I slept in this morning, secure in my concealment from view, but when I emerged well after dawn to dig a cathole, I found that although I'd been concealed from headlights, drivers in daylight could see me just fine! Fortunately if anyone called the state troopers, they had better things to do than check up on me.

I strained my back wrestling the bike out of the ditch, and it hurt all day along with my knees. I followed Route 66 all day, passing through Davenport where I had a penpal once, but I couldn't remember his name! Got into Arcadia Lake later than I'd hoped but well before dusk.

Made corned beef hash for dinner and never will again -- it cooked just fine, but it left horrible grease all over the dishes!

41.2 mi

This morning dawned dry, but with a front moving in with astonishing speed. I packed up my gear -- all dry -- and waterproofed it. Rain started sprinkling as I was leaving the park.

I rode past Enterprise Square, the Kirkpatrick Center, the Legion of Doom, and several familiar parks on my way to Janmother & Ralfather's place, which looks exactly the same. Shepherd Mall is booming now that it's no longer a mall -- it houses a high school and lots of offices. The rain finally stopped as I reached the Oklahoma City National Memorial, so I left the bike uncovered.

The museum was very well done, very emotionally intense, but I got sensory overload from the babble of recorded voices and had trouble paying attention to anything. My bike stayed dry while I was inside, but as soon as I started riding again another cloud burst over the city!

I rode south in a downpour until I found a cheap motel and the tornado sirens blew. The place was named the Swank Motel. It turned out to be a bad misspelling of "squalid," but it provided a dry, well-lit place to repack my bearings again (after the rain), and the Mexican restaurant next door was excellent!

23.8 mi

I woke in the motel this morning and had trouble getting going, between the wet and cold outside, the horrible stale smoke inside, and a new pain in my left knee.  I put on a new knee bandage I had bought yesterday at the phone nurse's recommendation, but it just bunched up immediately and became more painful than the pain it was supposed to treat!

I decided I would ride as far as Norman and then seek urgent care there, reasoning that a football town would be familiar with sports injuries.  But by the time I had stopped at a bike shop in Norman for parts, my knees were feeling better, as was my overall outlook.  I agonized over whether or not to go to urgent care and finally decided to stop by on my way out of town.  Surprise: the address I got from Blue Cross was a hole in the ground!

Fortunately I was feeling so much better that I laughed it off and went on down the road (US 77).  In Purcell I was tempted to stay in a motel, because the day had gotten quite chilly and the night promised to be below freezing, but the motels were expensive, so I kept going.  In Wayne I asked at a few houses, but the people suggested I try the town park, and I was unable to reach the police to ask if it was OK.  I wound up in a fallow corner of a field of winter wheat south of town.  Between the wind and the cold it promises to be quite a night!  At least it's not raining.

41.0 mi

Today was supposed to be a short ride, but knee pain necessitated a lot of stops, and the only campground with showers turned out to be a lot farther south than I had anticipated!

In Paoli, I stopped for coffee and wound up talking with the cafe owner about the trail riding (cattle driving) he did in the '70s.  He gave me my coffee for free, but I tipped generously.

US 77 turned out to be a great ride, since it parallels the interstate, but I didn't dare stay on it south of Davis because it heads right into the Arbuckle Mountains, and my map shows some hairpin turns near Turner Falls!  So I turned east at Davis and rode into Sulphur.

Sulphur is just like I remember it, only there's more to the town than I realized.  The Chickasaw National Recreation Area comes right into town, and there are campgrounds in town, but they don't have showers.  So I went south to the Buckhorn part of the park and followed a deserted, very hilly stretch of road to the campground.  The showers turned out to be solar heated, which I was all in favor of until I got naked and had to wait almost 5 minutes for warm water!  It all turned out OK, though.

40.5 mi

I started out today very discouraged.  My knees hurt more than ever, and the first few miles getting out of the park were all hills.  I got off and walked, but even walking hurt.  I didn't see how I could make it to Texas -- I'd have to change all my plans, etc. etc.  I thought about calling Mom & Dad, but I decided they had enough to worry about with 'Becca's baby shower, so I put off calling until evening.

But by noon the pain had stopped!  Or at least reduced to a tolerable level.  I rode on without incident all the way to Lake Texoma, and across to the Texas side.  I noticed that mosquitos and grasshoppers are still alive at Texoma, though they were killed by frost at Lake of the Arbuckles.

55.4 mi

The plan today seemed simple enough: ride from Texoma to Wiley, set up camp in a park there, and have dinner with Sara (Ballard) Moore and her family.  Two problems: my knees hurt more than ever, and the Texas maps are a smaller scale than I'm used to.  This is not to mention the rain, which was just a bother.

Around 3:00 I called Sara to say that I wouldn't be making it to Wiley, but I thought I could get a hotel in McKinney by dinnertime.  We made plans to meet there.  But by 4:00 it was clear I wouldn't be in McKinney until about 8!  Her three-year-old son is on a tight schedule, so we had to cancel.

It's a good thing, too, because shortly thereafter I discovered a flat tire on the trailer... don't know how long it had been flat.  The sun set right about then, so I fixed the flat by the side of the road in the dark, and not a single car stopped to ask if I needed help.  I was pretty ticked.

The good news is, I did get to McKinney before 8, and I got a very nice room with a hot bath and ice packs and a pizza and a bottle of wine and a silly movie, and I had a nice little pity party for my knees.

60.0 mi