The ride started out pretty well with decent roads, but we soon encountered several roads that were quite rough.
At one point the route wanted to take us on the old LA 1 highway, which was decidedly a poor road with very little traffic, probably because no one wants to drive on it, A couple of us decided to use the main highway, which had a wide shoulder, but it had regular cracks in it that made for a somewhat less than pleasant but safer ride.
When we crossed the Atchafalaya River at Simmesport I decide to follow the levy road instead of staying on Highway 1. Here is a picture of the Atchafalaya River.
While the road was somewhat interesting it was really just a view of the levy on one side (no view of any river) and farmland on the other. And the road deteriorated the further along we got. I felt really beat up by the time I got to the opt out option at Innis. Which I took. It turns out that staying on 1 you have mostly a really good shoulder most of the way. It only gets a little bad where the prescribed route joins back up with 1.
This is the Simmes mansion.
Along the route we met a family 3 kids, 2 riding their own bikes and one pedaling on a tag along bike. They were from Quebec and had been on the road for 4 months doing about 25 miles a day.
The road along the levy getting close to Innis.
After Innis I encountered a group of supported cyclists doing a tour that was to end in New Orleans. They were headed to St. Francisville for the night. 4 of them passed me a few miles out of Morganza. I was surprised that I was able to hold their wheel and drafted off of them the rest of the way into town.
It turns out that the route was more like 75 miles, less if you take a few shortcuts, which I would recommend on this section.
We stayed at the Maxey Care RV park. Which was fairly good, but pretty far from the best we have seen.
There we met a couple of girls who started out on the Trans America route but then detoured south because the weather was getting cold. We had a lot of extra food so we shared what we had with them.
We also were able to see some fine specimens of "lean" beef. These are cows bred with 2 legs shorter than the other so they can more easily graze the levy. These were apparently bred with the "side hill gouger" by ranchers many years ago.
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