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Tuesday, November 20, 2001 - It'll Probably Be a Dry One
55 miles. Washington, LA to Yellow Bayou Civil War City Park, Simmesport,
LA
'Round Midnight last night, the weather pattern made
a big change. The wind came up and we got a light rain. The wind continued to
blow most of the night, and we were thinking that our good run of weather was
over. The alarm went off at 5:00 (the sun is now rising 6:45 and setting at
5:10) and we did not want to get out of our warm sleeping bags.
We did finally struggle out of bed, got our breakfast
and got packed up and on the road at 7:00. To our astonishment our tent had
dried before we got up. Once on the road, we noticed the sky above was a little
clear, tho' off to north it looked like it it was raining.
Over the next 2 hours the sky became perfectly clear
with the temperature reaching the mid 50s. We had watched a big cold front push
thru and on toward the Gulf. The air was now very clear and dry making the
colors of the landscape intense.
After about 20 miles, in Lebeau we treated ourselves to
a second breakfast at Stelly's, a great place that has been there since at least
the 20s. While we were there we caught up on some of our email. They had a
stuffed snapping turtle that was about 135 pounds, that was guessed to be about
135 years old.
We continued our meandering mostly northward path
toward Moreauville. At one point we went WEST for 10 miles since that is the way
of the official route and we are slavishly following it. Items passed included
some mature bottomland hardwoods, lots of sugar cane fields and its roadside
litter spilled from the trucks, a curving bayou with bald cypress (it is illegal
to cut cypress down now in LA), some darling burros, scads of yapping small
dogs, and towards the end lots of red, lateritic delta "gumbo" soil
now given over to cotton. It is clay soil, hence its name.
As we pedaled north we had to overcome our daily
headwind, now from the north. Our title comes from a snippet of conversation
overheard in a store in Mamou. In response to a statement concerning the possibility
of rain the store owner replied, "There's a front coming thru
but..."
Here I must point out that Joan and I may be the last
cyclists to do the Southern Tier route from west to east in 2001. From back in
Alpine, TX we know that there was a pair of cyclists towing BOBs (Beast of
Burden bike trailers) that were several days behind us. Since we went off route
to visit Aunt Dorothy in Lake Jackson they have caught and passed us. We know
this because since Merryvill, LA, we have stayed in the same campground as them
but always one day behind.
We know that they are from either North or South
Dakota; but we will probably not catch them. Since that means we could be the
last ones on the route this year we must finish strongly with no half stepping.
And for the cognicenti, "No. We do not have half step gearing."
Expected low tonight: 28*. Will be really hard getting up in the cold and dark
of 5am.
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