(January 1st)
Day 7 - DeRidder rest day

Multi-tasking

 

"I don't always go to church, but when I do it's in DeRidder on New Year's Day"

A good suggestion by a friend landed me at St. Joseph's Parish on my rest day. I figured Mass would be most appropriate while touring the heart of Acadiana.

I've officially become a pro selfie taker: I figured out how to set the timer on my phone's camera! It is really too bad that everything in town is closed down due to the holiday. I'd have enjoyed the Beauregard Museum this train car is on exhibit at. Not to mention the "Hanging Jail" which is a historic landmark downtown.

The hair dryer in my room multi-tasking as a shoe dryer. Putting on soaking wet shoes is yucky.

 



So, yeah, I wasn't supposed to take a rest day until several days from now. But when I rolled into DeRidder yesterday I knew I needed one. Including my trial ride last Sunday, I'd ridden my bike seven days in a row. Not only a personal record for consecutive days in the saddle, but a personal record by a LARGE margin.

 

As you can see in one of today's pics, I started off with Mass following a pretty decent breakfast here at the hotel. I followed that by riding around town: North up past the Wal-Mart and back and then deep into the beating heart of hisotric downtown DeRidder. There I found a potpourri of visual feasts like the Police station, a restaurant (Cecil's Cajun Cafe) that I really wish was open today and a feed store. But as much as I wanted to linger and savor the quaint small town I'm passing through, my beloved Dallas Cowboys were set to play vs. the Philadelphia Eagles at Noon and I wasn't about to miss that!

 

And as I am watching the return of Tony Romo, I wanted to add some thoughts that came to me earlier this week but which I didn't have the energy to write about at the time. So, in no particular order:

 

These small towns really need businesses to multi-task. For instance, when I was in Simmesport Maddie's Truck Plaza was not only a gas station and convenience store + breakfast & pizza restaurant, it also sold liquor, had a "wine cellar" area and a section with cheese and fresh produce. Similarly, on a day later this past week I passed a fireworks tent that also had signage advertising sweet potatoes for sale as well. I suppose sweet potatoes could be considered an impulse purchase right?

• I met Eric and his son on my camping night in Vidalia. They pulled into the camping spot next door to mine just before dark in a mini-van with a cargo topper. Eric and I chatted later that evening. He was from Montreal and he and his son were in the middle of a pretty long driving tour through the US with the objective of seeing a San Antonio Spurs game in San Antonio. They'd driven through places like North and South Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, etc. on their way through to Vidalia.. Eric remarked that of all the places they'd seen, if it wasn't for the fact he'd promised his son a Spurs game, he said he'd have just stayed in West Virginia, which he felt was by far the most beautiful place he'd seen on Earth. That made me proud in a strange way...that a Canadian could so enjoy the natural beauty found in this great country

• There is a reason why Mark Sanchez has played for so many teams in the NFL...he keeps throwing the football to the other team's players.

• Whether or not I'm at my house or at my favorite haunts where I live or riding my bike in the wilds of Louisiana or sitting in a hotel room on a rest day, I'm still just me. It isn't the place around me that makes me "me." Or the people I see or spend time with that make me "me." I feel just the same today as I did on Christmas Day in that I'm looking forward to whatever adventures come my way in life, and confident that whatever obstacles show up will be overcome. I'm enjoying life just as much...arguably even more...on this, the fourth New Year's Day I've spent unemployed as a working adult, as I have on the many I've been employed. I marvel just as much here as I ever did in Ridgeland at the utterly strange twists and turns that life brings. Never IN A MILLION YEARS did I ever envision I'd be riding my bike on a tour across the country. Never as a young person did I ever envision being divorced once, much less three times. As recently as a few years ago if you'd told me that I would change my life to be fitness-oriented and lose interest in computer-gaming I'd have laughed. I thought a "gamer" was who I was deep in my core.

• With all this behind me in life, what might be ahead of me? I, for one, can't wait to find out!! Though I think my mom doesn't want me to watch that Dangerous Catch TV series for fear I'll be in Alaska on a fishing boat by this summer

• I had a chance to say "yes to life" this morning and passed it by, and now I'm regretting it. One of the ladies who attended the Mass this morning stopped me afterwards as I was putting on my bike helmet and introduced herself and her husband. She asked me where I was from, headed to, etc.. and was suitably amazed at my crazy goal of riding to San Diego. She then asked if I'd like to join her family at her mom's house for the usual post-Mass Sunday breakfast gathering. Because I had already had breakfast I gently declined. But the real reason is that I'm just not as comfortable as I should be visiting strange people's homes. I should have said "yes" and now I regret it. I think I'd have grown as a person if I'd been able to get over this particular fear of mine. Next time!