Separated!

August 29, 2016

After almost 3 months of being joined at the hip, two far has become separated. Jeanna and Kerry followed the plan of record and went East to Mississippi. Viktoriya and Alain headed Southeast in search of a bottom bracket. We are in separate states!

Google maps did a surprisingly good job of picking a route for us to get to Covington LA where a bike shop is located. We followed a series of back roads with little traffic. We were sorry to see how many houses had piles of flood damaged furniture, carpeting, etc. piled up on the side of the road.

Sometimes even a 12 foot shoulder was not wide enough for a bike to get by.

A grove of nut trees. Or is it an orchard? What kind of nuts?

When we got to Covington, we were lucky to run into a local cyclist named Mike. We asked Mike if he had any experience with the Covington bike shop. He told us the shop is closed on Mondays. Not good. But Mike did recommend the "Bike Path" shop 12 miles further south in Mandeville LA.

Mike is an interesting character. He has risen the entire Natchez Trace twice. Unlike us, instead of taking a couple of weeks to enjoy the Parkway, Mike likes to ride day and night and cover the whole trace in about 3 days. Some careful planning went into his rides. He sent packages of clean clothes and food to post offices along the trace so they would be waiting for him.

Mike, master of Natchez Trace marathon rides.

As the name implies, the Bike Path bike shop is near a bike path. The Tammany Trace bike path runs 30 miles from Covington to Mandeville and on to Slidelle. It's an old rail trail, well paved and well shaded. Just what the doctor ordered for a day without cloud cover.

At the Bike Path shop, Dave the mechanic and his sidekick Marvin were able to take care of our bottom bracket problem. They didn't have the exact replacement part in stock, but had a compatible part. We were inspired by one of their regular customers who was packing up her bike in a travel case to go to Australia for a triathlon world championship.

The old bottom bracket and it's replacement.

By the time our bike repairs were done it was lunch time. The guys at the bike shop made an excellent restaurant recommendation and we enjoyed a tasty meal at Liz's Where Y'at Diner.

Without Jeanna to translate, I don't know if "Where Y'at" is a generic southern idiom or specific to the New Orleans area.

We made a quick side trip to Lake Ponchartrain, but opted for shade on the Tammany Trace bike trail instead of a sunny lakeshore ride.

In Louisiana the water table can be so close to ground level that it makes more sense to burry people above ground rather than below ground.

The woods next to the trail were under water in places, but this had nothing to do with flooding. Southern Louisiana is so flat the difference between wet and dry can be a few inches in elevation.

Summer weather in Louisiana is a lot like Florida. Even if the skies are blue in the morning, there is almost always an afternoon thunderstorm. The afternoon clouds showed up right when we reached the end of the trail in Slidelle. There was a nice trail head with comfortable seats and bathrooms where we waited out the thunderstorm and made arrangements for a hotel room. We have been spoiled by travelling with Jeanna, since she has made reservations for every accommodation for the entire trip.

Waiting at the end of the bike trail for the rain to clear.

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