STL2NOLA 13 – Baton Rouge, LA to New Roads, LA – I rode the Scenic Highway and the Audubon Bridge

You would not believe how scenic the road out of Baton Rouge, LA is, running north toward New Roads, LA. It is so scenic that they actually named it Scenic Highway. I am not kidding. The signs actually read SCENIC HWY. Are you excited? Do you want to see how beautiful it was as I turned off of a regular street onto Scenic Highway? Well here you go.

Yes indeed. The next several miles were every bit as scenic as you can now imagine. I rode past a huge ExxonMobile plant, several other industrial sites, a lot of run down (or outright abandoned) buildings, and some sketchy neighborhoods. I think that the highlight of this section of Scenic Highway was this bridge. Be glad that you cannot see the old tires that had been dumped into the water.

Which got me to wondering, was Scenic Highway ever scenic? After you finish reading this blog post, follow that link to learn the highly interesting story behind the name.

Here is my route for the day. (If you were one of the ones to read STL2NOLA 12 – Donaldsonville, LA to Baton Rouge, LA before I added the map, you can jump back there to see it at your leisure.)

Scenic Highway never got scenic during my ride but it did get better, turning into a nicely maintained section of US-61. Twelve miles from the start, I turned onto Old Scenic Highway and then it really did get kind of scenic.

I rode though a bunch of empty Louisiana ruralness and then started noticing some nice houses, some really nice houses. About half-way through my 42 mile ride, I found myself in Zachary, LA which looks to be a pretty nice place to live. I do not know what people do for a living in Zachary but it supports them well.

Zachary also supports a CVS, which I stopped into for some generic Allegra. As soon as I left the hotel for this ride, my nose and eyes started running like faucets. I do not know what evilness was blowing in from the east but it was nasty. I am outside a lot on my bicycle. I am used to my nose running. Look up Exercise-Induced Rhinitis if you want to better understand my constant companion while riding. This was in a whole ‘nuther league. Thankfully the meds worked and in under an hour, I was no longer a draining mess.

Leaving Zachary, I passed the Plains Presbyterian Church. It looked like a very welcoming place to be with God.

What caught my eye, though, was not the building but the very top of the steeple.

Mile 27 brought me to a lunch stop. By this point, I was back on US-61 and the highway was still scenic, even though it is a numbered UH highway. The bridges crossed over better looking water, too.

It is hard to complain about riding a divided highway when it looks this good.

Lunch was chicken fingers and a cornbread biscuit at a little truck stop. Delish. No, Dale, I did not get sweet tea. I am sweet enough without the sugar.

The yellow signs that you see at the top of the photo above are for the turn toward the John James Audubon Bridge over the Mississippi River. Believe it or not, right here in the middle of Louisiana stands the third longest cable-stayed span (distance between towers) in the Americas at 1,583 feet with a 1,706 foot span and a total length of 12,883 feet. This is the only Mississippi River crossing in the 90 miles between Natchez, MS and Baton Rouge, LA.

Before we head for the bridge, I want to take you on a little scenic detour, so to speak. As I am sure you can imagine, I do a lot of planning for these trips. I spend hours obsessing over the best routes and then more hours choosing which of the best routes is The best route. I had confused the Interstate 10 bridge at Baton Rouge with the Louisiana route 10 bridge at New Roads. I think my mapping tool contributed by labeling both similarly.

Here is the Interstate 10 bridge.

Here is the Louisiana route 10 bridge.

This is a big deal because it is illegal to ride a bicycle on an Interstate highway. I had spent a lot of time fussing about how to find a ride for my bicycle and me across the bridge. Clarity started to dawn when I was talking to Ava at the desk of my Baton Rouge hotel. She was sure that there is a ferry across the river at New Roads. When I looked up the ferry, I discovered that it had been closed on May 5, 2011, by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, the same day that the Audubon Bridge opened. As I read more about the new bridge, I finally realized my mistake. Instantly, my route planning became much easier because I would be able to simply ride across the bridge.

The Audubon Bridge has wonderfully wide shoulders in both directions, even signed that bicycles should use the shoulders. I so appreciate when there is some real effort made to provide space for non-motorized traffic. The approach from the east curves quite a bit so I rode for three miles before I finally could see the towers. It was pretty darned cool.

The bridge is 2.5 miles long because it crosses a lot of swamp, in addition to the Mississippi River. The photo above and the one below were taken from the same spot.

I would like to get back to the Audubon Bridge someday when the sky is clear and the light is better. Even with flat light and overcast skies, I like this angle.

Of course, I had to take the canonical bridge picture, too.

In historic downtown New Roads, I found a lovingly restored Esso gas station.

That brought me to the end of a nice short 43 mile day.

You can see a map of my entire St. Louis to New Orleans tour, and all of the blog posts that are part of this series, at St. Louis to New Orleans.