Day 14: New Orleans, LA to Morgan City, LA

A bit down the road after leaving New Orleans this morning I thought maybe another day spent there would have been worthwhile. Asking to crash on Scott's living room floor for a further night seemed to be a bit intrusive though.

It was heavy fog as we caught the ferry over the Mississippi and followed the bike path along the levee. After this turned to gravel we joined a road full of heavy goods traffic which would remain the same for the day. The shoulder along the stretch of the 90 west of New Orleans was littered with debris and my first puncture came in a particularly unfriendly stretch. I reached to get an inner tube from my pannier to discover I'd packed two of the wrong size so repairs took place to a blaring soundtrack of lorry.

We managed to divert away from the highway and take an adjacent road with less trucks but the shoulder remained of improvable quality. The industrial theme continued to Morgan City where there was a lot of business dismantling offshore oil platforms and it was a seedy and soulless entry into town. We summed up accommodation options after a call to the sole campsite informed they charged twenty something dollars per tent. Talking to a fireman hoping he'd offer us a spot of grass was informative but fruitless. A bit further along we decided to get a cheap motel as split between us the extra cost was negligible.

It wasn't a nice ride today; the official Adventure Cycling route skips these roads for obvious reasons of pleasantness and safety, but almost all cyclists I've bumped into head down to NOLA. Necessary evils, I suppose.