17 April 2014
Oberlin to Chicot State Park, LA
47 miles (Total Miles = 2,024)

Our morning serenade goes like this: “I can touch my titties too!” I’m not sure what tune that is, but the slightly unstable gal who may or may not be permanently living in the motel room down from us is definitely enjoying it and apparently wants us too as well. This is one of the beautiful things about traveling across America – or anywhere, really, for that matter – you just never know what you’ll come across. This morning, the serenading neighbor, tomorrow morning, who knows?

It’s kind of been one of those days where anything went. The morning ride brought us the sense of BEING in Louisiana, with crawfish farms lining the roads. Dogs who liked to chase bicyclists were also lining the roads, but we’ll talk more about them in a separate blog as they are a topic worthy of deeper discussion.

The afternoon brought a trip through a very poor section of the town of Ville Platte. As we entered the neighborhood, toward us came a teal green chrome-trimmed Cadillac sporting Terminator-style hubcaps – the kind that spin around and if you come too close, impale you like an egg beater to the stomach. There were people sitting on dilapidated porches and others ambling down the center of the street. Not exactly the kind of neighborhood where I’d pedal up behind them and ding my bell to pass by. Definitely the kind of neighborhood that makes you realize you’re pretty lucky and pretty spoiled to just be cycling on through on your 2 month holiday.

And then, not more than a mile outside of town, came million dollar mansions. Well, I don’t know for sure if around these parts they cost a million dollars, but the contrast between this stretch of the road and the last couldn’t be greater.

Finally, tonight brought Cooking with Candy (much better than the bad cable show that it sounds to be). We’re fortunate that Nicole made our job easier by preparing half of the meal before either one of us set foot in the outdoor kitchen or we’d probably still be there trying to sort out how to hook up the gas to the Coleman stove. Another unexpected bit in our anything-goes kind of day, and notably better than the morning serenade.