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Day 23: April 27 (Fri) | Baton Rouge, LA| 26 miles today
/ 535 miles total
"In, out, in,
out, no good!"
We head south to Plaquemine and the ferry. The traffic
is light and much is the  route
is shaded because the trees are so close to the road --
nice! After about 12 miles we stop at a convenience store
and ask how late the Plaquemine ferry runs, because we're
not sure we'll make it in time. They ask why we don't
just take US-10, since it's closer, and we explain that
we were told that there's no room for us to walk our
bikes over that bridge. They tell us that they've seen
cyclists walk their bikes over the bridge, and seem to
think it's no problem. It'll save us 15 miles or more,
and Lara wants to have a go at it, so we set out
again.
The biking is a bit difficult for me for some reason,
but we eventually make it to the bridge. It's definitely
large and scary. The shoulder is tiny, just barely
bikeable, so we start up the bridge. For some reason I
can't keep up with Lara, and she's way ahead of me,
though I'm struggling to catch up. Even though I'm
carrying almost all the gear, I've let Lara set the pace
since I can always go faster. But not now. About 0.2
miles up the bridge, another lane merges from the left,
so we're in a triangle between two lanes. The problem is,
if we continue, suddenly there's only a 12" shoulder and
and 18" ledge next to it. We could try to walk on the
ledge and push our bikes in the shoulder, but it looks
very dangerous. Unfortunately, there's no easy way back
down, so we're kind of stuck. In the meantime, we can
feel the bridge buclking under our feet, and the noise
from the truck traffic is deafening. I have a hard time
making a decision, so I ask Lara what she wants to do. I
mention that we could try to go back down, and then hitch
a ride with a trucker again. Lara thinks we should press
on. I have the idea of going down and calling a van taxi,
and have it take each of us over one at a time, but
before I can suggest it, Lara is off. I follow, but even
walking the bikes, I can't keep up with her. One of the
bags falls off my bike and I get even further behind
while putting it back on the bike. It's very scary with
trucks passing me closely, and I'm very frustrated that
Lara's not waiting for me during this difficult time; I
feel abandoned. When I get to the point that the bridge
is going downhill instead of uphill, I get on the bike
and start riding. I'm trying to go fast to get off the
bridge quickly and to catch up to Lara, but every several
meters there are big ruts in the expansion joints, and I
have visions of hitting one and crashing and falling into
the path of a truck. On the off-ramp, I get to a fork,
but I can't see Lara and can't tell which way she went.
Then I see her, all the way at the bottom of the curve. I
ride down to meet her, and express my disappointment that
she abandoned me. We park our bikes on the grass and I
just lose it and get really emotional, because I just
survived a near-death experience, and because I have
abandonment issues, I guess. Lara held me and consoled me
and I calmed down.
 We'd
made reservations for a week at the Ramada, but didn't
know where it was. Sitting there on the grass, I looked
up, and there it was, just a block ahead! What a
coincidence. We rode over and checked in. The room has a
fridge, microwave, and coffeemaker, which is good because
we'll be here for a week.
The AC filter is filthy, as usual, so I wash it out.
I've been cleaning neglected AC filters in motels across
the country this whole trip.
I checked my bike and found out why I couldn't keep
up with Lara on the bridge -- my brakes had been
rubbing! In fact, the whole day of riding was kind of
hard for me. I thought I was just tired. D'oh!
 It
turns out that we can see that god-damn bridge that we
nearly died on from our room! How crazy is that?
After settling in at the hotel, we hit the casino,
where I promptly lose $150 at blackjack and Lara loses
$12. I'm not worried, I know that I have the advantage in
the long-run, and short-term losses are to be expected.
They give each of us $6.00 vouchers for the snack bar,
which we save for later.
We play some more, with some highly superstituous
Vietnamese. Twice when I was reaching for the cut card
that the dealer had placed in front of me, one of the
women reached out and grabbed the card before I could get
to it so she could cut! Also, when the count got really
bad I would sit out and not play those hands, and then
jump in and start betting again when the count was good.
The woman thought this was bad luck for the rest of the
table, and exclaimed, "In, out, in, out, no good!"
Day 24: Apr 28 (Sat) | Baton Rouge, LA| Biking is over at
535 miles total
On Saturday we walk around downtown looking for
signs of life, but find almost nothing. Half of the
buildings are empty, and those that aren't are closed.
