Today we woke up to fog so heavy that all that was visible of the traffic on the freeway in front of the motel was the headlights. After getting ready and packing up, about 8AM, we went to the motel lobby for the advertised breakfast (6 to 9:30). There were two cereal bins out, and nothing else. Karen asked where the breakfast was, and the woman behind the desk (who obviously couldn't be bothered with something as mundane as customer service) waved her hand vaguely in the direction of the cereal. Karen then asked, "That's it? Dry cereal?" Then the desk clerk brought over a small basket with a half dozen packaged Honey Buns and donuts. I left,because we had better food in the back of the truck. Father stuck around and complained until they brought out warm orange juice and warm apple juice. Another customer came in (Ernest, a German bicycling across the country for the ninth time), and he also started complaining about the food. They then brought out some milk for his cereal. The place is terrible.
Karen and I mounted up and started riding about 8:30. The ride was very flat, elevations varying between 150 to 54 ft over 93 miles. The terrain was flat but it was hard to believe how much vegetation there was. Lots of trees, and a lot of logging. There were logging trucks passing us every few minutes/ miles. There were a couple of bridges over slow moving streams and rivers, some crosswinds and some headwinds, and some bad navigating. We got turned around in three towns and had to retrace our route to the tune of 3.5 extra miles. But the last 15 miles - flat, highway shoulder, smooth pavement, and a tailwind. We finished the end of today's ride at a 20 to 25 mph average over that stretch.
Worst part of this ride was the humidity. Although the temperature never got too hot, I was sweating like a fiend. There was room available at the motel in town, Isiah's had decent food and very good blackberry cobbler.
Tomorrow we will try to cross into Louisiana and get to Oberlin for our day's ride. Oberlin is quite small, so we will return to DeRidder, a town of 7,000 or so, and take our day off there.
No photos today, it was so flat I couldn't find anything photo-worthy.
Map and numbers from today at:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/234526243#.UH9oSBh8mmQ.blogger
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