April 24, 2008
Hectic day today and it began at 0600. Team member Renee Rhodes drove in from Lafayette last night to spend the day with us. We were scheduled to be in Baton Rouge by 0800 to spend a couple hours at Harley Davidson of Baton Rouge. We got on the road a little late but still in enough time to make the appointment.  We stayed the night on the West Bank of New Orleans and you have to cross over the Crescent City Bridge to get to it. Going north on the bridge you have to pay a toll to cross, and as we were waiting to go through the toll booth, there was a police unit that lit up and began going up the bridge with sirens blaring. When we passed the toll booth we saw that the police unit was stopped about half way up the bridge with its lights flashing. As we approached it looked like they were going to give us an escort over the bridge and that was pretty cool because the state had said it might provide escort for us. Turns out the Crescent City Bridge has its own police jurisdiction and does not answer to the normal state police. Well we got stopped and tried to explain to the officer that we had permission and such but when she asked to see it we couldn't produce it because it was in the Chase Car that got hung up at the toll booth! We explained what we were doing and then she said she wanted us to move over the bridge to a move secure area so we could find the documents. After looking at the document and talking with her supervisor she said we checked out and let us go. She explained the relationship with the state police and the Crescent City Bridge Police and said that they entirely different. Seems we can't possibly cover all scenarios! Count that as stop No. 2 (No. 1 was at the West Jefferson Mall by the Mall Cops. Seems they didn't like the ATVs giving rides to people in the parking lot - but they ended up letting us do it anyway! Now this is FUNNY! Take a close look at the picture above. That's Renee Rhodes and Greg standing with the officers who stopped us...checkout the white rectangle at Renee's waist...can you guess what that is? It's the MANUFACTURER'S TAG! Can you say Minnie Pearl!! HA!
The drive to Baton Rouge was fantastic even though we were about an hour late (Crescent City Bridge Police). We ran into fog which at times limited visibility to about 100 feet. It was also very wet fog. Looking out over the side of the road (which was over swamps and lakes) it seemed like we were traveling over nothing. Once in a while, we'd see Cypress trees that looked like the trees you'd see in a B horror movie…it was quite spectacular! Well the weather cleared and it was a great ride into Baton Rouge.
 We set up shop at Harley Davidson of Baton Rouge and met some really great people. One man, Richard, was a November 2007 heart recipient who was out for a drive on his Harley and decided to stop in at the shop. He came over to us and asked what was going on and was quite surprised at what we were doing! He thanked us for our efforts and signed our shadow box and banner. One worker at the shop, Melissa, lost her mother about 6 years ago and she was a donor. She wrote a dedication to her on our banner. Seems everyone we met had some connection to donation and was already registered. We did sign a few people up that morning before heading off to Lafayette.
At one stop for fuel we noticed one of the quads was making a funny noise so we loaded it up and drove into Lafayette to an Arctic Cat dealer who looked at it and discovered a loose nut. They tightened it up and sent us on our way.
The drive to Lafayette was beautiful again, traveling over lakes and swamps, moss hanging off the trees. It had a Gone with the Wind feel to it! We set up another booth there and talked to people and had them sign the banner and shadow box. We met up with Renee Rhodes mother and son who took us to dinner at Prejeans (I'm told it's not pree-geens) and it was great Cajun food, music and atmosphere!
Well, it's going to be an early start to another busy day tomorrow. We're meeting with some folks outside of Lafayette at 0600 that are going to escort us a portion of the way to Houston. I'm told some state troopers are going to meet us out there along with the coroner. Seems the coroner is a biker and he wants to ride a little ways with us…even if it is at 0600 in the morning! He is also a support of donation and understands the need of those waiting.
Tomorrow in Houston we're going to two hospitals, one with a children's wing. It's going to be very emotional. See all y'all tomorrow...
Starting coordinates: N 29.953900 W90.069480
Ending coordinates: My bad. I'll have these tomorrow. I wanted to make sure this got sent out tonight...
Fuel used: 29.4 gals total
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