We're suddenly hungry and can't find anything open, so we
go back to the casino with our vouchers. The only thing
vegan at the snack bar is lettuce & tomato sub
sandwiches on white bread, but it's food so it will do.
They're only $2.00 each, so we get three of them. Lara
goes back to the hotel, and I stay at the casino to play
blackjack. While I'm playing, a blue-collar, totally
drunk man next to me is losing lots of money with really
stupid plays, like hitting an 18 against a dealer 3. I
try to suggest that he shouldn't be playing when he's had
a lot to drink, but he and his girlfriend take offense at
that. The dealer admonishes me that it's the man's money,
and he can play any way he wants to. I just can't stand
to see this guy getting $20 bill after $20 bill out of
his wallet and losing it, when it's pretty obvious that
he can't afford to be losing that kind of money. So I get
up, even though it means losing the count, so I can talk
to the pit boss and ask him to limit the guy's play.
Turns out the man leaves at that point anyway.
I'm neither winning nor losing. After a while, though,
suddenly I start to feel very bad. I can't tell whether
it's physical or mental, or both, I just know that I feel
bad. It's probably a combination of several things -- not
enough sleep the previous night, the awful food from the
diner, my feeling bad about too my intensely trying to
help Lara with something she was working on and making
her uncomfortable, and the disturbing incident with the
drunk man losing his money at the blackjack table. It was
probably a synergistic effect of all those things, but
the way it manifested itself was that for some reason, I
felt that something wasn't right with Lara, and I was
worried about her. Maybe it was because we've been nearly
inseparable for the last three and a half weeks while
we're traveling together, but anyway, I hurriedly left
the casino and raced back to the hotel. Turns out Lara
was fine, and she was just going out. I stayed at the
hotel and took a nap to try to clear my head.
Lara got back late, and said she had run into some
local artists and musicians who live in a big studio
building downtown. She said one of them (Travis) knows
me, and was on my radio show back in Austin. Is that
crazy or what?
Day 25: Apr 29 (Sun) | Baton Rouge, LA| Biking is over at
535 miles total
"We feel like
wusses, and young wusses at that."
"It was a safe bet getting
that stuff, because if it didn't work, I could have eaten
it."
Travis is at our door as soon as we get up, excited
that there are other vegan bicyclists he can give a tour
to, since there are many others in Baton Rouge. First we
go to the natural foods store, which is very expensive,
but we get the 10% biking-across-the-country discount. We
also swing by the Louisiana State University campus,
where I get to play the piano in a practice room in the
music building. We also hit a Lebanese food place where
we get falafel sandwiches. Some of Travis' friends come
in and we chat for a while. Lara mentions that she's glad
to have met some other young people who have done
cross-country rides (like Travis and some of his
friends), because previously all the cross-country bikers
we ran into were over 50, and they were putting in lots
more miles than we were, so "We feel like wusses, and
young wusses at that."
Lara gets some natural depilatory (sp?) stuff which
they sold at the falafel place for some reason, even
though she's usual adamant about not using that stuff.
(Funny, we saw Adam Ant on VH1 in the hotel, too.) The
stuff happens to be edible, to which Lara later remarks,
"It was a safe bet getting that stuff, because if it
didn't work, I could have eaten it."
I'm looking forward to watching King of the Hill, but
it's not on this week! We watch the X-Files, but it's
vaguely unsatisfying. We drop by the kids' studio
downtown and play some music and some frisbee. Then we
hit the casino, and I win $52 vs. Lara's $120. It's kind
of funny that Lara's consistently doing better than I am,
considering that I'm counting cards and she's just
flat-betting.
Day 26: Apr 30 (Mon) | Baton Rouge, LA| Biking is over at
535 miles total
"Have you
looked at my rack lately?"
 Checking
my email, I find out that there's a room available at the
Royal Co-op where my belongings are stored. I put a check
in an envelope to hold the room for me until I get back.
At least I won't be homeless the minute I get back to
Austin.
I go out and run errands. I mail the check for the
room, then I get a bike lock and the bike shop, and
confirm that they're willing to box my bike and ship it
back to Austin. Then I get pens for me, and a pen refill
and postcards for Lara. Finally I pick up fruits and
vegetables at the produce stand.
There are only two casinos in Baton Rouge, the Argosy,
which is near our hotel, and the Casino Rouge, which is
2.5 miles away. Now that I have a bike lock, I'll go to
the Rouge tonight. Lara's staying home. First I stop in
at the studio and hang out with Noel and Emily. Then onto
the Rouge. They refuse to valet park my bicycle, even
though I'm clearly holding my tip money with my key.
