Moto Giro degli Stati Uniti: Big Bridge, Big Meal

Saturday August 15

Low miles today, we will sightsee in town and also cross Lake Ponchartain on it's 24 mile long bridge, the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway. But wait, we can't leave yet. There has been an accident on the freeway and all of the traffic is being routed off in front of our motel. It looks like we will be in the traffic jam on the surface streets. But we get ready to go anyway and just as we leave they reopen the on ramp and we are the first ones back on the freeway. It turns out that there were 2 different accidents. We go over the bridge which is very impressive, it should be as it is the second longest in the world being beat out by one in Thailand. On the other side we are in Mandeville, LA and we pause at a boat launching area/park where we can view the lake. Then we have a coffee and go back over the bridge again as it is about 75-100 miles to get back without using the bridge. Now we can sightsee a little bit in the daylight with less noise but not much less people. It is much easier to see the fancy wrought iron balconies that New Orleans is noted for. After a walking tour we return to the motel for a rest. Then we return for dinner and just for fun we follow the new, strange directions that Clint's GPS has given us. We won't do that again!! Into a different area of town we search for parking places. Clint finds one that is questionable but decides to take it. We continue on a block and see a lady trying to get people into her restaurant. The restaurant appears to be what we are looking for so I motion her over and ask her about parking. She points me to a space that looks really illegal but I will be able to get to the bike quickly should there be a problem. Thankfully there wasn't. So we ate dinner there and listened to the live jazz band. Linda had alligator, we shared gumbo and also my red fish. It was quite good but too much for us to finish. Afterwards it was coffee and then we returned back to the motel full of New Orleans food and music.