November 18

Left Franklinton at seven thirty and got to Easleyville at eleven thirty, about thirty-five miles. Stopped because there is a campground here, and a store, and there is no place on the map, the Adventure Cycling map, for shelter for another fifty miles, which I could not do on flat ground with a tail wind before dark. I need the security of knowing that a campground or a motel are at the end of my day. If I see someplace where I could safely camp for free before I get there, so much the better.

I need to get out more. I'm stuck on my bicycle seven or eight hors a day, and when I do take time off from riding, I type. I've got most of the journal transcribed, and I going to try to make the new entries directly on the laptop. The morning I spent walking around Wilmington was a relief. I am still concerned about the weather though. It has been just at the freezing point these last two days, and as I need to get to Austin, which is higher and further north and twelve days away, to get new tires for the bike, before I head south again, I can expect colder weather. Riding in cool weather is fine, but I hate having to force myself out of my warm bed to put on cold clothes and shiver.

Louisiana does the best job I've seen in road signage. The roads might not have adequate shoulders, and they might need repair, but it would be hard to get lost. There are a few patches of wilderness along these back roads, but precious few. I get depressed riding through ten and fifteen mile stretches of clearcutting. And most of the "woods" that is standing has been planted. Neat rows of pine trees all the same age, no stand more than twenty years old. We can do better than this. We must do better than this. I try not to preach, but I would say to these loggers, and paper mill owners, and contractors, That while we will always need lumber and paper, we could get by with less than a tenth of what we now use if we built with stone and adobe, and banished paper towels and unnecessary packaging and newspaper and magazine advertizing.

A great deal of my malaise is caused by seeing so much that I see is killing this beautiful planet, and I imagine that those witnessing this crime are smug in the comfort they are provided by it.