Louisiana Isn't ALL Flat!

The picture above - reindeer, bucks or what? Lots and lots of them in a field. Today our route took us on many quiet back roads. Extremely wooded and beautiful. The sun was hot (mid 80's), but always a breeze so it didn't feel quite that warm. The wind continues to find us and really stuck with us for many, many miles. We experienced Louisiana Rollers, or their version of hills. Now really, they were nothing to write home about; however, how quickly my legs forgot how to climb! Use it or lose it and I guess I haven't used my climbing legs in over a week!

We are noticing magnolia trees. We understand they don't bloom until early June.

We continue to see azaleas, and I didn't feel I could publish one more picture of them...so I put the sweeps in front to make it a bit different than previous pictures. No matter how many we see, we are amazed by their beauty.

We turned a corner on a country road and stopped to look at our map. A large herd (?) of cows started towards us....I guess they thought we had something to feed them.

Bet you can't figure this out? This is how a great majority of our meals are made. Linda truly is a fantastic cook. She does have a 2 burner gas stove in back of trailer; however this is her oven. She heats coals in the smokey joe. She has three dutch ovens and she places a cookie sheet on ground, hot coals over that, one dutch oven on top of that - coals on the lid of dutch oven, next dutch oven on top of coals, and repeats till she has three layers. She says it is a 350 degree oven. She even bakes bread this way! This particular meal is shepherd's sweet potato pie.

Linda is checking for "doneness". She separates dutch ovens and takes lids off to check.

Very few dogs today - and only one gave a half of chase. We did have to stop twice for clarification from neighbors to make sure we were on the right route. Of course the one place we stopped had two lose dogs, a two year old and a mama. Now in Louisiana you can't just ask your question and leave....you have to admire the barking jumping dogs, give the two year old attention and listen to mama tell us how many other bikers have already gone by! It's no wonder we are slow. A favorite Louisiana saying seems to be "whatcha all doin?". That is almost like a "hello" in Wisconsin.

Okay, another "attempt" at a video. I don't have it mastered. I wanted to show you what a nice country tree-lined road we were on. One of the bikers insisted she take the movie so I could be in it. Unfortunately, she turned camera on while I was "instructing" her. I think it loses a bit of the serenity I was trying to show you...but towards the end of video you get the idea.