We Got Guts!

Day 39

DeRidder to Mamou

Leaving Pleasant Valley RV park was bittersweet, it was time to move on, but the place was awesome. Everything we could want in a kitchen(except the food of course), clean warm showers, and friendly people running the park.

It rained a bit last night so we took our time picking up and leaving. Emilio had a second spoke break on his bike, so we replaced one of them this morning with Ron. Ron has been riding with friends and stayed with us to assist with the spoke operation. And yes it was a success!

When we hit the road it was cool and sunny to start our day and the wind was at our backs. I have really enjoyed watching the scenery change into a lot of taller trees and rivers and new landscapes over the last week or so. It has become more dramatic in the past couple of days, with all the pine forests here.

The rivers we cross all seem to have what I can only describe as "beach sand" all along the banks, and have a large number of people playing and fishing in them. As we crossed our second river of the day we started to change to a forest, and then quickly to what we thought was farm land. Well, we were partially right - in some of the fields they were growing rice, while the flooded fields were crawfish breeding grounds. A very different sight for all of us.

We were about 6 miles out of Mamou when we turned North, right into the wind! We followed the road and were amazed at the number of dead turtles we found on this stretch of road. We passed a rather large turtle who had made it to the double yellow line, and we were concerned for its safe trip, not concerned enough to stop with the headwinds beating us. When we turned one more corner the wind was at our back again, we stopped for pictures and all decided we could not live with ourselves if the turtle died. So what did we do you ask? We went back to help the turtle, 1.26 miles we went back knowing we would again have to face the headwinds. And when we got to the spot where the turtle was;(yes I said was) we could no longer find it. So heres what we figured ---
1) It had made it across safely(yeah right)
2) Someone stopped and helped it across(not likely)
or 3) Someone brought it home for soup(there was absolutely no sign of it anywhere!)
We can let everyone pick their own ending on that one.

Facing the headwind we headed for town and a well deserved rest. Emilio stayed at the hotel in town, Karman, myself and Ron all headed for the RV park. Big mistake - it was a run down dive that did not even have showers! We too went back to the hotel for the evening. We showered and were off to find dinner. This turned into a nearly 2 mile walk across town, to David and Lori's kitchen. Good food at a good price. I had the country fried steak while the others tried the fried fish basket and salad. We were full and tired, so it was back to the hotel for a good nights rest.

The Garmin Information for today is as follows:

Day 39 DeRidder to Mamou by wegotguts at Garmin Connect - Details