Bastards. I park it myself.
The Rouge is much classier than the Argosy, and I feel
a little under-dressed. There's one other player at my
blackjack table, a young slender black woman. Each of us
gets a blackjack on our very first hand. Then we each
proceed to lose every single hand for 15 hands in a row
or so, it seems. The other player banters playfully with
the dealer (Debra) when she's losing. ("Just take all my
money now, Debra, why should I even bother to bet it?!")
I mutter about how much money I've lost, but Debra's
confident that I'll win it back, pointing out how low her
(the casino's) stack of chips is tonight, saying, "Have
you looked at my rack lately?" I stifle the obvious
reply.
There are three Chinese players at the blackjack
table, and one of them yells what sounds like "Toody!"
everytime he takes a hit. So one of the black players
copies him and starts yelling "Toody!" when taking
hits.
I win $100, and then get up to take a break. I'll play
slots a little for a diversion, but just a little,
because the odds are so bad. I try a $0.25 machine, and
win $7.00 on my first spin. I immediately cash out and go
to a $1 machine, and win $75 on my third spin. I blow $13
of that on another machine before bailing and returning
to blackjack.
The Argosy had only 6-deck blackjack, but the Rouge
has a 2-deck game, which has much better odds. But it's a
$25 minimum bet, instead of the usual $5. Well, if I'm
going to be a pro card-counter, I need to get used to
betting big, so I decide to try it. The danger is that I
haven't brought enough money with me to weather a typical
losing streak, so I could get wiped out. I try it anyway.
There are no other players at the $25 table, so it's very
easy to count. Soon I'm up $75, and decide to quit while
I'm ahead. I wander around the tables, but I really
haven't had my fill of blackjack, so I sit down at the
$25 table again, but this time with a different dealer,
since there's been a shift change. I tell myself that
I'll leave once I'm up $100. I get up $100 pretty quick,
so then I tell myself that I'll leave at the end of the
deck instead of quitting in the middle. Of course, by the
end of the deck I'm no longer up $100, so I have to keep
playing for a while to get back up to $100, at which
point I promptly quit. I walk away from the casino up
around $320.
On the way back to the hotel, I stop in at the studio
and blabber a lot because I'm pumped up from my big win.
A couple of the people are eager to try my bike and they
do so. I go back to the hotel and Lara's already in
bed.
Day 27: May 1 (Tue) | Baton Rouge, LA| Biking is over at
535 miles total
"I'm still
trying to fit your silly thing into my silly thing."
As Lara and I are leaving the hotel today, a
maintenance guy is throwing a broken toilet seat into the
dumpster. I mention that he should take it downtown and
sell it. He says, "Who'd wanna buy this. Do YOU want to
buy it?" I say, "Sure, I'll give you a dollar for it." At
this point it's kind of silly, because it's already in
the dumpster, and I could have gotten it for free,
besides the fact that I have no use for a broken toilet
seat, but it just seemed like fun. So I give him the
dollar and after promising me it's clean, he loads it
into my bike basket. I ask Lara to put my wallet inside
hers, and she tells me to wait a moment because, "I'm
still trying to fit your silly thing into my silly
thing."
Then Lara and I ride down to the thrift shop. And they
have a nice spinet piano! I play for about 45 minutes
while Lara pokes around, and the customers and employees
are impressed for some reason -- haven't they heard
anyone play a piano before? I mean, New Orleans, home of
piano jazz, is right down the street.... We get an extra
pair of socks for me, a big bowl to cook with, and a
coffee mug. They give me a big discount since I
entertained everybody, but I give them a little extra
anyway since the store is for charity (proceeds from the
store go to help homeless women, mostly ex-cons, get back
on their feet). Since part of the toilet seat is usable
(the lid is fine, just the seat is busted), we leave it
at the donation area.
Back at the hotel, I show Lara a funny passage from my
blackjack book about how every year in Vegas a group of
card-counters has some fun by trying to see how quickly
they can get barred for counting cards. They just talk
about it openly, count out loud, make ridiculously large
bets when the count goes up, etc. Lara thinks it's funny
so we agree that we should try that at the Argosy, since
we're only going to be here a few more days anyway, and
since I prefer to play at the Rouge anyway since their
2-deck game has better odds.
