(December 29)
Day 4 - Simmesport to Ville Platte LA

 Difficult Decisions

 

 Today I learned that there is an Interstate that runs through middle of the state North to South and that there are two towns I'd never heard of before reading about them on this sign.

Some of the best cell reception of the trip. Note the abandoned trailer at the side of this road. I couldn't help but wonder what in the world its purpose could have ever been and why did it just get left here? I mean, it can be towed after all, right?

If your urine was full of radioactive waste from Chernobyl, it would be the exact color of that green wall you are seeing. And the blue is a lovely blue which just about matches that of the Union blue uniforms from the civil war. I think someone has a very dark sense of decorating humor.

 

 

No, not whether or not to keep going. Or whether or not I would take a rest day today. (Yes and No respectively). Nah, the biggest decision I made was first thing this morning when I looked at the EIGHT DAYS of dehydrated meals I’d so carefully packed up in my bike trailer thinking I would use my camp stove each night. And, as I looked at them I realized there was absolutely no way in this world I was carrying them one mile further. Fact is, I’ve been way too tired at the end of the day to fire up my camp stove and cook something. Plus, when eateries with names like “The Butt Hut” are near, there is no way I’m going to pass that up in order to cook some “Cheesy Ramen” from a 1 gallon plastic bag containing all the pre-measured ingredients. Plus, cooking on my backpacking stove means cleaning my backpacking pot...and when all I can do after 5pm is basically lay on my sleeping bag and moan, the absolutely furthest thing from my mind is washing dishes.

So the first big decision was whether or not to toss all 8 meals. I decided to toss 5 thinking that there was still that 8000-foot-high-and-possibly-blizzard-infested mountain pass over the Continental Divide in New Mexico. A terrain feature where I’m convinced I’ll be stranded for days in my tent waiting for the weather to clear so that I can scamper down the mountain before I’m forced to start eating the leather of my biking shoes.

Which leads me to the second big decision of the day: which 3 to keep? Cheesy Ramen of backpacking one-pot meal fame? “Pizza rice”? “Chicken Noodle Stew”? As I’d never tried cooking or eating any of them before I found the recipe on the internet days before my departure...and put the dinner-packs together on Christmas Day...I realized that I had no idea which I’d like better. Or even whether or not any of them would prove edible. So, purposefully not looking at any of the small recipe cards I’d carefully placed in each bag identifying what culinary delight was contained therein, I just grabbed 5 at random and walked them over to the trash can. Oh how good it felt to jettison that dead weight! Oh how I’d been blaming that useless, weighty food for my long, difficult slow day yesterday! “It wasn’t me” I thought, “it was all that weighty and useless food!” had become my big excuse.

Which immediately brought me to the third big decision of the day: what else could I toss that was slowing me, “Mighty Pedalman,” down? Glancing over several crucial objects like my beloved now-half-empty bag of trail mix or my really comfy sleeping pad or my shower shoes which I knew would keep me safely away from any number of terribly potent foot diseases I’d pick up otherwise while showering in a variety of none-to-clean public shower facilities over the next several weeks, I then spied my now-empty, but possibly hefty empty water bladders!

Water is heavy. Anyone who has backpacked with a load of gear for a week will tell you that. And, even though they were empty, I figured that the two 1.5L Nalgene water bottles I’d kept filled up over the past several days...and which I’d proven already I would need on long, no-water stretches like I had yesterday….would be sufficient. They’d HAVE to be sufficient I realized as... like those 5 days of food I was in danger of carrying the entire way from Ridgeland to San Diego only to throw it away once I’d completed the journey...there was NO WAY I was carrying either of those empty bladders even 1 mile further. So I left them on the counter of the Community Center just in case Frankie and Kevin (my two Simmesport Public Utilities camping angels yesterday who let me stay in the town Community Center rather than force me to stay in the little park I’d originally planned to) wanted to regift them.

