Day 29 (Simmesport to Jackson, LA)

Shortly after we set out from that dump this morning, I reminded Karen that one month ago today, we started driving to San Diego to begin our adventure. It is hard to believe that we have been on the road for almost a month. There have been a lot of interesting times during that four weeks.

Within the first couple of miles, we got one of our two biggest climbs today. The first was the huge bridge over the Atchafalayah River, just east of Simmesport. It's a beautiful bridge and it has a great view of the flat countryside around it.

The bridge over the Atchafalaya River

We kept pedaling along a route that I had cobbled together from the map last night. The Adventure Cycling map sends riders along mostly surface roads from Simmesport to New Roads, then due to the closure of one of the ferry's across the Mississippi River it sends them over a bridge and through a convoluted backtrack course to rejoin the route. With the luxury of a support vehicle, we used their posted detour, plus a little exploring along the well marked back roads, to get one town ahead on the route and save about 20 miles.

The bridge over the Mississippi was quite a sight. We rode over that, took a couple of photos, watched the tugs and barges and enjoyed the view. The view from both of the bridges today was great, the bridges being so high and the terrain so flat. Once we crossed the Mississippi, the terrain began to get a few little hills, more like the rolling terrain out near Lockhart, Texas, but with loads of vegetation. Several of the roads we were on today had tree covered canopies bridging the roadway, making it a very pleasant ride.

The Mississippi River

We saw one westbound tourer today, at the intersection of Louisiana 10 and 61, but he appeared to be in a hurry and didn't stop to talk. As we were riding through Jackson, we found a bike club booth set up in the park. When we stopped to check it out, we were told that they were sponsoring a Century and a Metric Century ride today through the area. Really interesting, fun, and informative about the area. Then when we were checking in at the Best Western, we learned that there had been a triathlon in St Francisville today. Very active area.

We rode all the way to Jackson today, but backtracked in the vehicle to stay in St. Francisville. They have a brand new Best Western there, and we figured that we could treat ourselves after last night.

Today's map and numbers at:

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/235857401#.UIRsUfZvgSk.blogger