White Castle, LA to Vacherie, LA

Thursday, October 16, 2003
Distance Cycled: 40 miles
Total elevation gain: 115 feet
Our Total Flat Tires on trip to date: 1

We met with George and Jane last night at Nottoway Plantation. They flew from home to New Orleans, rented a car and spent two nights in Vicksburg. They then joined us at the Nottoway Plantation. This morning George, Jane, Becky, Mary Kay, and I all had breakfast together. After breakfast we loaded our bicycles and headed south. We rode on back roads alongside the Mississippi River levee most of the day. We have been noticing that in places the levee is used for grazing cattle, horses or sheep.

We reached Donalsonville, LA and I called the Bed and Breakfast where we are staying tonight. I found out that there is no restaurant closer than 5 miles. Therefore we had a food problem. We found out that the Plantation next door, Oak Alley, had a restaurant but it closed at 3:00 PM. It was noon and we were 15+ miles away. We decided to look for a restaurant as we continued south, hoping to find a place to eat a big lunch and get food to eat in our room for supper. We got lucky and found a convenience store that also sold prepared food. We purchased food for a big lunch, ate it and headed south again. The road was rough with lots of cracks and some potholes. We went past a series of factories including a chemical plant. Then we tried to ride our bicycles on top of the levee. However, someone decided that the top of the levee needed improvement so they had 1 inch crushed stone dumped every so often. It was impossible to ride a bicycle on this crushed rock so back to the rough road we went.

We finally reached our destination, The Bay Tree Plantation Bed and Breakfast. We dropped our clothes and headed to the Oak Alley Plantation since it was only 2:30 PM. We ate ice cream and bought food for supper. We had another problem, we only had one bathroom for 3 people and we would be walking from one bedroom through the other bedroom to reach the bathroom. We could not change our accommodations until someone with authority arrived after 5:00 PM. We spent the afternoon waiting and doing little things that did not include messing up the rooms. I began to inspect the rear wheel of our bicycle and found that the wheel was not true. It was so far out of true that it dragged very hard on the rim brakes. Examination of the wheel found two broken spokes that had not been broken two days earlier. I tightened a couple of the unbroken spokes and got the wheel to run through the brake without dragging and I hope that we can ride the last 60 miles on the bike with two broken spokes.

I went for a walk and climbed the levee across the road from the bed and breakfast. Here was the Mississippi River. If the levee was not in the way, you could throw a stone from the bed and breakfast and it would land in the river. Mary Kay joined me and we watched an ocean going ship travel up the river.

We walked back to the bed and breakfast and arranged for new rooms. We also arranged to have a continental breakfast since the bed and breakfast did not serve breakfast until 9:00 AM. It was now 5:30 PM and we were finally able to take a shower and get into clean clothes.

We then ate our supper and prepared to ride tomorrow.