New Roads to White Castle, LA

Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Distance Cycled: 64 miles
Total elevation gain: 80 feet
Our Total Flat Tires on trip to date: 1

We left the motel and bicycled to a restaurant that was supposed to serve breakfast only to find that it did not open until 8:00 AM and it was just after 7:00 AM. We continued on our way and reached Louisiana highway 1. At this corner there was a truck stop and they also served breakfast. We all had pancakes. Now this was the corner of highway 1 and highway 3131 which we thought was the starting point of our ride. After riding 6.5 miles we came to the corner of highway 1 and 3131 again. This was the real starting point of the days ride. As we continued we passed an old cemetery. In this part of the country people are buried above ground because the water table is very high.

The ride today was not as pleasant as yesterdays ride because we had light headwinds almost all day. However, there were fewer hills today than yesterday. Today we rode back roads most of the time. Most of these roads had very little traffic but a couple of these back roads were very rough with lots of cracks in the pavement and areas were temporary patches had been made. As we continued riding south we rode along side Bayou Grosse Tete. We crossed this body of water at least 4 times on our way to tonight's lodging.

We stopped in Plaquemine where we visited the old deserted locks. We also stopped for a dish of ice cream. This town is unusual in that the Union Pacific railroad tracks runs down the middle of a street. We finally reached Nottoway Plantation where we are spending the night. This plantation house was built just before the civil war and contains 56 rooms and 50,000+ square feet of space.

George and Jane joined us at the Plantation and all 5 of us had a very good supper and will meet again for breakfast in the morning.