Day 1 of riding

Pictures: Me at the Hammond, Louisiana train station, bike together, loaded, and ready to ride. An "above ground" cemetery in Amite, Louisiana. A rare palm tree, although the climate is warm enough, the ground isn't sandy enough for palm trees. Me at the state line. And there's my tent, it's darker than it looks in the picture! The train got to Hammond, Louisiana around 1:30. Hammond is about 30 miles north of New Orleans, near the bay. We collected our bicycle boxes and gear from "baggage" and assembled our bikes and loaded on the gear. I had packed my bike bags into a big old suitcase, which I donated to the train station. The ticket lady said it would be easy to find someone to give it to. It's a poverty area of the deep south, and people show up to get on the train with their stuff in trash bags sometimes. It was 2:45 when we pedaled away from the station, west on residential streets. It was like being in a dream or a movie, all the old houses with huge sprawling trees and flowers all over. It was warm, probably in the low 80's. We rode north on Hwy. 51 out of town. It was mostly flat with a moderate breeze from the east. There were so many birds singing and chirping that if you added some classical music it would sound like a nature sounds CD! I could hear the occasional bullfrog and spring peepers. We reached the Mississippi state line after about 35 miles, and now the terrain changed to low, rolling hills. Just enough to make it more work on bicycles! At the town of Magnolia we turned west, and it was starting to get dark now. By the time we reached Percy Quin State Park it was dark, and we rode over 2 miles with flashlights to the campground. Our 45 mile day turned out to be 52.7 miles! We pitched our tents in the dark! It was warm and humid and we were near the lake. Lots of people fishing all night.