Friday, October 22, 2010

October 22: Lake Charles Rest Day


Today we had a solid rest day. After sleeping in, Kathryn made some amazing pancakes, and we sang happy birthday to Clarkson, their now 5 year old son. Happy Birthday Clarkson! Clarkson received a new bike for his birthday. I should have warned Clint and Kathryn a purchase such as this may lead Clarkson to do a similar cross country ride sometime in his life.

Voncil (or Voncile...or Vonseal...or Vonseeel....not sure how it’s spelled), who helped set up Kathryn and Clint as our hosts, came over. She gave us a tour of her church, where we took a second to rock climb. Well, Jacques rock climbed, and I went halfway up, before explaining to Voncil that as I was waking up this morning I stretched my arms above my head only to hit them on the spinning ceiling fan blades. Ouch. It would have been interesting had we come all this way to have to call an end to the trip because of my hands getting cut off in a fan blade. On the other hand (pun intended), we may get more publicity that way. I’ll weigh the pros and cons before following through with it.

Voncil also gave us a ride to the local bike shop where I had my rear wheel trued; this was needed after the bridge incident yesterday. I also noticed that there are hairline fractures in my wheel, something that doesn’t give me happy thoughts. This wheel and I have made it this far together, so I decided to stick with it, hoping that it can hold up the eleven days we have left.

We met Voncil’s husband for lunch at Pat’s of Henderson. Upon ordering, the waitress informed us that the meal was being comped by the restaurant because they believed in our cause. We enjoyed alligator and catfish, real Louisiana food. Thanks for the amazing lunch Pat’s of Henderson!


Later, we got picked up by Margie, our host for tonight. She and her husband John brought us to a chinese restaurant, and her church continued the amazing hospitality by paying for Jacques and my meal. During dinner, the four of us talked about the local landscape of swamps, which roads to take to Lafayette, and gator hunting. Good times. We ended the night with a dip in their hot tub. Thanks John and Margie!

Tomorrow, we head to Lafayette. We’re pretty excited because on the way we are supposed to run into an alligator farm.

1 comment:

Cal said...

I will notify the press that you have "at risk limbs..." Do you think that will do the trick?