Day 24: Ville Platte to St. Francisville, LA

Distance: 122 mi (197 km)
Cumulative Distance: 2,154 mi (3,466 m)
Average Speed: 16.1 mph (25.9 kph)
Climb: 3,072 ft (936 m)
Cumulative Climb: 110,467 ft (33,670 m)
Flats: 0
Cumulative Flats: 13

We rode on flatlands in rural Louisiana. We saw many small dwellings, many just single-wide mobile homes on cement blocks, most with a collection of decrepit vehicles and farm implements scattered about. The most common feature was DOGS. They all had dogs; some penned in the yard, some on leash and quite a few running free. We got barked at a lot by big dogs, yapped at a lot by little dogs, but didn’t get nipped. The dogs seemed to be very possessive of their territory, stopping at the property line, in most cases, with the assumption that they had successfully defended their territory.

We new met another group today, Ernie from Hamilton, ON, Ben from Bristol, CT(?), Jennifer from Seguin, WA, Karen from Redwood City, CA and Bill from Estero, FL all doing the ACA (Adventure Cycling Assn) tour from west to east as we are. We also met Dennis Dorman, a Sunrise Beach Club Rotarian from Lake of the Ozarks, MO (that’s Missouri for the uninitiated). He too is doing the ACA west to east and is soliciting support for the Rotary International campaign to eradicate polio. He did a bit of a mini-interview with each of us and said it would be on his website (blog?) which is www.ride4polio.com. He had left San Diego on 1 March (with a break for Easter) so considered us to be “hammering” the route.

Today we crossed two big rivers; the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi, above.

The Atchafalaya is big and the Mississippi is, of course, huge. The A crossing was on a large bridge, our biggest hill of the day, and the M by ferry. We timed our M arrival perfectly - rode right onto the ferry and disembarked on the eastern shore about two miles from our destination, St. Francisville. The town was founded in 1785 by a group of Capuchin friars on land granted by the King of Spain. A monastery was built, destroyed by fire shortly thereafter, but the village that grew up took the name bestowed by the Capuchins in honour of St. Francis of Assisi.

The roads today were windy and of varied surface; some was very smooth and some was bone shaking. Winds again mostly adverse, but because of the many direction changes, we did have some tail winds for a while.

Our group is doing very well together. We seem to be like minded in our approach to the ride, not having even minor disagreements on distances to go, speeds or stops. We’ve settled into a routine of switching drivers every ¼ or 1/8 of the days ride depending on the overall length. On the long ones, the chance to rest your bones for a few miles is always welcomed.