The day started with an excellent wide smooth and relatively clean shoulder on a fairly busy 4 lane divided highway.
I started the day averaging a bit over 12 MPH. When I got to Buna I stopped at a convenience store and took off my cold weather gear.
As I was preparing to leave Mitch rode past. For some reason I got it in my head that I could catch him. After several miles of shadowing him and Daryl I caught up with them. I ended up passing them and didn't see them again until I got into camp.
The second part of the day was a bit slower when we got onto a fairly busy farm road without a shoulder. We started to see a lot of logging trucks hauling pine to be chipped. There were also the occasional chip truck hauling the chips to mills to make OSB sheets.
I eventually caught up with Dick who was taking off his cold weather gear. After I passed him I started to see a fair number of dogs that seemed overly interested in cyclists. One even came out from the other side of the road and caused one of the logging trucks to break hard to avoid hitting it. If you live on a busy highway, keep your dogs inside a fence. While I don't want to get bitten by a dog chasing me, I also don't want a dog to get killed because it decided that it likes to chase bicycles.
We eventually crossed the Sabine river and entered Louisiana.
I was told that roads in Louisiana were a lot worse than Texas. The few miles into the state seemed to confirm a somewhat less aggressive amount of maintenance, but the shoulder for riding seemed to be above average so the jury is still out on that one.
We are staying on the grounds of the Merryville Museum which has a fairly impressive collection of local artifacts. They like cyclists and have gone out of their way to make the location into a must stop for cross country cyclists that need a place to camp.
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