Lake Charles Part-Way to Lafayette, LA

It was great to have that room to myself. Susan, Liz, and I did some more planning for the upcoming talent show and I even spent some time watching a few Saturday Night episodes before I fell asleep. I must have mis-set the alarm because I didn't wake up until 6:45 for a7:00 o'clock breakfast.

The weather forecast did not sound that great but we started out because it wasn't raining or thundering at the moment. The wind was strong again and it's always a challenge to travel through. At about mile 17, my partners decided to get a ride. I wanted to press on and tried to catch up with some people that had left before me so I would have someone to ride with. The weather looked ominous, but so far, we had out skirted most of the darkest clouds and only got a few drops of rain. I caught up with two gals and rode with them until we caught up with two more gals and arrived at the Sag stop at about mile 24 together. We all decided to continue to ride as a group in case we ran into some weather.

We passed many fields flooded with rice. Most of them had crawdad traps in them poking out. We also traveled by fields of sugar beets, and oats, but mainly crawfish and rice. I'm not sure if the weather brought in more of the shore birds inland, but we saw and heard many more than usual. Red-wing blackbirds seemed to be everywhere, along with beautiful white egrets. When we rode by, the egrets looked like a white sheet parachuting up and away from us.

We continued to battle the wind, mostly headwinds, and cross-winds to about mile 50 when we reached a small place called Esterwood. Janet pulled off out of the wind, under an old car wash that looked like it had been closed for the longest time and asked how we were all doing. The wind had changed direction suddenly and the sky just looked very different somehow. We all said we were fine and just as she was about to pull out, I asked if we could stop for two minutes so I could get more fluids in me and have a little break. At the end of the two minutes, the sky blackened and the clouds were swirling around like they didn't know which way to go.

We decided to immediately head for cover but there wasn't too much around that even looked open. We went back to a store called Beer and Ice. It had a large area where we could park our bikes. We decided to get a snack, wait 20 minutes and see what happened with the weather. I gave our SAG driver who was about 15 miles ahead of us, a heads-up as to where we were and that the five of us were safe and accounted for. In what seemed like a few minutes it started to thunder and rain and the clerk at the store said there was a tornado watch. Well, that changed all our attitudes about possibly riding again, so we waited a while for the storm to do its thing, which was mostly heavy rain and gustier winds. The metal airport sign across the street looked like it was about to be bent in half and blow away.

After an hour or so, the van came back for us and for two other gals that sought refuge at a house about 10 miles further down the road. As we were driving the last 30 miles to get to our hotel in Lafayette, LA with the wind and periods of rain, I knew we had made the right decision to ditch!
Due to the tornado watch that is on until 9 pm. , we are eating at a Chinese Buffet, down the street, which is the only place open around here on an Easter Sunday.

Have a great week!
Love,
Robin