The Lights Are Much Brighter There

I've been greatly anticipating American Craft Beer Week. Although there are few celebrations here in Baton Rouge, New Orleans has beau coup beer bashes. Tonight, however, perhaps in anticipation of Craft Beer Week, local Microbrewery, Abita, is having a celebration for the unveiling of their Summer Seasonal, Abita Wheat.

Tonight we are going to a Pub Crawl. I say Pub "Crawl", but really it's more like Pub "Cross The Street". You see Baton Rouge downtown is, for lack of a better work, suffocated. It's tiny. The planners, who seem to have had a lack of foresight or planning, have severed the ties that makes a downtown an urban centerpiece. There's the natural barrier of the Mississippi River to the west - which can actually be a boon to downtown tourism a la Chattanooga. To the south is noisy Interstate 10 - not even dive bars want to be near that behemoth. To the east is I-110 which deviates north from I-10, just after the Mississippi River bridge. To the north is our glorious capital building and the lovely Capital Lake but after that is industry, industry, and more industry. These natural and unnatural barriers confine downtown to a dozen rows and half a dozen columns. The businesses and entertainment enterprises must compete for space, and, since very few people actually live downtown, the nightlife is almost nonexistent.

Street Highlights: North Blvd, N 19th St, Laurel St

But tonight something is up - downtown. My wife and I are making a somewhat responsible decision and, rather than drink and drive, we'll drink and pedal. Really Baton Rouge has very little to offer in terms of transportation options.

This time we head north to North Blvd. It's not actually a Boulevard in our neck of the woods, but a median does appear closer to downtown. North Blvd. is the designated bike road running parallel to both Government St. and Florida Blvd, but you wouldn't know if from the way the drivers react. Admittedly, drivers are worse closer to Foster and better closer to downtown, but the road is even and there are two lanes for easy passage.



Until the Overpass.




At some point Baton Rouge planners decided that, on their commute downtown, they don't want the railroad to impede their progress. Brilliant! I Forgot to mention that earlier. Another hindrance to downtown is the railroad. It runs parallel to the Interstate for a time before turning to follow the river. North Blvd is one of the only overpasses, but - get this - it's closed to bikers and pedestrians.




I don't really mind ducking off of North Blvd - hills aren't really my thing - but it is an annoyance to some. I veer off north, right before the overpass onto N. 19th Street. This is a familiar road. When it intersects Government St., it becomes Park Blvd, which becomes Dalrymple, which ends at LSU Campus. What a plan!





We reach our destination. We need to register for the event and, most importantly, sign a waiver with the company putting on the event, Abita, that we will be responsible and not drink and drive, Scouts Honor! We all know that the majority of the people there will drive home somewhat impaired. What other choices do they have? If we drink and bike the worst damage we can do is to ourselves. Before we go crazy we sit down to a meal.


Until.


It turns out while I was packing the trunk on my wife's rack - packing it with essentials like a lock and keys, wallet, etc - I removed her purse. She has no phone, wallet, or ID. If we are to register with the crawl she'll need that purse. I fucked up and left her wallet, so I needed to correct it by speed-biking back. I made it there and back with the speed of a husband racing to make things right. I didn't clock it but I'm convinced I broke the sound barrier.


The Wheat beer was quite refreshing after that ride and my wife and I had a lovely night. We stayed out for a good many hours watching the sunset on the Mississippi. We drank a lot of water and stayed out with friends long enough to straighten up quite a bit. I guess all the sweating and movement kept us sober, so our ride home was easy and uneventful. One thing though. Make sure you have bike lights while riding in the dark. While driving I've had scares on North Blvd with cyclists. Between the over pass and Baton Roue High is very dark. We both have headlights and taillights. It's the right thing to do.



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