Mysterious Landscape

Riding Day 28 – 78.98 miles

We camped last night near Jasper, TX, a small town that has produced 47 NFL players. Football is king in Texas, and Jasper seems to be at the tip of that spear. The campground itself was quiet, and after completing our usual morning routine, we drove back to the starting point and started riding around 9am.

It was overcast with temps in the mid-60s all day, and we expected to cover a lot of ground. Unfortunately, my bum has become quite sore, and this limited our speed as I had to stand in the pedals frequently to get some relief, and when you’re standing, you aren’t pedaling. The Bob was able to purchase some super-duper diaper rash ointment for me at a Walgreens, and hopefully that will help to ease the pain in my you know what. If anyone has some better suggestions for me, please let me know.

We finally crossed the border into Louisiana around 10am. The scenery stayed the same, but it was a tremendous psychological lift for all of us to move into another state. It felt like progress instead of stagnation, that by crossing an imaginary boundary we were getting somewhere, even though we had always been getting somewhere since the trip began. Hard to explain, but we all felt it

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We saw our first alligator warning sign today, which got my attention and then some. The roads here are all built on elevated land and surrounded by thick forests that seem to be perpetually flooded. Swamp, bayou, bog…all these terms were seen on different signs as we moved deeper into Louisiana. I also saw a lot of roadkill that was vastly different than all the other roadkill we had come across on our trip. Big snakes, bullfrogs, huge racoons, and large birds littered the shoulders and thick grass that fringed the road before disappearing at the edge of the swamp/bayou/bog that delineated where the civilized world ended. It was easy to imagine voodoo ceremonies taking place out there, or alligators feasting on who knows what, or young children ignorant of the modern world but wholly comfortable living in the swamp listening to their elders tell stories unknown to the rest of us. It was easy to imagine all of this while riding a bike on a cloudy day through such a lush and mysterious landscape

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Tonight, we are camping in the parking lot of the Oberlin, LA Volunteer Fire Department. The Chief, Donnie Meyers, gave us the combination to the building so we could take a hot shower and use the kitchen. Another rider who was headed westbound told us about it, and I called on a break and made arrangements with a Fireman Smith. When we arrived and found no one here, I called him back and told him we were out front. He said he was out front as well but didn’t see us. I asked if he was in Oberlin, LA and he said no, that he was in Oberlin, OH…mystery solved. And then just by chance, Chief Donnie drove by and asked what we were doing. Once we told him out story, he rolled out the red carpet and here we are…synchronicity squared. Peace…