Our early start from Shreveport was beautiful but chilly. We biked about 5 miles into the sun through Bossier City to get breakfast at Yelp-approved greasy spoon.
We then took a gorgeous backroad to the town (village? hamlet? wide spot in the road?) of Bellevue, then the road to Cotton Valley, which after not too long went from paved, to unpaved, to rock quarry reject. Initially it was nice to be off asphalt, but we were happy when the pavement began again a couple of miles from Cotton Valley, where we took a food break at their new convenience store and restaurant and got to meet the mayor and one of the councilmen.
[Pics are not uploading at the moment. Will add them later]
By the time we started the section from Cotton Valley to Haynesville, things had warmed up considerably. We took a long rest under the porch of the Methodist Church in Dykesville, and it wasn’t until about 5 miles later when I went to wipe my brow that I realized I had left a glove behind.
We ate and took another long break in Haynesville, then started the final section into Arkansas and on to El Dorado. One of the sights Charlie told us to look for was an old man named Albert who walked along the Haynesville road with a big cart, gathering aluminum cans. When we stopped to buy a drink from the coke machine in Three Creeks, we just happened to sit down on the curb with Albert and visited with him for a bit.
When got to the hotel in El Dorado just a little before 8, which gave us time to wash up and get the only Uber driver in town to take us to dinner. He was busy when we were done, so we took the only taxi in town back.
94 miles
Greetings from The Withers Collection Museum & Gallery downtown on Beale Street… We definitely appreciated you guys coming in and visiting our establishment, and wish you happy trails!!
Thanks, Ryan! We really enjoyed viewing the collection.