Life is a Highway

So we are here in the state library of Lousiana in Baton Rouge at 1pm. Why are we here you might ask? Well, the roads are so bad here in Louisiana we decided it best for both safety and morale to catch a ride for a few miles. Now you may be saying to yourself it can't be that bad. Well, there is only 3 roads that cross the state down in this region and only 1 is not interstate, so we ended up on US 190. We made it out of Baton Rouge about 6 miles before we had had enough. Not only was there really heavy truck traffic, but the shoulder had rumble strips that went all the way from road to dirt, pretty much unrideable. After nearly getting grazed and knocking through pothole after pothole we decided to call it quits on this road. We head back to BR to evaluate other options. Why do the roads suck so bad in Louisiana? I'm going to drop a little knowledge on you; Back in the 80's the government decided they wanted the drinking age to be 21. If states did not raise there drinking age, they lost a substaintial percentage of their highway money. Guess who the last state to increase from 18 to 21. You guessed it, Louisana. Which is exacerbated by the fact that it gets so hot down here the road buckles frequently.

So now its off to lunch and hopefully meet up with our British friend Badger. We decided to box up the bikes and take the bus across the state line and be done with Louisana and their "parishes" forever. We will check back in from the Lone Star State.

Alive... but barely,
Steve