The Awkward Pose

Start:  Mountain View, MO

Finish: Piedmont, MO

Weather:  85 degrees, sunny

Bike Time: 7 hours

Miles:  76

Distance to date: 1,411

I am writing in the post Zephyr Café stupor of chicken fried steak, cole slaw, salad bar and incredible peach cobbler a la mode.   I finally I found some country food worthy of the Ozarks – it was fantastic.

Today was a terrific day for biking, sunny but not too hot.   I logged 50 miles on the wide and loping US 60, and then got off for a final 25 miles along Highway 34, the kiddie coaster version of what I did yesterday.  The countryside was scrub oak forests dotted with logging plants; big tin sheds with open walls, lathes spewing saw dust everywhere.  The seemed ideally ventilated for a nice day like today, but I wonder how they weather the winter?

Missouri gets low marks for historical markers (have not passed one yet) but very high grades for amusing signs. One for an ice cream stand that says ‘Kids – scream until your dad stops the car’, a whole series that state “MoDOT SUCKS (MoDOT is the Missouri Department of Transportation, in a dispute with a local land owner), and another series of white real estate style signs in people’s yards with bible verses.  My favorites though are the Adopt-A-Highway Signs.  Sure,
there are the usual stretches sponsored by the Rotary and the Boy Scouts, but Missouri has lots of specific stretches, 0.6 miles, 1.2 miles, etc. and they are often dedicated to individuals, “In honor of William Harding from this beloved
family.”  Does someone really want an anti-litter sign as their memorial? Finally, there is a full 100 mile stretch adopted by the Citizens Against Trash.  I haven’t paid any dues to that organization, but I am a citizen and I am against trash, so count me in.

People in Missouri are more reserved than in Oklahoma or Colorado.  Not unfriendly, but not first to start the chatter either.  Today I went into a tiny catch-all store – DVD’s and snacks and soda and liquor and ammo and pizza and bait.  I got a soda and chocolate milk and leaned against the ice cream freezer guzzling.  When that didn’t satisfy I went back for a
snack cake.  Only then did the shopkeeper, a middle aged woman with Maureen Stapleton eyes, look up from her soaps and engage me in what I was about.  Let’s face it, I don’t look like the average Dr. Pepper and tackle customer.  In Oklahoma people just burst on me with questions about my story, but it took this quiet, ‘Show Me State’ woman some time to warm.

Perhaps what I love best about Missouri are the rivers.  After the dry creeks or trickling streams of Colorado and Oklahoma,
Missouri has real rivers, with currents and eddies and deep green water.  It is wonderful driving over them and looking
into their penetrating depth.

Penetrating question of the day: If a pawn shop goes out of business, is that a leading economic indicator or a poor one? I saw several defunct pawn shops today and wonder what  it means.

Black River Bridge  Piedmont, MO

Black River  Piedmont, MO

Start:  Ozark, MO

Finish: Mountain View, MO

Weather:  75 degrees, cloudy, rainy

Bike Time: 10 hours

Miles:  102

Distance to date: 1,335

“Goes and flows of angel hair           And ice cream castles in the air        And feathered canyons everywhere      I looked at clouds that way.”                  Joni Mitchell

Today was a magnificent collage of clouds and hills, the most challenging day of cycling by far, and also the most exciting.

I went to bed last night to one thunder storm, and woke to another, so I stayed in my motel in Ozark until about 7:30 am when the sky cleared.  It was odd making such a late start, but
since the temperature was a pleasant 70 degrees, I had no rush to beat the heat.

I rolled out of Ozark against the Monday morning rush hour traffic of drivers who wished they were me.  Just as the traffic eased along narrow Highway 14 an enormous bullet train of a cloud pressed low in the sky, moving the same direction as me but two or three times as fast.  It fed on the atmosphere above the tree line and below the upper clouds, like one of those giant snakes from Dune, its black underbelly pulling a gusty wind in its wake.  The highway signs rattled, the world grew dark.  And just as quick it sped past and all was light again.

I did not get rained on by that incredible cloud, but I did several other times during the day, mostly nice sprinkles that kept me cool.

I followed thin black roads today, Highway 14 east and then Highway 76 east, which run parallel and south of US 60.  As the crow flies, I saved about 10 miles.  As the calories burn, I doubled my output.  My route followed a northern section of the Ozarks, which are not really mountains, but a large, crenelated plateau, an accordion of peaks and valleys.  For the first few hours I made very poor time and thought I was just sluggish, when In fact I was crawling up and up and up.  Suddenly, I hit a 3 mile, very steep downhill, and for the next 60 miles it was up and down and up and down and up again.  The road had no shoulder, but very little traffic.  On the downslides I hugged the middle, head down, and gripped the Surly wide for balance.  I hit 25, 30, even 35 miles per hour time and again.  Then, on the up I choked into low gear and spun the pedals, barely maintaining five miles per hour.  Some inclines were so steep the road shot up in front of my face like a giant wave cresting high above my head.  Some series of dips were so twisty I felt I’d cycled into a David Hockney landscape, the earth so skewed I lost my bearing perspective.  The ride was exhilarating and exhausting.

Along the way were many beautiful farms, lots of cows and horses, and a dense section through the Mark Twain National Forest.  The hillbilly aspect of the Ozarks is prevalent, and I passed a fair number battered trailers with snarly dogs and discarded refrigerators that might have been set pieces in The Winter’s Bone, but most of the houses along the road were standard issue ranches and all of the drivers were courteous
and cautious in approaching and passing me.

