Day 28 - Rest Day St. Francisville, Louisiana

This rest day cycle is the last with Dad and Phyllis. They are heading North for NASCAR fun in Charlotte. We've grown use to having their support and company, but with a bit of logistics we'll be ready to rock the rest of the ride unsupported. Our chore list for rest day is considerable;

• sleep in


• wash clothes


• clean the love bugs off the RV windshield


• Apply Rain-X to windshield


• go through all our gear and send home everything we can't carry on our bike/backs


• pack all superfluous gear


• find enough boxes to pack gear


• find UPS store in town to ship stuff back to Portland


• ship all gear back to Portland


• blog as much as possible


• shop for supplies


• organize power food to last the remaining ride


• send box with supplies to Quincy, Florida - last rest day


• sight see (canceled due to limited time).


• eat steak (not canceled - always time for food)


• drink margaritas


• relax?

The motel sits on interstate # 61, five miles outside of town. It is a Best Western property, by far the nicest chain of hotels in our price range. They have huge rooms, two beds (one for gear download, other for sleeping/TV vegetative state), super clean, guest laundry, swimming pool and Internet sometimes. The motel manager offered the parking lot to dad and Phyllis. Again there were no RV parks close by. We thought we'd stroll through downtown St. Francisville, sightseeing and window shopping, a warm southern breeze our tour guide. There was no time. We managed to go out for breakfast, a cute place tucked behind a few buildings. We'd have never found it without asking for directions, twice.

A rare northwest red-nosed blog hog

tired blog hog

A newly created rest day tradition is bar-b-que and margaritas. We knew drinking our way across the country was not a great strategy. We imbibed on the nights before rest day, got our buzz on then slept in the next day. Dad mixes a stiff drink, so one or two works fine, plus the steak and carbo bomb baked potato is the best tasting sedative available over the counter.

the big rig has a 48" flat screen that remote controls out of the ceiling. You would think a 43 foot RV of this caliber would also feature a big-as-a-piano slide out gas burner grill maxed out with every available feature. No, the cooking unit is small and humble, but it does the trick. It is a fold out number no bigger than you'd find on the bare patio of a military base enlisted housing apartment. It attaches to the mother ship via a natural gas line like an astronaut tethered to the NASA space station.

Dad understands grilling, and his finished products are of the finest quality. Somewhere the grilling gene scrambled and I'm not drawn to the long arm of the grilling tong. I think the pressure of cooking a steak other than my own is more than I care to deal with. Chris is a grilling fiend, always willing to take the heat. The grill we have at home is her property, her domain. She knows the deal. I am allowed to turn on the tank and preheat.

So we ate, drank, sat and did little else.

More food talk

The next day Phyllis had a lunch craving; RICE. She called around to every grocery in town. When asking about a deli or salad bar with rice, none really knew what she was talking about. Oh what we'd give for a Whole Foods Market.

Plan B:

Add an egg to cold cooked rice, then fry it up like a pancake. We've never had these rice cakes (not like those dry ones that are puffed disks of tasteless wonderment). These cakes knew their place in the deep south. They were greasy and so damn good. Always willing to maintain my hypertensive state, I'd apply a healthy amount of salt and pepper, turning a good thing great with a few shakes.

over and out