Back on the Bicycle, YEA!

Tony's View

22 mph headwinds for 61 miles in 50 degree weather, but who cares? We are Back on the Bicycle again, YEA! What a wonderful day riding. We rode through the Bayou, along the water of lakes, rivers and the Gulf. In addition, we're riding with our good friend, Tom. That is hard to say since he is an attorney. It also helped greatly with our Sherpa, Cindy, caring all our luggage. The picture is the outside of our AirBnb showing us all bundled up. By the way, this was our least favorite Airbnb thus far.
This was not a typical first day, because I try to keep the mileage down the first day to work into it and tune the bicycle, but there was nothing closer to stop for the day. Interestingly, it even showed very little was around when we went 50 miles before we found a place to eat for lunch. After we got out of the New Orleans traffic, we ran into this sign. It showed the direction where Linda and Anel go to enjoy the Bayou.😄 The picture above shows a typical house on stilts as we saw along the way in Louisiana. They were on both sides of the road. The lake was St. Catherine Lake, and it looked like a great place to live if you loved fishing. I was thinking of you, Bud. After going through miles of this we came to this big bridge to get over a part of St. Catherine Lake and take us into Mississippi. We took a picture here (below right), because I didn't think Joan would let me stop on the top to take a picture.

She was a good sport, however, and let me stop and get several pictures. The shoulder was wide and the railing was high. As you can see in the one picture, I caught her looking over the edge (above left). It was a great view from there. You could even see in the distance the skyline of New Orleans. I tried to take a picture of that, but it didn't come out. I did take a picture of where we snaked through with houses on both sides, and it was so interesting to look at since we just biked through it.

 This is the first time Joan and I are on bicycle excursions that we crossed a State Line, so we had to stop and get a picture. The next sign was dedicated to Cyril, so naturally we had to stop in honor of my Dad.

 The picture to the above left with the dirt trail and gate was one of my turns on my designed route. Oops. It only happened twice this route. Luckily, it was an easy reroute and only added 2 miles. Had to take a picture of this old draw bridge. It is pretty cool. At the draw bridge was a Bayou Swamp tour company, and we were half tempted to do it. This area reminded me of all those reality TV shows in the Bayou. Only heard a couple of gun shots and they didn't seem to be aimed toward us even though we were riding with an attorney.

The picture to the right shows the beautiful routes we had in places just lined with trees. For you people up north, we do get to see the color green. Tom is shown bending over and waiting to go after waiting on a train. We ended the day riding going along about 8 miles of bicycle trail at the edge of the beach on the Gulf of Mexico near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. What a beautiful ride, even against the wind at the end of the day. A great way to celebrate Back on the Bicycle again. Our waitress at dinner said you are either self directed or outer determined.

Joan's Extras

We walked to dinner, sore legs and all, to nearby Starfish Cafe, a gem of a find. It is a non profit organization/cafe that trains students hands-on in restaurant, job and life skills. The cost of your meal is all donation. Di, the executive director, was our server. She was full of positive energy, and a life coach as well. Besides the food being organic and fresh, they had homemade gluten free bread and desserts! Jackpot for me! All agreed that the food was extremely flavorful. I could prove it by the way Tony cleaned his plate, but he wouldn't let me take a picture of that.

Starfish Café - We loved it!

As far as the ride, I'd say our Christmas tree, as we like to call Tom because he is all lit up with his bike lights nicely behind us, had to work a little harder than us today. Our fairing seems to help us cut through the wind (and keep me warm), and it sounds like it was probably Tom's first long, windy, chilly ride. He was determined to make it no matter though, and he did. He also does a great job handling all those attorney jokes that Tony dishes out. I'm sure you can relate Linda, Jim, Jennie, etc. Stay tuned for more attorney jokes in the days ahead...