Great River Ride – Day 8 - Louisiana

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With yesterday’s long day, we both wanted something much shorter today. We planned on riding to Venice, Louisiana which is the end of the road. The locals nicknamed Venice “The end of the world” since all the roads end here. It should have been a short 162 miles, but we managed to make it 174 by getting lost in New Orleans. The signs aren’t that great, but what really made it tough was the very heavy rains.

Before we left Baton Rouge, we played tourist in their downtown area for a bit. We were hoping to avoid some of the rain later with the delay.

We stopped at the USS Kidd.

 

Saw the old capitol of Louisiana which was replaced with the current one in 1932.

 

This skink didn’t want his picture taken, but I got him anyways:

 

The new capitol is the tallest capitol in the US at 450 feet with 34 floors.

 

Eve queued us in to the impending rain (Thanks) with her comment earlier. The forecast for the New Orleans area is 90F and rain until Sunday. It was inevitable to run into rain on this trip. We didn’t mind it at first. I’ve ridden in rain many times. Today, however wasn’t fun. My rain gear leaked in the crotch area, and soon I was sitting in a large puddle of water. If you’re in this situation, don’t put your feet down. When I did, all of the water rushed into my boots. I rode the next sixty miles in the rain with my boots full of water. It was the first time I’ve had that experience. With the rain tomorrow, I don’t think it’ll be the last. The rain was quite heavy which made the otherwise boring ride exciting and quite memorable. :)  I think the leak was caused by user-error. I THINK I forgot to close the bottom velcro after we stopped for gas. We had ridden at least thirty minutes in the rain without leaks, but within two minutes of leaving the gas station I was soaked.

 

Single vehicle crash on straight road caused a fifteen minute wait in the downpour. The driver was taken away in the ambulance.

 

It let up about thirty minutes north of Venice, so we pulled over and had a snack. I also took the opportunity to wring some of the water out of my socks and gloves. We checked into the motel at a record 4pm. This is by far the earliest we’ve been anywhere near stopping for the day. It was quite a relief. There is a few miles left of the road that we’ll conquer tomorrow. Then we’ll head back up to New Orleans to get wet again and then perhaps eat to Florida. We’re a bit sketchy on the details.

 

I did read about a long bridge across Lake Pontchartrain which is 26 miles long making it the longest bridge over open water in the world. It cuts right across the lake just north of New Orleans. I think we need to ride across it. We had a bit of a taste of a long bridge like that today heading into New Orleans, but it was only 5-10 miles. It was also only over bayou and not a lake.

 

The Mississippi River near the end of the road. The high dikes obscure the view, but help protect the town from floods.

 

Riding in the south, they put these plastic things in the road to make it easy to see at night. They are interesting to run over with the bike. Nothing happens, but some extra movement of the tires. We don’t get them in snow states as the plows would scrape them right off.

 

PS: I’m extracting frames from the GoProHD video footage for some of the of shots. No worries about me using both hands and a foot to take photos while riding. ;)

 

PPS: For those of you paying attention to the details, that means I’m using four cameras! Who can name them??

 

Full Flickr Album here

 

Related Posts:

• Great River Ride – The Plan
• Great River Ride – The Bike Prep
• Great River Ride – Day 1 – To Park Rapids, MN
• Great River Ride – Day 2 – The Mississippi Headwaters
• Great River Ride – Day 3 – Leaving Minnesota
• Great River Ride – Day 4 – Iowa
• Great River Ride – Day 5 – Into Missouri
• Great River Ride – Day 6 – Five States in One Day
• Great River Ride – Day 7 – Memphis and Mississippi
• Great River Ride – Day 8 – Louisiana
• Great River Ride – Day 9 – Rain and the Gulf
• Great River Ride – Day 10 – Mobile & Pensacola
• Great River Ride – Day 11 – To Birmingham
• Great River Ride – Day 12 – Sweet Tea and Sweetwater
• Great River Ride – Day 13 – Cherohala Dragons
• Great River Ride – Day 14 – In Threes
• Great River Ride – Day 15 – OH-555 and AMA Museum
• Great River Ride – Day 16 – US-30
• Great River Ride – Day 17 – Leaving Indiana
• Great River Ride – Day 18 – Chicago and Sojourner
• Great River Ride – Day 19 – Madison to Minneapolis
• Great River Ride – Reflections