June 28 to July 6
Highlight for each State:
Cal. Bluest sky
Ariz. nicest clouds
New Mex. pass with
care
Texas I can
see for miles or bugs eat you
Louisiana
Bridges and bayous
Diary
June 28, Austin
This was a get stuff and otherwise
relax day. Very enjoyable with Jerry and Kate.
June 29, Austin
After a slow morning we
got to look behind the doors of the library where Jerry and Kate work. This was
super impressive: we were able to see and even touch those old books, some written
on skin and even hand written ones. We saw the curators lab, where books and
photographs are repaired and conserved. It was great to get to see and hear how
this is done. In the public part there is a Gutengerg bible, the pages of which
are being turned every month. Everything we saw there was very exciting.
June 30, Austin
We had another quiet day,
with some late lunch snack at a nice little bar recommended by Ron. In the
evening we went out for my birthday dinner together with the kids. They hade made
a reservation at a restaurant owned by Sandra Bullock, with a waiter who gave
us the comedy dinner (we didn't know we booked that). He explained each and
everything about the dinner very extensively, even the three kinds of salt that
came with the bread and the (of corse) unsalted butter after we sat down. Kate
and I had quite some giggles... The food was perfect there as well as the
Champagne we had. All in all: it was a great birthday.
July 1, Austin to Baytown
(Houston)
There was quite some rain
in the area, but we were lucky and were only rained on once, before we arrived
at the hotel.
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July 2, Baytown to
Lafayette
Not a very exciting ride,
but at least we saw some nice lakes on the side of the road. When we got
towards Louisiana the area got a little greener and there were actually really
nice smells. It was very humid today, but we had some clouds, which was good,
because temperature got up to 95.
When we sat outside of the
hotel and had our (well deserved) beer, we watched this very beautiful lizard
climbing up at the entrance door of the hotel. Dennis wanted to take a picture,
but, obviously, this lizard didn't like cameras and went. Too bad, now its
beauty will not be conserved.
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July 3, Lafayette to New
Orleans
It was a hot and very humid
day, which didn't make riding a lot of fun. We went secondary roads, saw big
properties, a lot of green, and a lot of water - lakes, rivers, bayous....
Lunch was in a gas station
that seemed to be the center of the village: it was general store, gas station,
restaurant (selling beer, too), and meeting point. Tis was pretty nice.
Arriving in New Orleans we
had to ride our bikes through the French Quarter, which needed a lot of
concentration, the roads being bad an everyone being in the streets. We are staying
in a very nice hotel there (Dennis: it has a funny French name) which really
looks like an old French hotel. The funny French name is Richelieu.
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July 4, New Orleans
We had a nice day
strolling through the French quarter, met a couple of nice people and watched
the fireworks at the river. They had two barges on the river that shot exactly
the same things in the air: "the dueling barges". This was very
impressive.
July 5, New Orleans
Another nice, but hot and
humid day. We walked through the warehouse district and the museum area. There
they have a world war 2 museum. This building is super impressive.
Back along the river and
dinner in a jazz bar.
July 6, New Orleans to
Natchez
Again it was hot and humid
in New Orleans when we got on the road. We went towards Baton Rouge and spent
an hour going through the suburbs - not nice. Once we were in Mississippi, it
got a lot nicer: streets suddenly had curves. Haven't found a motto for
Mississippi yet.
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