SURVIVED THE FLOOD!

April 17 Friday Marganaz LA to Dear Park RV 59miles

It's interesting how I love the ride but have trouble the first couple of days with the organization of camping/loading our bikes. Rusty has a different camping philosophy than I have, as may have been evident on our blog for last year's ride. It takes me a couple of days to relax and get into the flow and allow him his style. I'm sure I'm not too easy to live with the first couple of days either. This truly is a good experience for married couples to share. There is no personal space or agenda. Even though we are not riding tandem we are attached and it takes a few days to "get our groove on".
And hey! We really like our three man tent better than the two man we used last year. This one weighs just a little more but we can almost stand up in it and there is room for both of us and our gear and that's a good thing with the possibility of rain every night or so.
We had a train run through our tent about every hour until 10:00P which might not have been bad except we go to sleep pretty early. After our breakfast of cereal bars and bananas We broke camp and hit the road about 9:00A.
Our MRT (Mississippi River Trail) book and our RV park hostess warned us about no facilities for about 50 miles after a couple of little towns about five miles or so on ahead.
Up the road about five miles we approached a convenience market/breakfast place (the only business in the "town" of Bachelor with great anticipation! The smells wafting by our noses as we rode in did amazing things to our salivary glands. I was dreaming of a vegetable omelet and Rusty was ready for sausage, eggs and hash browns. All that was available was fried, did I say DOUBLE FRIED hash brown cakes, DOUBLE FRIED sausage patties. I asked what was on the breakfast menu and I was told "that was breakfast". It reminded us of Log Cabin TX last year but at another level of culinary delight. We had snacks in our bags that we decided could last us until our PB&J lunch along the road.
Further up on the ride we met a young man riding fulling loaded and solo. He was from Chicago. Took the train to San Diego and started the Southern Tier ride from there heading to St. Augustine Florida and then up to Baltimore. This was his first ever tour, just got his bike last year. He talked about getting used to the camping/loaded touring system...hmmmmm, even when one rides alone it's an adjustment. He had ridden 122 miles the day before. Crazy kid! I asked him how old he was. He's only 40 years younger than we are. Shucks.
We experienced some winds giving us a little push along the flats to 16-17mphs with birds, birds, birds cheering us along. Picture the ride: flat road, clean shoulders, green levee on one side and pastures and farmland long the other and very little to no other vehicles. Just the two of us with our bikes, our thoughts the birds singing! Peaceful and desolate.
Yesterday we had ridden on some pretty sorry road surfaces. A man at the RV park did say "well, this is Louisiana and we've got the worst roads in the nation. They been talking about fixing the roads for twenty years but you never know if they are going to do what they say they will."
These roads along the levee weren't too bad but they probably also don't get traveled that much.

With all these positive conditions a rider can still run out of stuff. Rusty "hit the wall" about 20 miles from our destination. It reminded us of last year when it was my turn to hit the wall heading up to Silver City NM. We started to ride two miles, rest a few minutes and then start again. After awhile it turned in to riding one mile and then sometimes only 1/2 mile. WE had to keep going. There was no place to throw down a tent like there had been in NM. That's hard to imagine, I know, but if there had been we for sure would have done it. The wind had changed direction and was picking up. We were now having some head winds. The sky was getting clouding up and getting grey. It became a ride of will.
When we saw a sign saying Deer Park RV 8 miles ahead we got renewed energy and we rode on until we made it!
Rusty waiting down on the road while I rode up the levee and talked with a man at the dumpster. He said the RV park was "over yonder" under water! My heart sank. I knew Rusty could not ride the 15 miles it would take to get to the next campground on up the road. We decided to ride on down to the park and see. Rusty nominated me to be the damsel in distress and ask if there was anyplace we could throw down our tent. I knocked on the small trailer door and a great looking character emerged. Long hair and a long full beard. What a nice man. He said since there was rain coming, by now the sky was black and there were drops falling, we were welcome to stay in the bunk house for the night. The hot water and electricity were turned on for us. We were so relieved and pleased. We took our bikes on inside and felt like we had been rescued. I must say I would rate the establishment at about -*****, that's minus five stars but considering our options it moved up a lot higher on the rating scale. The camp ground was 95% flooded with only about three sites above water. Our host said that last year at this time the Mississippi River had been over the top of the bunk house. We were riding in the area last year farther South and the ferry was flooded. That's a lot of water!!! It didn't look like a great deal had been done to clean up after last year's flood except hose out the place. Junk was piled around, cans and bottles dumped, holes in the walls and flooring. Gunny sacks which originally held coffee from Guatemala covered the window. Best of all the mosquito and ant populations were flourishing!
We opened our cans of beans, peaches and tuna fish (still no fuel) , sprayed ourselves with our 100% DEET and snuggled down in our sleeping bags, grateful for our shelter and full tummies. We fell asleep listening to the thunderstorms and rain and dreaming of the Mississippi River seeping under the bunk house door.

side note: About ten miles out of Deer Park there was an old gray bearded southern fella riding his single gear bike down the middle of the wrong side of the road. He stopped to chat with us and told us that he rides his bike every day since he had a quadruple bypass surgery in 1999 and two subsequent heart attacks. His bike is rigged up with a riffle rack on his handle bars for his gun when he goes "out shootin' squirrels".