We woke up (slowly) and started to head south on highway 15. This was a stretch of nearly 50 miles of nothingness. A levee along the road was all we saw, even though a beautiful and huge nature preserve was on the other side. Too bad the road wasn't on top of the levee. The road was in horrible shape, and the headwind was really dragging us down. We slowly dodged potholes at 8mph. I can't say it looked like anyone was having much fun.

The roads here in Louisiana are horrid. Many of their paved roads are far harder to ride on than gravel. I simply cannot understand how the area expects to attract any employers with such a terrible transportation infrastructure.

This on the MRT route, yet some of the bridges (like on the Old River Control Auxiliary Structures) say "no bikes".

We were slowly running out of water when we stopped at the Army Corps of Engineers spillway building for more water. They were kind enough to give us a couple bottles of water each and we hit the road.

Taters got her first flat tire of the trip. She must have ran over something sharp. Don't worry, the tire was fine, just needed a patched tube. When crossing the spillway we were in heavy traffic and rogers tire blew. It couldn't have been in a worse location, he had to ride it flat for the last 100 yards to get off the bridge.

After the longest day of biking in my life, we finally started to enter New Roads as the sun set. Then Lauras rear tire went....our 3rd of the day. We fixed it, and it went again. After the 3rd time we finally found the culprit, a sneaky metal piece stuck in her tire. Yeah, flats for Roger, Katie, then 3 for Laura. What a hassle.

Very long day, but we arrived.

90 miles (1561 miles total)

Google Earth File