Hammond LA

It was a bit chilly today. I think the high was 51. It’s the first day I wore my thermal base layer all day. I even wore gloves most the morning. The wind was pretty strong and was cold.The bike path I camped on last night was awesome. It continued for another 20 miles.

The downside of it was there were no coffee shops. After leaving the path I was even on a street named coffee but there was no coffee on coffee street.

I had to dig into my emergency rations of Stōk.

Stok are little ½ ounce containers of concentrated coffee. They are meant to be added to regular coffee to make it stronger. But they are good as is or in milk or over everything from Oatmeal to ice cream. A lot of gas stations have them beside the creamers and I often grab a few when I get coffee.

I left the path and headed down rt 22. Around lunch time I saw a little seafood market advertising crawfish.

It was a great place to stop. I bought a pound of crawfish and a coke. There were no tables or chairs but the lady running the place invited me to go out back by the steamer. She was nice and asked a lot about my trip. Her husband was sorting the crawfish. He also was a cyclist and we talked quite a bit.

I found a little corner of the work area and ate my lunch.

Turnpike Troubadours, a favorite band of mine has a song titled Shreveport. One line of the song says… crawfish hotter then a chimney fire. I always wondered if he meant spicy hot or hot from being freshly boiled. By the 5th crawfish, as sweat started running down my face, I knew I had found the answer. They were spicy. I wasnt going to stop eating them with the cook watching so I stubbornly continued on. I ran out of coke about halfway through the bag and wished I had brought a water bottle with me. The lady from inside brought out something wrapped in a paper towel and said try this, you said you like to try different foods. Tears were now mixing with the sweat running down my forehead and I fervently hoped what ever she offered was not spicy. It was a big slice of hog head cheese. Probably not something I would normally eat but I happily did this time in hopes of cooling my mouth down. The crawfish were awesome. Next time though, I’ll have a glass of milk and some bread. Or maybe a fire extinguisher. Haha.

Even though it was chilly it was a good day of riding. There was a one mile stretch that didn’t have a shoulder but the rest of day I had a good one.