You might want to check out John Holden's blog. He rides a long wheelbase recumbent. He has been doing all the miles so you will hear more about the rides. I am doing shortened miles while I am trying to heal from my calf muscle inflammation. See: http://holdenxcountry.blogspot.com
On Friday, April 10, Dave and I rode 43 miles. We rode in a vehicle to the second SAG stop. When we got our bikes in Kirbyville I noticed a library just behind the gas station. We needed to print a proof of insurance document that Chrysler had emailed to us. We went over to the library and the librarian graciously explained how to use the computer and printer for free! Thank you for this service for bicyclists. We are in the Adventure Cyclist mapped Southern Tier route so this is a valuable resource.
The route was quite flat. The Texas part of the route didn't have much of a shoulder, but it was SMOOTH, no Texas chipseal! Chandler had set up a little "goodbye to Texas" photo op on the Texas side of the river so we stopped there and took pictures.
We crossed the Sabine River and what? No sign welcoming us to Louisiana? There were the posts, but where was the sign? What a disappointment. Our fifth state and nothing to commemorate it.
We rode further and found a tourism bureau office which had a beautiful quilt on the wall so we had our photo taken there instead of at the state line. The lady at the tourism bureau was quite concerned that there was no sign there and made a call to the DOT.
We'll have to see if there is a sign when we leave Louisiana and see if we can get a sign there.
The country was fairly flat and not that interesting but I felt happy to be back on the bike again after 7 days completely off the bike. The Louisiana side had a decent shoulder too, so that was a plus. I amused myself by noticing signs. Moses is running for sheriff and "Bisquit" Smith is running for State Representative! I noticed the Edward Jones office sharing the same building as the welfare office. Probably don't share the same clients though.
However by the time we reached DeRidder, I noticed that I had a large "goose egg "on my calf. I iced it at our Dairy Queen stop (getting soda all over my sleeve in the process) and elevated and iced in the motel room before dinner. All that seemed to do was move the edema into my knee and made the whole leg stiff.
When we got to dinner we found out that Chandler, our bike mechanic, had been in an accident and that Bubba had taken him to the hospital. As of this morning (Saturday, April 11) he has been transferred to another hospital with a cracked vertebrae. What a shock! (Bubba has been in the hospital with people three times in a week on this trip!) Chandler's injuries could have been so much worse so we're counting blessings in that regard. The truck is a total loss.
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