 We
stop at the studio first to say hi, and Lara takes some
photos of some of the art that the kids are doing. It's
really spectacular with the black light.
We get to the casino and start playing, and Lara has a
hand that she should surrender (16 vs. 10), but I never
taught her surrender strategy, because I'd never been in
a casino that offers surrender. I tell Lara to surrender
as she checks her little play card that  we
got at the Grand Casino in Kinder, and the dealer says,
"It's not on your card. No card has surrender listed."
Usually I'd keep my mouth shut since I try to keep a low
profile so I don't get barred, but I was trying to get
barred tonight, I freely offered that I'd seen cards and
books that had surrender listed. (I should have gone
further and said that I'd made such cards, which
is actually true.) He asked what books, and without
missing a beat, I started rattling them off,
"Professional Blackjack by Stanford Wong, Million Dollar
Blackjack by Ken Uston, Knockout Blackjack by Olaf
Vancura...." He just stared at me.
In previous sessions I'd whispered information about
the count to Lara (one time poking myself in the eye with
one of her hair spikes as I leaned too close to her ear),
but now we talked openly. After every hand I'd announce
what the count was. We weren't loud or drawing that much
attention to ourselves, but pretty soon into it, Lara
wasn't interested in us getting barred any more, which
kind of bummed me out. I thought of returning the next
day and trying to get barred, but it's no fun unless you
have someone to share it with. In any event, I figured
that if we weren't going to get barred by making a big
show of card-counting, I might as well just make the
really big bets when the count is good, so I'd win either
way: If they barred us for a big bet spread then I would
have succeeded in getting barred, and if they didn't bar
us, then I probably would have won some money with the
big bets. The $5 tables were full or had smokers, so we
played mostly at the $10 table, with me betting $100 when
the count was good. That should have drawn some attention
to us, because when you bet $100 the dealer has to yell
over to the pit boss "Black action!", because the $100
chips are black, not because Shaft is playing. I lost
$500 almost immediately, then bounced back and left the
table up $400. Lara was up $112. I still wanted to get
barred, though. Darn.
Day 28: May 2 (Wed) | Baton Rouge, LA| Biking is over at
535 miles total
I bought our plane tickets using my special
knowledge of how to get cheap airfare. Even though I
bought the tickets just a few days in advance, I got Lara
$152 from here to Florida, and the same price for me from
here to Austin. Whoo-hoo!
I slept ten hours, not getting up until 2pm. Probably
it was because I'm sad that the trip is going to be over
in a few days, and when I'm sad, I sleep a lot. I spent
the day cleaning the room and updating the journal. Lara
went running.
Day 29-31: May 3-5 (Thu-Sat) | Baton Rouge, LA| Biking is
over at 535 miles total
I'm writing this particular entry a couple of
months after the fact, so I don't remember many
specifics. I'd won about $800 in blackjack on the trip
and Lara had won about $300, using my money. I gave her
the $300, which she insisted I didn't have to do, but I'd
have felt stupid and greedy had I kept it. Besides, I'd
won $800 myself. Except that on the final night I went
back to the Rouge and lost $2500 in one session! I didn't
make any big stupid bets, the cards were just
consistently bad for hours. Oh well, considering what I
won in Vegas earlier this year, I've about broken even on
blackjack, so I can't complain.
I took my bike to a bike shop to have them box it and
ship it back to Austin. As for the bike I'd bought for
Lara for the trip, Travis at the studio said he'd buy it
or sell it, and send me the money in a couple of weeks.
(Well, naturally I couple of months later I hadn't
heard from him, and when I called he said that he decided
he doesn't want to buy it, and can't find a buyer for it.
So now I have to try to sell it remotely from here in
Austin.)
Lara left before I did, taking a cab to the airport on
Friday from the studio. (The Baton Rouge bus system is
unbelievably bad -- you can't even take a bus to the
airport.) I was really sad to see her go, but she has to
continue her journey elsewhere. I stayed behind, went to
the Rouge and lost the $2500 as mentioned earlier, caught
a few hours of sleep at the studio, then took a cab to
the airport on Saturday morning.
THE END
Post-Trip
- Since I've been back in Austin I've been getting
settled and doing some volunteer work for the co-op
system that owns the co-op house I live in. Lara has been
in Spain and England, and last I heard was working as a
bicycle rickshaw driver in London. (She says I corrupted
her about doing daring things on bikes now.) She said I
could post her updates here, so Lara's
sequel is on the next page.
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