this is both my entering and leavingLouisiana sign since it was the only one I found.
On the other side of the road, Janet is entering Mississippi
Pearl River county courthouse and monument to " our warriors of the South" from the Civil and WWI along with monuments to the National guard and the Iraqui freedom action. I couldn't find WWII although it must be somewhere nearby.
out in the middle of the piney woods being cleared for future development, a flashback to the '70's.
There are still game farms, along with fiber farms. These llamas were very curious about the bikes.
The ride today was very cloudy and windy, with peaks in humidity that left us wiping condensation off of the glasses and the map cases, and alternately putting on and taking off wind layers. We had a choice of two routes today as well. Apparently last year there had been some issues with dog bites and so an alternate route, shorter, and along a major highway, had been found to avoid the dog area. The result was that there was a lot of debate about who was going to take which route because the SAG vehicle couldn't do both routes over the last 23 or 33 miles.
We crossed over the state line very early in the ride, and were able to get both a welcome to Mississippi and a welcome to Louisiana sign on opposite sides of the road. We never found a welcome to Louisiana when going from Texas into the state so it was nice to have a two for one photo opportunity. It makes a change to be able to document the state at the state line. We never found a Texas state line sign at all which makes me wonder if they are trying to hide something or showing a false sense of modesty.
As it turned out, there were more dog issues on the first part of the route, but none of them really serious, mostly just dogs rushing out to the edge of the property to define the boundaries and in one case a little daschund who was going to take on the world until I used my alpha bitch voice at him at which point he turned tail and ran home yipping for help.
Maybe because of the unsettled weather, which kept clouding up and blowing over like it was going to rain, or maybe because of the debate about which route to take, it was hard to settle into the ride.
In the end we settled for the longer router with the possibility of some dog issues as opposed to riding on a busy 4 lane with little or no shoulder and a lot of heavy truck traffic. On a route choice like that the traffic problems will always be a given while the dog issues may or may not be a given. At least that was our thinking. It turned out to be a very nice ride. Mostly very quiet, fairly good roads for being off out in the country as they were. We did have a couple of longish sections of chip seal which was rougher than any we have ridden over so far, the type where you feel like you are traveling vertically as far up and down, bumping over the paving, as you are traveling horizontally across the pavement. We also had a lot of rollers, which, for whatever reason seemed particularly difficult in the first half of the ride. Possibly, the difficulty was due to the fact that we are all still feeling the lactic acid dump and burn from the 90 miles two days ago, or again, it may just be long term attrition and wear and tear on the bodies requirinwg a longer recovery time. Now that the temperatures are generally warmer, and the humidity is up, we are all popping electrolyte capsules along the ride as well as with meals.
At one cue we were supposed to go right at an unmarked road with a Baptist Church on the corner. As we stood debating the distance, two black gentlemen working at the church did an airline flag signal saying "you go this way." When we stopped to thank them, the one said, "all the other ladies but one and some guy went this way. Those two went the other way." I replied that the lady would be back as she was one of our riders but that the man might have been working off another route. He replied " I didn't figure you'd worry much about a man, you being an independent woman an all." Later on we found out that several other ladies had taken the wrong turn earlier and had stopped someone driving a pickup truck. When they asked for help, they were totally unable to understand anything the driver said because of the Mississippi patois except that he was asking whether the Baptist church they were looking for was a "black or a white church." Susan, in all the innocence of being from the northeast, replied that the color of the church was not indicated on the cue sheet, to which she received yet another undecipherable reply, at which point the discussion was terminated because she broke down laughing and the driver drove off in disgust, probably thinking something along the lines of "those women sure do talk strange." They did turn around, and were airline guided back onto the correct route by the helpful black gentlemen at the Baptist church (which was presumably black although the building was actually yellow brick.)
In Poplarville, the local drugstore had a lovely little ice cream soda fountain/diner in the back so we stopped by for coffee and rootbeer floats in lieu of lunch and then rode the last 23 miles through piney woods and growing developments, most of which were gated and had declarations on the walls that "this community has rules and regulations , by-laws and convenants." I guess this goes along with the black and white churches mindset, and confirms what a lady at the gas station said when I asked if I could use the toilet, which had a no public restroom sign on it. She replied " sure you can honey, that sign is just there because we don't want certain people using it becuase they make it smell." At the time I somehow interpreted that as referring to truck drivers, but now I wonder.
The rest of the ride, through scattered trailer and obviously poorer housing and piney woods was basically very pleasant and dog free with the exception of a group of hounds, identifiable by their baying, who were kenneled off in the woods right next to a farm that was obviously raising pheasants, a couple of wild game type farms with high electrified fences, I'm thinking fox or raccoon hunting, and a llama farm with a couple of cute crias.
We made it in in time to be able to justify our peanut butter and bananna sandwiches as lunch, do our laundry, have a rest and still have time for email and blogs before the crossing the state line Margarita party. Life is good.
today's stats
mileage 60.82
ride time 5:06
speed 12.4
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