Day 20-Fri. Nov. 6, Covington, LA--102 miles

Today was my most dangerous day of riding ever! But praise God, He had his angels guarding me on all sides.
First of all the first hurdle was to get through Baton Rouge. Along the way there were a couple of fairly long bridges to cross, with no shoulder. I looked behind me for a break in traffic and then prayed and crossed as quickly as I could. All went well. This is on US 190. Then I came to the "big bridge" that crosses the Mississippi River into Baton Rouge. I rode up to it, took get a closer look at it, then looked at all the traffic with big trucks crossing, and again there is no shoulder, not even a little sidewalk, and this bridge is at least 5 times as long as any I've crossed yet. So I decided to look for a better way across. I turned around and went south, knowing from looking at the map earlier that the only other bridge in the areas was the interstate. I thought surely that bridge has got to be better and have a shoulder. So I finally got to I-10. I got on the interstate (no signs posted saying no bikes allowed) but couldn't see the bridge yet. Just before the bridge was merging traffic from another big highway. After merging and riding on the narrow shoulder a ways I could now see the Mississippi and this huge long bridge (over a mile long). I could see there was no shoulder here either, but decided to give it a go. I started to ride across the bridge, but soon came upon these drainage grates with wide openings that if I ran over would surely cause front bike tire to disappear in the grate . So I stopped to get off and move over to this raised concrete wall on the side, about 18-24" wide. I picked up my bike and walked on that awhile with cars and trucks (3 lanes) whizzing by me. The traffic was very heavy. I'm sure many drivers were wondering what is this idiot doing trying to cross this river on this bridge with his bicycle. This was by far the most dangerous thing I had experienced yet on my trip. Once I got to the top of this bridge I had a fantastic view of the city and the river. I wanted a picture, so took out my cell phone and snapped a few (poor quality). Then I continued walking down the other side. With about three-fourths of the way across, up behind me I heard this loud siren/horn noise, like a police car, but is was one of those highway emergency vehicles to help stranded motorists. He told me to put my bike in the back of his van and get in. He then took me off the bridge. He was concerned for my safety and wanted to get me off to some place safer. I told him what I was doing and where I was going. I said I needed to get back on US 190. Thinking he was just going to take me to the nearest exit and drop me off, but instead he brought me all the back to 190 where I had left off, except this time on the other side of the river. So I had do ride back down through the city again, this time on the other side of the river. I called Dave and Faith to see where they were and they weren't far away, so we met up soon, and I had them drive me ahead about 10 miles out of the city, since I had been left off about 10 miles back to where I decided to abandon the first bridge attempt.
Now I would spend the next 40 or so miles riding on roads with no shoulder at all. And just to the right of the white line is this soft, loose, deep gravel, that if I went off in would most likely cause me to lose control at the speed I was traveling. One time I almost went off, in fact, I don't know how I didn't, except my angel must have pushed me back on the road. You have to constantly alert to riding that white line as big trucks and cars are passing you from both directions. No time to be looking around. When approaching a town I would finally have a little shoulder I was so thankful and could relax some. But not for long, as they could disappear at any moment, as happened one time and I didn't notice it turned into just loose gravel. I ran into that at about 16 mph and swerved around for awhile in until I could get myself out of it back on to the road. Then another time there was this wide load approaching behind me, which I knew (no I didn't look back) because the pilot truck in front drove by with his wide load sign, and I could see the approaching traffic all moving way over. But I had no where to go. I wasn't going to ride off into that gravel pit. So finally I came upon a small driveway to pull over in and stop. And just as I did so the wide load passed me with about a foot to spare. The truck was carrying a piece of machinery that took up nearly two lanes.
Well I could go on and on about many other incidents of where I had many close calls, like one time getting ready to cross an intersection, I looked behind me to see if any cars were turning, none had their blinkers on, but I am still cautious, after noticing they were all going straight I started to cross, when all of a sudden this car turns right in front of me, she did not have her turn signal on, so assumed she was going straight. I was able to stop just in time before almost colliding into her. Another evidence of God's protection!
It's amazing that I haven't had a flat yet in Louisiana, with all the debris on the shoulders I been running over, riding through several gravel piles at intersection and driveways, and few potholes I've not been able to avoid. God is so good!
After riding only 102 miles we stopped for Sabbath in Covington, LA --just north of New Orleans. Very heavy traffic here. But only have about 30 miles to go to Mississippi, and should cross that section of the state in a day and be in Alabama by the end of Sunday, just outside of Mobile. Then I'll take the ferry from Dauphin Island over to Ft. Morgan.