Time has not allowed me to write anything for the past two weeks about our journey down to Louisiana to tackle Rouge-Roubaix. I have decided to break the experience into a couple parts. First, will be random comments and thoughts about the trip down and then then followed up with a posting about the race itself.
Four of us, Amy, David, Trent and I, left early Saturday morning for the long trip down to St. Francisville, a small community about 40 minutes NW of the race's namesake, Baton Rouge. The goal was to be on the highway by 7am, with the hope of having enough sunlight to take a little spin after we arrived at the hotel. We missed our departure goal, but not too badly, and were probably headed south by 7:30.
While I have been to a good number of states, I had never been in the deep south and was interested in what we would see along the way. The rolling hills of Interstate 55, south to Cape Girardeau, were typically scenic. Winter was still holding it's grip on the vegetation so most everything still brown. Still, that is a pleasant drive.
Maybe it was a good thing that I had never gone further south than Cape Girardeau before. Not more than a few miles beyond Cape and we were rolling through some bleak, pancake flat and God-forsaken river delta farmland. This is the landscape I imagined when reading about the dustbowl in The Grapes of Wrath.
On the plus side, we spotted a handful of cotton plants, with a few little tufts of white cotton that somehow escaped whatever machinery is used to pick the cotton these days. And, not to brag, but we passed by the town of Braggadocio. But, shortly thereafter, we may have gotten cooties when passing the town of Cooter.
Thankfully, we eventually drove through the MO bootheel, the equally bland AR and into Memphis, where we promptly exited I-55 without even knowing we did so. That is hard to do when you have a GPS but, with great skill, we did so and had to swing a U-turn and find I-55 again. We crossed into Mississippi where gently rolling hills and a surprising amount of pine trees made staring out the car window a little more interesting. Grass and trees very slowly became that little bit greener with every mile and made me more excited about eventually reaching our destination in St. Francisville and racing in some warmer weather.
I found the town names in Mississippi to be interesting. We have our have our share Indian/Native American names in Missouri. Heck, Missouri is an Indian name. Still, the names seemed more prominent in Mississippi. Maybe because they were unfamiliar to me so they stuck in my head. Names like Bogue Chitto and Tangipahoa. In fact, there are two towns named Tangipahoa that are only about 30 miles apart. One in Mississippi and one in Louisiana.
When we reached the town of Fluker, we turned off I-55 and headed west toward St. Francisville. The backroads of the state highway made for an interesting drive. This was generally poor, rural area. But, it was also not uncommon to see nice, large homes next to little shacks with junk in their yards. It was strange dynamic.
Finally, we rolled into town about 5pm and were pleasantly surprised by the hotel/race headquarters. This is no Ritz-Carlton. But, it was situated off the road, nestled amongst trees and set alongside a small lake. It is a good, basic hotel in a quiet setting. The parking lot was flush with cars with bike racks and even a few team trailers. We checked into the hotel and then walked down the hallway a bit to get our race numbers for the next day. Despite many fellow cyclists milling about the lobby and parking lot, there were only a few other people in the registration room, aside from the five of us, so registration was smooth and we picked up our complimentary Rouge-Roubaix glass with a HammerGel inside. The glass is nothing elaborate but I thought it was a nice touch. More than you get at most races.
As I was about to leave, I overheard the registration people talking to another registrant about the gravel sections. The first section had just had fresh gravel applied three days earlier by the county, or whoever takes of the road, so the gravel was nice and thick. That was wonderful news which was quickly followed by a comment that the second section had thick sand that was completely unrideable up until two weeks when gravel was laid down. I have to say, I really didn't need to hear that the race was going to be any harder. That's what the race is all about though. Make the best of it and conquer whatever they put in front of you.
