Well the trip from Hattiesburg to Venice was uneventful yesterday. As a matter of fact the weather was wonderful and we arrived in Venice early enough that we could enjoy the day. We walked for a couple of miles until some of the others arrived and then went for a short ride to the southernmost point in LA. We began our ride in Venice this morning and Barb and I rode 40 miles. Clara did the full 70. Today was our flat tire day. I had one. Jim had two, Brian had two, Gary had two. The weather has been very cooperative in that we had a tail wind and it has been sunny but not too hot today. Temperature was about 80. Great riding weather. The highlight of our trip was taking the ferry across the Mississippi. Tomorrow we will be going into New Orleans and also on Sunday. I look forward to seeing the churches we passed on the way to Venice. Last night we went to a seafood resturaunt and had seafood of course. We are camping right now at the St Bernard State Park in Braitwaith.

Ride down to the Big Easy Tuesday 4/26

Today we began our next adventure. We left Detroit about 8 this morning and a short 12 hours later we have stopped for the night. We had some raindrops along the way and some heavy winds early in the day. The rain stopped long enough for us to have a pleasant lunch at the rest area and then on to Nashville. We stopped in Nashville for dinner at the Caney Fork Fish Camp where we sat next to a waterfall and watched the catfish in the pond. We are now in Franklin Tn and resting for the night. Temps are in the 80s. Excited to begin riding in a few days.
Posted by Gabriele at 9:28 PM 0 comments

Today was quite an adventure. We started out this morning from Franklin TN and the sun was shining and it looked like it would be a nice day. This was after an entire night of thunder and lightening. We stopped in Birmingham and visited the Vulcan park which is a park with the statue of the god vulcan. This is a photo of said statue which was first seen at a world fair in the early 1900s. This photo was also taken just before the series of tornadoes came through Birmingham and Tuscaloosa. Before leaving Birmingham we also visited the Civil Rights Institute which gave us an overview of the civil rights movement and the part Birmingham played in that movement. We managed to get out of town before the tornadoes came. Most of the rest of our group were not so luck and they were forced to take refuge north of Birmingham. We thought we had outrun the tornadoes when we came to Mississippi. While at the welcome center in Mississippi we learned that another tornadoe had touched down jut ten miles from us in the Meridian were we were to have dinner. We hung out there until the tornadoe warning expired and made a run for it. We arrived in Hattiesburg about 9PM. With only 4 hours to our destination of Venice Louisianna tomorrow it should be a much easier day. Looking forward to the storms subsiding but I am not convinced that we will be that lucky.
We have been enjoying our little picnics of PB and J and whatever snacks we brought from home. Tonight we just had dinner of McDonalds since we didn't want to be caught by the weather so stayed on the move.