The Devils Highway to Baton Rouge

The trip to Baton Rouge is one that I am now regretting having started.  The road is two lanes in each direction with a 'hard shoulder' but therein lies the misnomer.  The side of the road is a disaster. There are deep ruts, holes and large pieces of debris just waiting to attack or swallow the machine.  

There are two highways to Baton Rouge - one is the interstate and the other is the normal two lane.  ..... and if that isn't enough for traffic the police would like me to travel on this part!

And how about this for rocket science. They have put storm grills in the sides which have slots in line with the direction of travel, just wide enough to allow a bicycle wheel to fall into and if that happens you can say goodbye to the rest of your journey.  
I loved the swampland and river by the side of the road and occasionally sat in the machine and observed the birds that I had only seen in books.

I passed a Texaco plant access road but I was surprised at the blunt sign posted at the entrance!

At Sorrento I met a very interesting chap called Jerry who took me through his understanding of Christianity, Satan and the Illuminati.  I must admit I could have spent longer talking to him especially as he covered fascinating aspects about the history of the Catholic Church and conspiracies through the ages.  Fortunately I recorded him for posterity and he left me with an interesting booklet to read.  Thank you Jerry - please keep in touch. 

Jerry

Little Mylie at Sorrento was fascinated with the machine and I am sure that if she had not been so shy would have loved to have sat in it.

Little Mylie

I was down to a couple of miles per hour at times and eventually, as there was little traffic I decided to go onto the main part of the road but no sooner than I had been travelling a few miles that the familiar tannoy startled me again.  'Pull over or ya'll cause a wreck'.  I duly complied and continued to the nearest McD in slow time.

McD is situated in Prairieville where I realised that the youngsters seem more fascinated than the adults and little Hayleigh was just desperate to try it out.

Hayleigh

I met a chap called Milton outside who is in the construction business.  He was the first person who was upbeat about the economy but went on to say that this was a special region and somewhat removed from the national economy due to the oil and chemical industry.

Whilst preparing to leave I discovered that the front left steering rod had bent which would account for the excessive wear on my right tyre.  I had earlier called Karen to see if she could send two new tyres to somewhere ahead. I have tried several places here to no avail. Admittedly they were the cycle section of Walmart so I will just have to keep a lookout for a normal cycle shop if any such thing exists in the land of the automobile.  I straightened the rod but decided Karen's idea that I should swap the wheels around as soon as possible is a good one.  I also decided to do some small repairs such as repairing a small hole in the lower seat fabric.  Must be due to the amount of pressure I am applying to it.  I also decided to remove the brake light cable from the activation switch so that I could tie the two ends together which would give me more powerful rear lights.

It was getting dark again and before the 'Law Enforcement Officers' siren started behind me again I decided that I would pull into the next motel.  Lo and behold it was Motel 6! - the one I vowed never to stay in again after the experience with the rude security guard.


The receptionist Teshara was more than helpful and gave me a very special room rate and said that security would keep an eye on the machine all night. 

That lovely smile of Teshara

I decided the best place to make repairs was in the comfort of my room and Yencey and Ronald helped me lift it through the door which was possible once I removed the forward windscreen fixing bolt.  Yencey also told me that there had been a small spot on the TV news about my journey so I guess something got through via Phill's press release.  I must admit there seems to be an increasing number of cars beeping in a slightly different way so maybe news has filtered down to some.

Ronald & Yencey

Now was time to start running repairs in my comfortable workshop!