Day 93, November 2nd 2007 (Oberlin,LA to Baton Rouge,LA)

I had a good distance in front of me to start the day, but I was determined to make it to another place to stay at for the evening.  I was trying to stay on the road as much as possible, but as before, it wasn't always possible. I was headed towards Baton Rouge, the capital city of Louisiana.  I knew it wasn't going to be a day of easy riding, but filled with a lot of traffic.  Things really started to open up as I went forth in the afternoon, and I started to see more of Louisiana.  It was very green and with all of the changes of colors it was a great ride.  Some of the cities along the way were full of potholes and it seemed fairly obvious that the roads were not the first priority.  I was starting to accept the fact that I was hated by most of the drivers on the road, and I was doing my best to ignore their actions.  I was continually being blessed with great weather on my trip and I was using that s a good counter for the rest of the things that happened throughout the day. No matter how bad things were on the road, the weather was great and easily much better than Iowa's current temperatures.  This was easily the flattest road that i had been on in a long while.  The entire day was completely flat and the only hills that I climbed were when I went up and over a bridge.  There were only a few bridges that I had to go over for the day, so the rest of the day was riding on a flat piece of land.  I think the wind may have been in my face or at a cross wind, but it wasn't blowing very hard and so I was cruising fairly well through the day.  As I approached the capital city of Louisiana, the traffic was constantly growing.  I had a horrible shoulder to ride on, but it was what was available.  I was happy when I was only about 15 miles out of the city and made a phone call to Ryan.   He lived a little ways in the city and on the southern edge of the city.  When I told him that I was just starting to approach the city from the west, he offered to come and pick me up.  It sounded great because I was not incredibly excited about riding in the city at the time that I was.  It was about 5 pm and with it being a Friday, everyone was cruising around in the city.  On top of that, there was a huge bridge that I was going to have to go over in order to get in the city.  I rode for about another 5 miles, when Ryan pulled over in front of me and picked me up.  I wasn't far from the bridge, but when we crossed it, it seemed apparent that there was no room for a bicycle on the road.  it would have been interesting to travel across with my bike and I was very fortunate to have received a ride.  It was great to have such an incredible service delivered to me at this hour on a Friday.  As we took the bridge into the city, it was enormous.  The campus of Louisiana State University was in the city and it was an enormous city by itself.  With the college having around 40,000 students and the city having doubled because of Hurricane Katrina, it was very crowded.  Ryan said that the city had gone from about 400,000 to about 800,000 during the time of the hurricane and although a few families had left, most remained.  It was incredible to see a town having doubled and everything had been taken care of over time.  With more places to live and with newer roads being placed, everything managed to change on a new course. We went on campus and in the center of the campus next to the football stadium was a live tiger.  Since the tiger was the mascot, they had a tiger caged up in the middle of the campus with enough room to put on a good show.  I thought it was a pretty wild idea, but it was very cool.  Easily something I had never seen before and definitely something original to have on a campus.  The campus was very spread out and from here we went to Ryan's house.   For dinner we had some large shrimp sandwiches on a loaf of Italian bread.  It tasted incredible and filled me up to the point where I was full of all the calories I was looking for.  The idea of me staying for another day had been mentioned from both Ryan and his roommate Seth and I couldn't turn it down.  The house was enormous and with Ryan's brother being gone for the weekend I had a room to myself with a television and computer.  They played a few instruments and it was nice to be able to play a little guitar for my first time in a long time.  I also had put a few miles on since my last stop and it was a good time to take a break before continuing to the east coast.  With an incredible bed I enjoyed my rest.

Daily mileage: 100.9 miles 
Average speed: 14.3 mph
Total mileage: 5,819.0 miles