(December 28)
Day 3 - Vidalia, LA to Simmesport LA

 Flat is Bad, or How I Learned to Hate My Garmin

I rode south along the Mississippi for nearly 50 miles, and this levee was just to my left the entire time. Apparently, without this mound of dirt, the Mississippi would flood 1/3rd of the land area of Louisiana every year. Dirt > water.

I didn't realize it, but most of my ride the past two days I was following the "Mississippi River Trail," a bike tour route that follows the entire length of the Mississippi. Perhaps my next adventure!

This is where my homebrew route picked up the great Southern Tier route which will take me West to San Diego. Doesn't seem like much, but I'm now riding a route that people from all over the world have ridden over the years.

 

 

When I planned today's route I thought it would be easy. Only 65 miles of flat road I thought. My easiest day so far I thought. The universe laughed because it was my hardest day so far without doubt.

Up at 5am because the sprinkler system (which apparently is crucial to keeping the three blades of grass at my campsite green throughout the winter) came on then and totally freaked me out as I took immediate stock of anything that I might have left uncovered. Realizing my stuff was safe, I couldn't go back to sleep so I simply got everything packed up so that I could leave at dawn. Following a pretty decent breakfast at Nikki's, a local diner, I was on the road by 8am.

I thought I'd roll into Simmesport by noon.

At first I was trucking right along as my speed in the first few miles averaged a staggering 13.4 mph. Then, as the miles rolled on, my legs got tired. Tired of the neverending, hour-after-hour, pedaling that completely flat terrain brings. No hills to coast down and take a break on, meant my legs...the ones I can now barely walk on...had to do ALL the work. Literally like pistons in a diesel engine, my legs just went up and down, round and round for hour after hour.

The only problem was that the movement of my legs up and down is where the similarity to a diesel engine ends. Unlike said engine, I got slower and slower as the morning wore on. 13.4 became 12.3 became 11.6 became 10.5 and, eventually 9.6. Noon passed by me laughing a hysterical evil laugh from the sky. Then came 1pm, then 2pm, then 3pm. Not only had I not made it to Simmesport, I realized that I'd planned a route completely devoid of human comforts. No gas stations, no rest stops, no nothing. On some of my maps that cover West Texas, on some of the panels are big WARNING! panels that say "Warning! No services next 55 miles!" I was worried about those stretches when I was making my plan and did all I could to plan around them.

If only I'd realized I should have warned myself since the route I planned today had no services of any kind for 65 long miles. I particularly noted the fact that while there were seemingly "named places" along my route like Blackhawk or Fort Adams, they were actually ghost towns with no buildings or any other sign of life in them. And no people meant one very sad fact: no place at all to eat lunch. Which, after snacking on fig newtons and trail mix at my ever-more-frequent stops on the shoulder of the road, I'm now eating a Meat Lover's pizza at Maddie's Truck Plaza that could choke a horse.

All while staring at the Garmin I've come to hate. First, it kept giving me the bad, bad news at how much I was slowing over time. Then, each time I glanced down to see how far I'd come today, it taunted me with numbers that barely changed. By mile 30 I took it off its mount and exiled it...out of sight...in my handlebar bag. Now, rather than seeing some landmark in the distance like a cell tower which it would seemingly take me an LONG hour of constant pedaling to reach AND having my Garmin taunt me, I only had to face seeing distant goals that I seemingly had neither the strength or energy to reach.

And that is the second reason why flat is bad: it lets you have no doubts at all that you are...despite pedaling such that your entire body is more tired than its ever been...in fact going nowhere.

---