Day 42 - Oberlin to Chicot State Park

Today is a bit long with a need to haul groceries from a few miles out into camp due to a lack of closer facilities. The plan is to meet at Walmart in Ville Platte to help the cooks haul groceries.

Here we are in Oberlin getting ready to leave. Note the cell tower in the background. I could get a 4G signal in the parking lot but almost no signal in my room.

It was another slightly foggy morning as we got on the road.

Today we started to see the ugly underbelly of Louisiana roads. We hit some short sections that were very rough. Point of reference, if you seal coat a road, you do need to seal coat it again later on as the paving will eventually crack and become worse that riding on a dirt road.

But for the most part it seems like the roads here are on average as good as other states so it isn't all that bad.

We again hit some relatively less traveled farm roads with no shoulders. Which kind of irks me because many people think these roads are safer. They are not. Often you have large farm trucks driving these roads as well as cars with drivers that don't think cyclists should be on their roads.

The first rule of a safe biking road is to have a shoulder at leaf 18" wide, more is better, that allows cars to pass without having to cross the centerline, because even on these less traveled roads you do get traffic in both directions.

In any case some of the roads did have good shoulders and for the most part the traffic was well behaved.

Bikes lined up outside Wallmart waiting to carry some groceries. 

We camped in Chicot State Park (the "t" is silent). Next to a swamp.

Ron found this big spider hanging at about head height in the trees. Not sure what kind it is, but it was about 2" long and quite colorful.

This is the lodge we stayed in. It took a long time for them to cough up a key so we could get in though. I wasn't particularly impressed with the service. The lodge was well constructed though and quite comfortable, although there were not quite enough beds for everyone so some slept on the floor or outside.

We had a very weak cellular signal here and no WIFI so I didn't get a chance to catch up on the blog.

We had some raccoons come visit in the night. They started to go through some open panniers, but Daryl who was sleeping outside heard them and took care of things.

We also shared the house with a lot of cockroaches. I found a dead one in the morning next my bed. I think I stepped on it when I got up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.

Overall it was a comfortable place to stay.

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