St. Francisville-One Fourth of the Way!

After a restful night’s sleep, we awoke to the wafting aroma of fried pork chops- Carolyn was up early making us a delicious lumberjack worthy breakfast of pork chops, eggs and homemade buttermilk biscuits with homemade crabapple jelly. We were soon on the road with full bellies, full hearts, Ricky’s stuffed pork loin for lunch, and a jar of the delicious crabapple jelly.

Ricky and Carolyn suggested we take a more direct route to Clinton, which we decided to take, as we knew it was going to be blazing hot. We got to Clinton in good time, so we stopped to check out the courthouse.

Clinton was named after New York governor DeWitt Clinton, who was responsible for building the Erie Canal. The courthouse was impressive, and has appeared in many movies, such as Sounder, The Long Hot Summer, and The Free State of Jones.  The town also saw lots of Civil War activity.

We were soon back on the road, where by now it is already in the 90’s, although it is still mid morning.  Riding along, Bruce got his second flat.  It took a bit to get the tire off, but he soon had it fixed and we were back on the road. He was covered in dirt from the dirt side road we had to use to change the tire.By now it is in the mid 90’s. It ended up being the hottest day yet....97 with over 80% humidity!

Just a short digression on the arduous nature of our type of bicycle traveling. Most bicycle racers and tourers would be surprised that it takes us all day long and sometimes into the night to go 70-80 miles. However, the typical racing bike weighs 15-18 pounds. Ours are steel and weigh 34-36 pounds. They have to be Clydesdales to carry 60 pounds of panniers and water each. So we are lugging 90+ pounds of weight! In addition our chains are often gritty and dirty and our tires under inflated since we have had so little time to do maintenance. We are lucky to go 10-12 miles an hour.....on flat ground! We go 5-8 mph on the big hills. And in some stretches the hills come in dozens and some are over a mile long. It is like being in a gym spinning class with the bike set to maximum resistance with a hair dryer in your face. When the temp gets to mid 90’s it is almost scarily suffocating and your breath comes in gasps and pants.

The remainder of the ride to St. Francisville was hilly, hot and heavily trafficked. We stopped a little way outside St. Francisville and ate the pork loin- it was delicious! 

St. Francisville sits on a ridge on the Mississippi River. It’s called the town that is two miles long and two yards wide. After checking in to the St. Francisville Inn- and getting our first resupply shipment (thanks Jenny!), we had a snack at the Magnolia Cafe and walked through the historic town, enjoying all the beautiful  early 18th century homes. It was so hot on our two mile walk around the town we got in the pool for the second time since we arrived.

Total Cycling mileage: 49

Total hiking mileage: 5