1999-11-13 I'm camped in just a hideous spot and not enjoying it. Today I traveled from Patterson, Louisiana up 90 to New Iberia, where I hung a left on 14 and followed it to Delcambre. From there I took 330 to Abbeville. This was definitely the long way to Abbeville. However, my map shows 330 as ending way south of Abbeville. I'm not sure if it is the map or the roads, but one of them is starting to bug me. From Abbeville I went south on 82 all the way past Forked Island. Now if you can find where 82 crosses the Old Intercoastal Canal, that's where I am. At a boat landing. A much used boat landing. Full of raccoons and armadillos and big mosquitoes. I tried to find a real campsite, but everything down this way is fenced off and all the gates have padlocks. It is rediculous. Most of the land is cow pasture anyway. Much of the land I biked through today looked like Illinois, only more flat. Of course you would need to replace the sugar cane fields with corn fields, but they look kind of the same, anyway. I also got to meet somebody who might be famous: Frank Peter Soprano who is running for Parish Councel at Large, District 10. That could be an important position. Maybe someday he will run for Parish President and I can say I met him outside a store. By the way, Louisiana is divided into parishes instead of counties. So far I'm having a real hard time convincing myself that I like this state. As far as my knee goes, it goes pretty good. Taking Browns advice, I took several Advil during the day and made a sling for my knee cap by hooking a small bungie cord to my shorts. I biked almost the entire day with very little pain. Of course I didn't remove the cord when I got off my bike, so I probably looked pretty stupid walking into stores and such. I haven't iced it any, though. P.S. Morning after. A dense fog settled in over night, which was good because it made my tent harder for people to see. But everything is soggy, and even by 8:30 visibility is only 50 to 100 yards.

West Louisiana