Day #11 - 3/23/2011 - New Orleans to Baton Rouge - 82 miles

It was 82 painful miles from New Orleans to Baton Rouge.


Our time in New Orleans quickly came to an end and I found myself deeply ambivalent about leaving.  It was comfortable, cush, fun and it was great to be spending time with Susan after a week apart.  But, I kept thinking of Captain Willard from Apocalypse Now:

"I'm here a week now … waiting for a mission … getting softer; every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger. Each time I looked around, the walls moved in a little tighter.
Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one."

Okay, maybe the Apocalypse Now metaphor is a bit of a stretch, but if I didn't get back on the bike in a hurry, I'd have to stay in NoLa or go home.  Beignets at Cafe du Monde each morning were sounding better and better.

 The roads into NoLa, say, the last 10 miles were pretty savage: no bike lane, close traffic, poorly maintained...generally a biking bad dream.  In addition, we had a treacherous bridge crossing to leave the city.  So, we took advantage of Susan having to return to the airport and summoned up a taxi-van.

The taxi drive dropped us off near the airport, saving us 10 miles of bad road.  Turns out it wasn't enough.

 Let's see...how best to describe the bike route from New Orleans to Baton Rouge...polite conversation fails.  The shoulder was either non-existent or like riding on gravel...it was painful.  From a scenic/aesthetic standpoint, it was a visual low point. From a cultural standpoint, however, we passed home sites on the other side of the bayou adjacent to the roadway that were practically primitive.

Farm animals were a frequent site on the other side of the bayou adjacent to the road.

We continued to rely on peanut butter and jelly for our snacking needs.  The loaf of bread, carefully smashed into one of Lani's panniers, fared poorly.

Smashed into the panniers, our sandwiches became smaller each day.

 The trip to Baton Rouge was interminable and painful from a combination of headwinds and horrible road shoulders, like riding on gravel.  Finally , we could see signs that we were nearing our Baton Rouge destination.  Lani was hit by a dumptruck...it side swiped her, damaging her pannier rack but, fortunately not knocking her down.

SEC Football lives on in Baton Rouge where everyone follows the LSU Tigers.

The Garmin sometimes had a mind of its own, routing us off the dismal highway into a nice residential neighborhood with no shoulders at all; just one-lane each direction with local traffic zipping by.  When the going gets tough, the anxious pull into the nearest park for another sandwich break.

PB&J break in a local park.

My advice to anyone thinking about biking between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is to take a bus.  The closer we got to campus (our destination), the closer we the fast-moving traffic moved closer to us on what were scenic driving roads, but not meant for bikes.  Eventually, about 10 miles from our destination, we pulled over and called a lifeline: André,of Cathy and André, our hosts in Baton Rouge, arrived with a truck to haul us the remaining 10 miles, possibly saving our lives.

While waiting for André, Lani promptly passes out.  I kept watch and patiently explained to about 10 passersby that this was normal behavior for her.

Cathy Crutchfield was a PA student on my team in 2005.  She was an outstanding student, a great person to work with and set an impossibly high bar for PA students I would work with over the next few years.  I was fortunate to be able to keep in touch with her since her graduation.  Since graduation, she had been working with a cardiothoracic group near Asheville, SC, but relocated to Baton Rouge when André was accepted to LSU veterinary school.  They took us out for dinner.

Dinner with André and Cathy will remain a trip highlight.

Cathy and André live in married-student housing with their two-year old son, Jonah.  As if it were not enough that they had offered to put us up for the night, they gave up their bed so we could be assured of a good night's sleep

Cathy and André in their natural surroundings.

As it does when you spend time with special people, the evening passed quickly.  I hope I see them both before another 5 years pass.