Day 8 - Feb 22 - Priscilla rides again

I got a good night's sleep in a cozy bed last night. And since the bike shop didn't open until 9 a.m., we could sleep in. So I did. Until 6. Yeah, I know, that's not really sleeping in, but it was good for me. The motel had a nice breakfast bar, so I loaded up for the ride to the shop. It was about 8 miles (round trip) out of the way, down a 6-lane highway, with a speed limit of 65. Fortunately, I could ride in the breakdown lane, but I had to cross under an interstate overpass, which was scary with the cars merging every which way.

But I made it to the shop. Steve, the owner of The Spokesman, was sooooo nice. He fixed all of Priscilla's problems, and charged me only $10. She's now healthy, and I feel much more confident. She really only needed some fairly minor adjustments, but I didn't know what they were or I would have done them myself. So, thanks, Steve!

I caught up to Carol and Mike at -- where else -- the Evil Empire. We didn't hit the road until 11 am, so we had some miles to ride before the sun set. Since I got Priscilla repaired, we don't have to go to Baton Rouge, so that's good. I was not looking forward to going into the city. Much too treacherous.

From Covington, we headed west to Hammond, which was a VERY lovely town.

                                             (Apparently, I had options . . . if I took a right)

                                                                     (A monster limo!)

                                           (Try playing twister on that! Especially if it's spinning)

We picked up a Subway sandwich, next to the Scrubway Car Wash, and ate it at a park in town. 

It was a lovely day, so we enjoyed our lunch. I then accosted a woman walking in the park and tried to find out if there were any campgrounds 20 miles or so up the road. She didn't know of any, but we went back to her office (she was the city planner), and a woman in her office directed us to a campground in Independence, LA, so we hit the road.

                                                  (Bicycle touring leads to Independence!)

Once we got into town, Mike called the campground to get directions, but the woman couldn't tell us exactly how to get there. Now, you have to understand, Independence is tiny, and we were only 7 miles away (as it turned out), but she didn't recognize the road we were on, so we had to kind of wing it. As we rode, we saw signs for the campground and followed them, but they never said how far the campground was. Unfortunately, it was way out of our way. And they closed at 5 pm. When Mike turned around, thinking we had missed a turn, so did we, but then he turned around again and took off, trying to beat the deadline. Carol and I ended up stopping at a side road and waiting for Mike to figure it out and give us a call. Eventually, an older man in a pickup truck pulled up and asked if we needed help. We explained the situation, and he offered to give us a ride to the campground, which was still 6 miles away. Since it was getting dark, we took him up on the offer. So we heaved our bikes onto his truck and climbed in. He had a bottle of wine (with a screw-on lid) between his legs. It was almost empty. He was chain-smoking, too. He drove very slowly (thank God), and proceeded to tell us in a shaky voice how his son had been murdered just down the road about 8 months ago. The police, of course, weren't doing anything to find the perpetrator(s), and the FBI was investigating the sheriff's department. He was obviously very sad about the loss of his son.

When we finally got to the campground, Mike was there waiting. He had managed to secure us three campsites before they closed. Normally, campgrounds let us pay for one site and pitch several tents on it, but not this place. We each had to pay $18 for our own site. Oy.

So I'm hanging out in the lady's bathroom, typing this post. It's warm in here.

The shower felt extra good tonight, because I had a lot of road grime on me. It's almost 8, so I have to get to bed. With the bike shop detour, I did 50 miles today. Tomorrow, we're going to push hard to make it to a campground between Jackson and St. Francisville. It looks to be a 55+ day. We're supposed to meet Dave there, who is from Houston and will be riding with us for awhile. I'm hoping we will meet up with Ryan and Bryan there, too, but I haven't heard from them since yesterday afternoon, so I don't know where they are or what their plans are.

Okay, that's all for today. Talk at you tomorrow.

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