Louisiana

I passed through Louisiana in September of 2011 and was fortunate enough to have time to squeeze in a century. I planned a route near the Kisatchie National Forest, which is in the central western portion of the state. I based my route around the 17-mile Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway, a nice stretch of rolling road with little traffic.

An overview of the starting point.

My campground for the night: Dogwood Campground.

Dogwood Campground is right next to the Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway, so my plan was to begin from there and complete a loop that took me through Natchitoches.

The actual route.

Longleaf Trail Scenic Byway

Longleaf Trail is a nice, smooth section of road with a few rolling hills and plenty of forest scenery. The only traffic I saw for the entire 17 miles was Forest Service employees. After leaving the ease of the Scenic Byway, things began to go wrong. The very first back road on my route ended up being a terrible stretch of pavement that eventually turned into a dirt road. A little bit of dirt riding is no big deal, but it turned out to be an omen.

This is what you get when you don't know the area and you just plot out a Google Map that looks like a good idea at the time.

I encountered my first chasing dog of the day while I was riding on the dirt road. I haven't been chased by a dog since I moved to Nevada, so it was an interesting experience that reminded me of my days living in the Midwest. I can't say that chasing dogs ever bothered me when I was used to them (most of them just wanted to play and weren't aggressive), but I can't say that I've missed them, either. For the day I just considered it a taste of the local lifestyle and I gave them all a run for their money.

After the dirt road, my route sent me mostly on the main roads. Unfortunately, I either had bad directions or made a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end by a river with no bridge to cross. I was too short on miles to just turn around and I wanted to see more sights anyway instead of backtracking all day, so I had to improvise from there. Things turned out pretty well and even though I was riding mostly on highways I found that I either had a shoulder when I needed it or there wasn't much traffic to deal with.

All in all the ride was fun and the weather was great (sunny with highs in the upper 80s). Here is a small taste of what I saw along the way.