Day 43: Eunice to Oberlin: Ardell, Queen of the Road Angels

February 16, 2014

As these things go, Holiday Inn Express offers a pretty good breakfast. Despite being people with nowhere to go and nothing to do, we woke up at mor eor less our regular time. Down in the breakfast room, we came to grips with the idea that we did not need to stuff ourselves or squirrel anything away for the endless road, because there would be no road for us.

We were sitting at the table with our minimal selections when a lady walked up. "Hello, I'm Ardell, and you are the Grampies! I've been following your blog."

We noted when Dennis Crowder greeted us this way in Florida that it only happens about once a year. But what happened next is rarer still, in fact, almost unbelievable. Ardell is from near Houston but had been in Florida with the grandkids. She also had prepared herself for cycling some of those Florida rail trails. She did this by throwing her Bike Friday New World Tourist in the back of the car. Then, on her way home to Texas, she read our latest blog post. In it we mentioned the Holiday Inn Express in Eunice. Bingo! Ardell realized that she was driving around with exactly the wheel we needed!

In a singular act of Bike Friday/CGOAB generosity, Ardell offered to lend us her wheel. We leapt at this ticket to freedom. My first idea was just to redirect the Bike Friday new wheel shipment to Ardell's house, and call it even. But Ardell did not think it quite right to swap a five year old wheel for a new one. She proposed to follow the blog, and when we got suitably close to her place, she would sally forth and bring the new wheel. Terrific! We will get to meet again.

Ardell left us to quickly pack, and head for - yes - Oberlin, yesterday's impossible objective.

But before we leave town on our smooth replacement wheel, there is a bit more of the Eunice story to tell. Yesterday we looked at the prospect of nothing doing for up to four days, and therefore nothing to write in the blog. So we held back one exciting (or ok, somewhat interesting) story. It is the dramatic account of our visit last night to the Walmart Supercenter. How can visiting a Walmart (Supercenter, mind you) be dramatic? For starters let the visitors not have seen fruit for a long time. Also, Walmart does tailor there stock a bit for local tastes. So that has them offering unique Walmart/Cajun blends. How about Jumbalaya Spam! Now that's dramatic!

Next we move into the realm of Freakonomics, Walmart style. Walmart will sell a complete bicycle with 20 inch wheels for $85. Our cost for just one wheel will be $227, when and if it arrives. One thing is sure, the quality of the wheel on the $85 bike is way higher than that of our busted one, which of course, is busted. so $85 could get us on the road right now, right? All we would have to do would be to buy the bike, pull the wheel, and throw the bike in the garbage outside Walmart (or use some other less distasteful disposal scheme). Something like this came up a couple of days ago, too. We were making cheese and turkey slice sandwiches- two, or maybe four, and fancied some mustard. With no McDonalds to supply a little packet we looked at the big bottle in Piggly Wiggly. Why not buy it, use a little, and ditch the rest. $1 is little when spread (ha ha) over four sandwiches. But, we didn't do it. Just could not tolerate the waste. Same with the bike. What would you have done?

And the final Walmart drama: Dogs have been giving Dodie a hard time. First there was the puppy we had to abandon. Dodie would have taken him home if she could. Now she misses him. But on the other hand, she is reporting that being chased by dogs daily is really impacting her enjoyment of the ride. Her Mardi Gras baseball bat is clearly not building her confidence enough. So we hatched the idea of getting a genuine Texas souvenir horse whip. Not being in Texas yet, we checked Walmart's sporting goods. No whip. But how about pepper spray? We had passed up the pink pistol in the handimart. But Walmart had a pink (presumably military grade) spray, with quick draw feature! She bought it.

(Skipping ahead in the day for a moment, we found - as it often the case with military power - that feelings of security were not so markedly increased. However, there was some improvement. Still, we are preferring to run than turn on the highway and fight. It remains possible though that somewhere along the line one of these dogs is going to get whipped, sprayed, or whacked with my old man's walking stick! It really should be the owner instead.)

Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie ... I feel a song coming on!

It's this or get up to three whole bikes at Walmart?

And a lightweight stove. My world view is crumbling!

So that was Walmart, now how about Oberlin? We found that the best way forward was exactly back along the roads that Glen had used to bring us to Eunice. So that's how we went. We passed some of the cattle that Glen had pointed out as part of his herd, and we passed rice paddies. We even passed an RV for sale, that looked pretty attractive as we were being hauled to Eunice.

This area is very attractive, with its combination of pastures, woods, and rice fields. The temperature was perfect, wind minimal, and sky overcast just enough. This was the kind of cycling that we were sure would disappear as we would languish in Eunice. Now, we were out there, doing our thing.

We regained the ACA route by noon, and soon were back at the spot where the rim had exploded. I looked for the missing chunk, but no luck. As we then made the enjoyable ride into Oberlin, we could see that it was actually pretty darn long. Especially if walking. Had we tried it yesterday, we could have been walking all night. There were really no places to wild camp along the way.

Into Oberlin, we could immediately see that Glen had not been quite right in saying there was nothing there. First off, it has a traffic signal. That is, a real one and not just a flashing one. Closer research also turned up a three story building - the courthouse, plus several banks and churches and the famous motel, plus post office.

The motel is run by the Thakor family, which also has Maria's Restaurant and Grocery. They are really nice and understand the needs of cyclists. Best of all, Maria's offers boudin, smoked or regular, at $2 per large link. Kan Thakor explained that these are not commercial items, but are home made-by a family friend near Lake Charles. We found them superior. Together with home made fries and a drink, our $7 supper was great value. Kan also fired up this blog on his laptop and we had fun commenting on some of the pages and photos he pulled up.

At the motel, a "cycling" map of Louisiana. On the legend, nothing is an actual cycle path!

In Oberlin, a sign like what might be found on Route 66

Because this land and route is not overflowing with either camping spots or motels, we took some time to plot out four days (anyway) of future stops. So tomorrow we figure to camp near Deridder.
And soon, Texas!

Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 2,477 km (1,538 miles)

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