Day 37, April11: Silsbee, TX to Lake Charles, LA

78 of 78 miles

First, a word or two to add from yesterday. A reporter from the Silsbee newspaper came by to interview several of us about the ride. Unfortunately for him, he arrived at the appointed dinner hour and he had to compete with the stampeding masses headed to the chow line. At least he caught us in a typical moment. We do tend to take our dinner quite seriously.


For the next three days we are on a route new to Womantours and, we learned at the get-go, some of the cue sheet mileage estimations are sketchy. Virtually the entire group made a turn too early first thing this morning resulting in an interesting portage of bikes and persons through tall grass (snake-infested, for the sake of the story,) and over railroad tracks. Back on route, we finally exited Texas to discover the joys of Louisiana.

While the roads in Louisiana are not chip seal, a huge improvement over Texas, they are poorly maintained and littered with trash. There are frequent and sometimes long bridges over bayous and marshy areas with no road shoulders, of concern given the number of large pickup trucks. I did, however, pass several patches of these beautiful spider lilies.

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday so, “God help us”, perhaps most people will be in church for a good portion of the day. The weather prediction is not good, with rain and severe thunderstorms likely, so I will be making decisions about safety conditions periodically as the day progresses.