Thus lightened by what I told myself must have been a LOT of dead weight, I pedaled away before dawn to have breakfast at Maddie’s Truck Plaza...an establishment you all may remember from yesterday’s post. Not only was it the best restaurant in town (according to Frankie and Kevin), it also had the virtue of serving breakfast really, really early. Like before-dawn early: because that’s when I arrived. And Maddie’s didn’t disappoint! I was well fortified for the day and was able to leave just as the sun rose.

And though the wind blew from the North all day, that wasn’t always a bad thing. Since my route today took me as far south as it did west, I had some tailwind. Which, along with my newly-lightened load helped me like my Garmin again. And that lead me to my final difficult decison of the day: where to stop.

I’d planned on staying the night in Chicot State Park, which was right on the route I’m following. But by lunch (a Subway in Bunkie), I was feeling good. By which I mean, my legs had not refused to keep pedalling yet. They still propelled me forward despite the pain I knew was there if I let myself think about it. So, looking ahead I had two choices: a motel in Ville Platte which was roughly 8 miles further than I’d planned to go, or a motel in Mamou that was 12 miles further still.

Upon arriving in Ville Platte I stopped and called each place. The Best Inn in Ville Platte was open and had rooms. Fortified with the certainty I’d not have to spend the night wildcamping, I dialed the number listed on my route map guide for the motel that was supposed to be in Mamou. It was no longer in service. Well, good to know! I’d have been really, really angry if I’d ridden another 12 miles today only to find no motels in Mamou!

I immediately tried to Google whether or not there was another motel in Mamou, but I had no signal. So, walking into the convenience/hunting and fishing gear store I found nearby, II found a young lady in her mid-20s standing behind the counter underneath a huge, stuffed boar’s head hanging on the wall. I asked “Excuse me, do you know if there is a motel in Mamou?” Bewildered silence. “Is that the way to say ‘Mamou’....Mamm-MOO?” Now we were getting somewhere! In a deep Cajun accent I could barely understand, I learned that “Mamm-MOO” is indeed how Mamou is pronounced. But that revelation was followed by another pronouncement in which I learned that neither she, nor anyone else in the store had any idea if there was a motel in Mamm-MOO...a town, remember, that was only 12 miles away.

That’s when I asked if they had WiFi. Well, if you thought that asking about a motel in Mamm-MOO caused consternation, you should have seen the look on her face when I asked about WiFi. While she didn’t say “Huh???” her expression said “Huh???” So, I asked again, but this time more slowly: “Do you have WIIIIIGH-FIIIIGH?” Apparently having successfully dredged up what WiFi was from her new employee training she replied simply that they had no WiFi. Realizing I’d been traveling over information territory that may just be too difficult for this young lady, I decided to throw her a layup question. You know, so easy ANYONE could answer it who was clearly a native of this tiny little Louisiana town. I asked “Is there a restaurant in town where I can get spaghetti?” For some unknown reason I’d been craving spaghetti all day. Don’t ask my why...these things just happen on bike tours I’ve decided.

Bewildered silence. Now, mind you, I think Ville Platte has three restaurants that aren’t either McDonalds or seafood. And, yet, even my layup question proved to be too much for her. Turning to the crowd of locals who had gathered behind me to listen in and check out the alien who’d landed in the store they clearly frequented for all their duck-call needs, I asked again “is there a restaurant in town where I can get some spaghetti?”

More bewildered silence. One at least had the courage to offer up that he wasn’t sure if there was any restaurant in town that served spaghetti, which I took to indicate he might be the mayor.

At this point I realized the stuffed wild boar on the wall overhead may be the best source of local knowledge in the entire establishment, and decided to cut my losses and get back on my bike headed for the Best Inn of Ville Platte LA. See my two photo of the Best Inn for pictorial evidence of the glories I’ve found there so far.

And, now, I’m off to what the hotel clerk assures me is the best restaurant in town: Nick’s on Main Street where, if the food gods will smile upon me, I’ll find spaghetti on the menu.