Day 27 - Batson TX - Merryville LA

93 miles




The King

Here they were redoing the road



I made it to Louisiana!


Good night's rest. Woke up ready to get going. Made a stop in the town of Batson. I think the population is close to 100. I read online that at one point, when they first found oil, the population of the town was over 10,000. Crazy...


After that I really got going. I went to 2 dollar generals and two gas stations. This was the first Dollar general that didn't let me bring my bike inside. Darn rule followers


I'm realizing that I could basically carry zero food if I wanted to. I could also carry very little water. Perks of cycling through civilization.


A lot more dogs today. I got to the point in East Texas where the fences were becoming less and less. It's where Texas starts transitioning into Louisiana. No close calls with a dogs. I did notice that some of the dogs are professionals. One dog looks for oncoming traffic before he started chasing me!


For the most part, really beautiful riding. There's a lot more water, and beautiful trees.


Roads were pretty solid. Nothing terrible. There was one part that was really sketchy today. There was about a 10 mi stretch that had no shoulder. Most country roads don't have shoulders, so it's not unusual. What was unusual was that about half the drivers barely moved over. On previous roads, this was never a problem. For some reason this little stretch people were not being nice. There was one car that came probably within 6 to 8 in. And they were probably doing about 70 plus miles an hour. That was extremely sketchy. But other than that one part of that one road, all the rest the riding was very good.


There was a part where there was a construction team that was laying down some chip seal, and I had a follow a pilot car through the freshly chip sealed road. It was a lot safer than I thought it was going to be.


I found that, generally speaking, the bigger the highway the safer the highway. As long as I have a nice shoulder I'm good. Big highways and interstates all have solid shoulders. It really doesn't matter how fast the traffic is. 55 mph or 80 mph, the potential impact of a collision will yield the same results if you know what I mean. I'd rather be on a 80mph road with big shoulders, then a 55mph with no shoulder.


One thing that I've noticed, is that I'm entering a a different part of the country. The environment is very different than what I experienced just a couple of days ago. A lot of the areas that I'm going through are very poverty-stricken. From what I understand, I will be seeing more of this throughout Louisiana and into New Orleans. 


I eventually got to Merryville. I stayed at the towns historical museum. They have a little building for cyclists. So I'm sleeping in a bed tonight! Good stuff.


Only one restaurant in town, and it was pretty good! Shrimp wrap with fries. Getting into Louisiana, getting into the seafood!

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