Baton Rouge

I rode into town this morning and got to church well before the 9:30 service, so I rode to the nearby bike shop to see when it would be open. Come to find out it's closed Sundays, so I just went back to church.  I introduced myself during the first service and then settled in to socialize during a pancake breakfast fundraiser for the youth, who recently attended the Houston Rally.

I met a lot of interesting people during the breakfast, and eventually I was introduced to a couple who had done some bike touring of their own.  Richard and Holley biked around Italy and Cuba recently, and have traveled all over the world.  Their son Webb is a 1998 Carleton College graduate with a couple post-grad degrees, currently living with his folks between jobs.  They invited me to stay the night at their house, which is very large on an even larger lot.

Richard is a professor emeritus of physics at LSU, about a half mile from their home.  Holley is a family doctor working for a nonprofit clinic that is suffering from "founder's syndrome," so she's been reading up on the phenomenon.

I spent the afternoon researching my route through New Orleans and Mississippi, while Richard and Webb watched football on TV and Holley rehearsed her role as lawnmower-pushing chicken for a local Mardi Gras parade.