State 41 of 50  

    Louisiana

Capital: Baton Rouge

Population: 4,470,000 (ranked 25th of 50 states)

Area: 134,000 km² (ranked 31st of 50 states)

Projected Route

Below is my theoretical route. The map will be overlaid with my actual route once completed.

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Ride Report

Scroll down below the route map for this state's ride report and photos

Ride Report

Originally I was going to make Louisiana a 'significant' state. In other words I was going to spend some time in it, namely riding through the bayous south of New Orleans and across the Lake Ponchartrain causeway. If you've read the Florida page you'll understand why Louisiana has now been downgraded to a 'get through it' state. I'm out-running Hurricane Ike and attempting to beat it to Texas. That means that I saw Louisiana over the handlebars while blasting across the northern part of the state from Vicksburg to Shreveport on I-20.

The only time I got off the freeway was to refuel and a small detour along a side road just to see if could remember what it was like to ride in a gear lower than 6th.

So the photos are rubbish but on an inter-state what is there to snap anyway? You can't stop and there's nothing to see.

But here they anyway.... sorry about the quality. Normal service will resume when I'm not in so much of a hurry.

The I-20, my conduit across Louisiana.

Every time I looked up and there was a dark cloud I assumed it was Ike's tentacles. In fact it was just a dark cloud.

Running from a hurricane forced you to look at brooding clouds and see bad weather where there actually wasn't any.

Right. I can't name the establishment for fear of lawsuits but there is a chain of fast food places which dishes up the most awful rubbish called Krystal Kakes. You can see them, plus their equally vile chilli dogs, in that poster in their window.

Some of Louisiana's petrol stations were a bit basic such as Snuffy Smifs.

Snuffy is a bit of a wag and shops on Ebay a lot.

Now this is point of sale shopping in petrol stations. You have to know the system and what you want otherwise you'll be dithering around for hours. This is the drinks section. Take your chosen size of soda and fill it from the fountain, ice first.

And then this is the food section. Get your base foodstuff, such as corn dog, and then put on the fixings. Then take it all to the counter and pay for it. Your main problem is how to eat it all at the pump.