Finally made it out of Texas!! I thought I’d never make it, Texas is a huge state!
I was really amazed at how much open space there was crossing Texas, and how many small towns and businesses had been abandoned in West Texas. One of the things you see while riding roads like I am on is how much of the country used to have small towns and villages but no longer does. I could go for stretches of 75 miles without seeing sign of life but a fair number of abandon homes and buildings! Definitely kind of sad that we lost that part of America. The ride today was a bit of a challenge, trying to cross the rivers and waterways into Louisiana. I decided to go south and then around some water then over a large bridge that looked like it was passable on a bike. Was able to ride along some beautiful waterways and also able to cross a very large cool bridge. I thought it was going to be a breeze the rest of the ride, I just had one smaller section of interstate 10 to cross and then I was home free to Lake Charles. Unfortunately there was construction on the highway and once I got onto it the road narrowed to only two lanes and concrete barriers so no room at all to ride. I had to retrace my steps and then head 10 miles further north out of my way then another 10 miles to get back (into a head wind of course!), adding a net of 15 more miles on a day that was supposed to be easy. The route turned out to be very nice, with good roads, good shoulder and no traffic. Particularly once I got into Louisiana the scenery was beautiful. Although I felt pretty good after 100+ miles yesterday, I was certainly feeling it today. There is definitely some residual from long rides like that. That being said I made to Lake Charles just fine, and met up with my buddy Emil who was going to drive me to Lafayette for the night. Nice to see a friendly face and we ended up having a terrific Cajun feast of crawfish, shrimp, and steak that night.
