Almost Done in Oklahoma

Here's my first post about why I'm riding and here's where to donate to Water Life Hope. 

We really enjoyed Tulsa.  We're not moving any time soon but definitely understand why people would live there.

Welcome to Tulsa, or in our case goodbye.

April 22: Sand Springs to Chelsea, 55 miles.

This was a joy of a ride.  We started at Sean and Sherri's in Sand Springs, rolling down the Katy Trail to Tulsa.  We cut through the city streets to get to the Adventure Cycling Association route.  It was long, flat, safe and warm.  There were miles and miles of bicycle lanes, really impressive in a city this size.   At the eastern edge of the city there was a remarkable Tulsa/Route 66 sculpture, something like you'd see in a south Asian roundabout.

We rode all the way to Catoosa without a hitch.  Catoosa is home to an enormous blue metal whale, originally created as an anniversary gift.  A trip to Paris wouldn't do?  It's huge -- must have cost a fortune.

Happy Anniversary.

We stopped again down the road and met a local biker.  He said he'd been working as a "corporate sharecropper" and it nearly killed him.  A year ago he couldn't have walked 100 yards.  Visits with all kinds of doctors didn't find anything wrong but he was definitely on the way down.  Now 57, he's quit the job that was doing him in and rides 50 - 80 miles per day.  He looks great.

The route remained blessedly flat, with tailwinds, all the way to Chelsea.  We checked into one of the six rooms in the Chelsea Motel, took a shower and ate bit of dinner.  The urge for a dessert chased Steve and me to the local grocery store.  We checked out with some unmentionable items and the cashier couldn't pass up the opportunity to chat with people from away.  "What's the plan?" was her lead-in.  We told her about our ride, and she proceeded to tell us about meeting German cyclists.  Riding clothes aren't an everyday thing in Chelsea, so her opening line with them had been, "So guys, what's up with the space suits?"

The Chelsea Motel in Oklahoma is not<br />the Chelsea Hotel in New York.

April 23: Chelsea to Afton to Miami, 40 miles by bike and 10 by bus.

We woke up to darkening skies and bad radar.  A huge chunky storm, streaked orange and red, stretched from Albuquerque to Oklahoma City and it was heading for us.   So we rode first to a crossroads about 20 miles out, just east of Vinita.   An Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer checked in on us.  Everything ok?  Yes, we're fine.  His hand on his gun gave a sense of the unpredictability of his job.  Still, he seemed happy to find a visibly harmless crew in the funny bus by the side of the road.

We thought we could make it a few miles farther, before running into real trouble.   So Steve hovered close and we kept riding.   Turning a corner brought us into a straight-on headwind.  On we pushed, a bit nervously as the sky went nearly black.  We weren't setting any land speed records.  We passed a couple of young hitchhikers, and urged them to get indoors.  We were trying to do the same thing ourselves.  Carol and I made it to Afton, just 10 miles short of our goal for the day, looked at the radar again and called it.  The next bit to Miami would be dead into the wind.  And it looked as though the red and orange blobs were coming for us.  Trucks were going past and spraying us with the bit of rain that had fallen already.  Nope.

A Microtel in Miami let us check in way early and everybody went down for a nap.  Boom.  Done.  Tomorrow we'll start the day with a ride to a tiny wedge of Kansas and then on to Missouri.  Wow, it's going fast.