Day Thirty-Eight
Yesterday's feel-good came right back as soon as I opened my eyes this morning. Sure, I was a bit tired and sore from riding 85 miles, but a couple of stretches and I felt good to go. Packing up, I started thinking about what gets sent home from New Orleans, another gear purge. There are about 15 items I still haven't used or don't think I'll need for the last push to the Florida coast.
Today, I joined the levee trail right away. A pretty strong headwind was blowing from the south. When the river meander turns south, so does the trail, and there it is, straight in the face. But New Orleans is more east than south of La Place, so these face blasts didn't last long. I crossed through the Bonnet Carrie Spillway, designed to divert 250,000 cubic feet per second of water from the Mississippi River to Lake Ponchartrain and then out to sea, the water diversion of last resort to save New Orleans from being inundated by a flooding Mississippi River. It is designed to defend against water surging from the north, not from hurricane surges from the south. So it does not help with a storm surge, but it does help divert billions of gallons of water that flow back to the sea through New Orleans after being dropped by a hurricane on lands up river.
More heavy industry. I passed the largest oil refinery I have ever seen. It turned out to be two, side by side, Shell and Valero. Soon I was passing many grain ships at anchor in the river, waiting to load and be off to wherever in the world their buyer was. As expected, approaching the city, homes began to replace factories on the opposite side of the levee from the river. A lot of new homes. The city is rebuilding since Katrina.
On the levee, I met Steve, a Southern Tier cyclist heading west. We exchanged information on our respective route experiences. He said as I go east, it's hard to put down big miles. The roads aren't made to be shared with bikes, and the bike trails are often boardwalks made for beach goers and tourists. Kadunk-kadunk-kadunk across planked "bike trails", for miles. Lots of sand from the beaches is on the paths and road shoulders. He gave up on camping too. There are just very few amenities for self-supported cyclists. And he agreed that it's just too hot to camp anyway. I have a sense for Steve's route through Florida to New Orleans, so I'll do some research and try to find some alternatives. Steve did say that there are some bridges on my route that the map says are closed, but he went around the barriers and found them to be just fine. It's cars that are bared, and nobody seemed to notice or care that a bicyclist just kept riding. It means quite a few miles of riding without traffic whooshing by. For my part, I encouraged Steve but kept my commentary pretty general about what he has in store for him. Once he's west of Texas, camping opens up. There's not much else to say except buckle down, ride hard and get through it.
With about 6 miles to go to the French Quarter, I left the levee trail and reinserted into urban traffic. Bike lanes! Courteous drivers! Normal people! I stopped a moment to enjoy the first actual city park, Audubon Park, that I have seen since Los Angeles. Unlike any city I have been through since, I don't know, Pasadena, I think, or maybe Claremont, New Orleans is the first city on the Southern Tier that seems secure in what it is, rather than racing to become something else. It is definitely the first city that has built on rather than bulldozed whatever it was, to become what it is. Until today, I hadn't fully appreciated why it is so important to protect New Orleans from natural disasters and rising waters. It is a gem, a city worth protecting, not some parody of some other place, or a knock off of every other place. My plan was to stay off the bike here two full days. In recent days, I've been thinking I will cut that to one day and blitz east as soon as my laundry is dry. Now I'm back to staying here two full days. It's just so nice to be in an actual place rather than riding between cities that feel like caricatures, or as I mentioned previously, just another node in the southern tier's continent-wide, go-go, car-crazy super-city.
I'll be off the ride blog for a couple of days, to explore New Orleans, catch up on my thinking blog, and work on come CAL business. I'll strike out east for Pass Christian RV Resort, and Sunday, on to stay with old friends Ranell and Charity Franklin. After that, it's just 10 days to the Florida Coast.
By the way, today’s heat index in New Orleans (temperature plus the effects of humidity, the temperature that it “feels like”) is 97 degrees, tomorrow’s is 104, and Friday’s is 93. On Saturday when I saddle up again, the head index will be back down to 83 degrees. By the time it starts to really heat up again, I’ll be in Tallahassee. I can worry about that next week.
I’d love to hear from you. Donate to the ride and send along your words of encouragement and tell me why getting kids outside matters to you.
