoulder, and it was neat to roll through the edge of the LSU campus. Deviating from the roadway and onto the levy path to downtown was nice, and it was easy to bike through the heart of downtown. But once I left downtown and got onto the Scenic Highway (Highway 61) it wasn't much fun. The area is not so scenic, and the traffic is intense and aggressive. The only 2 instances of "bad drivers" I have recorded so far both occurred in and near Baton Rouge, both involved drivers being aggressive and passing me closer than necessary, and one occurred here on the Scenic Highway. There were occasional folks out drinking way too early here also, and a couple of times I got a "Hey!" shout from groups of young men congregated off the route. I just waved and continued, it seemed unwise to stop and engage them in conversation.
Baton Rouge is home to at least 8 gangs, and the gang violence has increased significantly recently. Here's a link to an article from The Advocate that discusses the police plan to increase their presence in certain areas due to a spike in shootings; Baton Rouge Gang Violence. That article includes the map shown below.
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The ACA route passes through the southwest corner of the LSU campus shown in the lower left of the above map and leaves on the scenic highway (Highway 61) shown in the upper left of the above map. As I left town on the Scenic Highway I was riding through an area where the police feel they need to increase their presence due to a rash of shootings. I suppose if I caught a bullet while cycling then I would achieve a bicycle warrior's death, but I suspect most folks would rather not cycle through gang violence territory.
Once you get a few miles north of the Baton Rouge metroplex the riding on Highway 61 becomes quite tolerable. The shoulder is wide and quite safe for cycling, but you are still riding on a busy high speed traffic roadway. Getting off of Highway 61 improves the riding conditions considerably. In the Wilson/Norwood area the ACA route passes through a couple of financially depressed areas before it leaves Louisiana.
So look then, here's the bottom line; I wouldn't recommend the route through Louisiana for most folks. I'm glad I rode through Louisiana because I'm me and I wanted to ride the Great Rivers South route. But it really wasn't much fun. It probably didn't help my opinion that the weather was so dang hot even though it's Fall now. But even disregarding that, I can't recommend the route for others. I'd feel responsible if they had a bad experience, or something worse happened. So it is what it is; it's just my opinion and others may differ. I won't be riding this way again. OTOH, northern Louisiana seems like it has good possibilities for cycling and I would consider an east-west route through northern Louisiana.
Enough already, my rest day is about over. It's been good, now I need to get things prepped for tomorrow. We have some cultural problems in our society that produce the sort of violence seen in Baton Rouge. Elvis says it best, so I'll let him;
G'night everyone, tomorrow I start up the Natchez Trace! I'm excited about it, hope there's something exciting in your life...
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