To say our trip home from the Men’s Final Four Tournament of the basketball season of 2024-25 was an adventure would be a severe understatement. We left San Antonio early in the morning knowing that the 14 hour drive was ahead. The rest of the family left about an hour before we did, but we kept in touch with them all the way back home.
The Long Drive Back
We don’t like to rush our road trips, so, even though this was going to be a very long day, we did take the time to stop at rest areas for breaks when we could.
One of the rest areas that we really liked when heading to San Antonio was the Atchafalaya Welcome Center. It is located on I-10 on the west end of a very, very long bridge system that spans the miles between Baton Rouge and Lafayette, Louisiana across the Atchafalaya National Wildlife Refuge.
The facilities are very clean and the parking is plentiful. On this day, we were there with many other Auburn fans who were also heading home to Alabama from the tournament.
Meeting Dom Maerbeci
This time, however, the rest stop turned into something more. When we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed a young man with a bicycle that was loaded with gear and we were intrigued. He did not have the fully loaded bike packing set-up with panniers, handlebar bag and frame bags. But he did not appear to be on a leisurely lunch ride, either.
We watched him for a few minutes and it appeared that he was talking to various travelers, perhaps trying to hitch a ride. Since he was a kindred spirit (he was riding a bike and going somewhere), we decided to have a chat with him to see where he was going and what was up.
He is name was Dom Maerbeci and he told us that he had ridden on I-10 all the way from Los Angeles, California and was trying to bicycle across the country. We were a little perplexed because we had been watching several YouTubers who were in the process of doing the same thing and they all were carrying way more equipment and supplies than Dom was.
He told us that he was in a bad place back in California and one day he just decided to ride his bike across the country. While we found this to be a worthy goal, we were a little saddened by his obvious lack of planning. We did applaud him for his efforts and for making it to Louisiana, though, and we asked how we could help.
If you don’t already know, you can legally ride your bike on the interstate system in certain states, mostly in the southwestern portion of the USA. We asked Dom if he had any trouble with the police and riding on the interstate once he got to Texas and beyond and he said that the ones he saw all waved hello and went about their business. Interesting…
The further you go to the east and to the northeast in the USA on the interstates, the more difficult (and illegal) it is to ride on the shoulder of the road. Obviously, this is for safety reasons.
Dom told us that he was exhausted from trying to traverse all the bridges once he entered into Louisiana that when he got to this extremely long span he decided to ask for help. Unfortunately, the people he approached at the rest area before we arrived were not terribly kind and did not want to assist him. Sad.
Anyway, our bike rack was already loaded with our bikes, but we were happy to strap his bike and gear in the bed of the truck and away we went.
We had a great conversation with Dom over the bridges and dropped him off on the east end back on terra firma. Dom has a TikTok channel and he filmed a little of the trip across the bridge. You can see that footage below.
Dom did make it across the country, although not quite to the Atlantic Ocean before returning to California. We were proud of him and his efforts and we wish him the best in everything he attempts to do in his life. May it be a long and healthy one.
Detour in Baton Rouge
After dropping Dom off at a church parking lot just off an exit on I-10, we continued making our way home. The other crew had made it through Baton Rouge and were about an hour ahead of us at this point. It was then that we started seeing detour warnings on our digital maps (Google and Apple Maps). Both apps were confirming that there was total traffic stopped on the interstate, both ways, all the way through Baton Rouge.
As a result of our delay with Dom, we were now going to have to go completely around and through Baton Rouge. This ended up adding over an hour to our trip, but we were thankful for it. As we progressed along the detour, we worked on gleaning news from various sources about the cause for the detour and it turns out that a car and a truck had an altercation with a car and lost. The driver of the truck was thrown from the vehicle as the truck was going over the railing into the water below. There were no fatalities, but the delays were going to be very long.
We were thankful that we were delayed because we could have been on the bridge when this accident occured. Even though it was not on our side of the road, it would have been very scary to witness for sure.
The remainder of the trip was quiet and uneventful. We enjoyed the empty rest areas and decreased traffic the rest of the way and ended up arriving home around midnight.