By 4:30 I met up with boring US 60 again, but was glad that the last 16 miles were easy.  I rolled into Mountain View and the sweetest little motel, tucked in a corner of a sleepy downtown that still has a few actual stores, and a pretty good, very cheap, Mexican restaurant.  Thirty bucks for a period room right out of the 1950’s, less than ten for a hearty feast.  The next time you are in Mountain View, MO, I highly recommend Malone’s Motel.

Cloud Formation over Sparta, MO

Malone’s Motel, Mountain View, MO

Start:  Neosho, MO

Finish: Ozark, MO

Weather:  100 degrees, sunny

Bike Time: 7 hours

Miles:  77

Distance to date: 1,233

I was an efficient cross country cyclist today.  I went to bed last night with dramatic thunderstorms; fell asleep staring at the water stained ceiling tiles of my shoddy motel room, but woke refreshed and still dry after eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.  The morning air was still and humid, but within an hour the moisture dissipated and it became dry and hot – how unusual! The ride was pleasant and uneventful to Monett where I stopped for breakfast.

Fast food along the highway was the only Sunday morning option so I stopped at Braum’s.  The egg, bacon and cheese bagel was grotesque, so I augmented it from their grocery section with cottage cheese, yogurt and some macaroons.  Actually, I ate the full dozen macaroons.  After thirty miles, I suppose I was hungrier than I thought.  Gearing up outside the store I looked through the window and saw an aging gentlemen in jeans and plaid shirt, cowboy hat on his head, lifting the corrugated lid of a Braum’s breakfast deal – an ice cream scoop of eggs, a packet of micro-browned potatoes and a Styrofoam of coffee.  There was something tragic in the sight of this noble man eating such unappealing food.  It made me appreciate all the terrific café’s I have frequented along the trip – may there be many more to come.

Route 60 is a wide shouldered road, which is good for cycling, and has a very regular rumble strip to separate me from the traffic.  I spend several hours each day looking at the shoulder and by this time, have come upon some unusual stuff lying there.  S-hooks.  The shoulder is full of S-hooks.  I think they pop off the leather straps that secure tarps to open trucks.  I have seen dozens.  Then there is change, pennies galore and even the stray dime.  I have yet to pocket any, by the time I notice them I have rolled on, but there is a pile of coin out here on the shoulder.  Mostly I eyeball the many obstructions that
land on the side of the road, wood and metal and rubber, broken glass and plastic.

Of course, the road kill is the most unsavory thing along the shoulder.  I have seen two adult deer corpses, plus one fawn, many raccoons, a few foxes, and one coyote that must have exploded on contact; the poor chap’s limbs were everywhere.
The most prevalent of all road kill are the armadillos. Sometimes they remain shell side up, like ancient crustaceans washed out of a fossilized sea.  But most of the time they are flipped.  They look so forlorn, violated of their natural protection, their soft underbellies baking in the sun.  Sadly, today was a bumper day for armadillos.

Although Route 60 feels safe, it has an Interstate scale and the sun beats down without mercy.  So I sidetracked in Billings and rode along farm to market roads, weaving north and east along narrow, tree lined pavement and stretches where the corn was so close it practically tickled my nose.  Eventually I landed in Clever, on the outskirts of Springfield.  Who knew that Springfield, MO had exurbs, but here it is, farms subdivided into brick starter homes, a spanking new high school, and Sunday Open Houses galore.  Once out of town the state highway was a winding roller coaster of hills and turns and great fun to ride.  I landed in Ozark by 2:00 pm and checked into the American Inn of the Ozarks.  Nothing fancy, but it is cool and quiet.

Sunday Morning in Missouri

Start:  Claremore, OK

Finish: Neosho, MO

Weather:  105 degrees, sunny

Bike Time: 8.5 hours

Miles:  95

Distance to date: 1,156

Today presented a series of unexpected charms.

They began at the continental breakfast bar of the Will Rogers Inn, where I ran into Connie, whose husband runs and a tire shop and who insisted I take her number in case I hit any problems along the road.  “He would love an excuse for a day trip to Missouri.”

With that insurance, I cycled through the town of Claremore, Will Rogers everywhere, and struck out on dear old ’66.  I took a detour to visit the Tepee Park in Fiyol, a worthy excursion for anyone who loves folk art. There is a garden of teepee sculptures, and the main event, at over 40 feet tall, is quite spectacular.  Not really a tepee as we think of it, more a vertical homage to all things Indian.  A penchant for folk art must run through that area, within a mile of the tepee park I saw a chain link fence adorned with Styrofoam cups that spelled out ‘JESUS’ and a Mona Lisa painted on the side of a barn.  The
return back to Route 66 was along a lovely country road with a full line of trees along one side, which kept the morning sun at bay.

Vinita was having a Saturday street fair with sidewalk booths and a fire hose sprinkler snaking down the middle of the pavement.  After a serious breakfast with some scrumptious pancakes alongside my bacon and eggs (it is grand to be so hungry) I headed on to Afton where I came upon a Route 66
service station turned Packard Museum.  They had an incredible array of beautiful Packard’s, including a 1917
jitney that had been customized to a motor home back in the day, a 1938 coupe that is the only one remaining, and the last Packard ever made, a 1958 sports coupe on a Studebaker chassis.  The folks hanging around the shop were chatty and completely devoted to Route 66.  One guy had 98 Route 66 tattoos on his body, including Mator from the movie Cars and the Pops bottle in Arcadia (which I featured in my blog of 8/4/2011).  He is a big guy and not shy about shucking his shirt, so I saw quite a few of them. The Packard folks took my picture, which should be on their blog, www.aftonstationblog-laurel.blogspot.com.  Check them out!

Unfortunately, shortly outside Afton I left route 66 behind.  In Missouri it joins the Interstate in several portions, and I don’t
want to ride on any Interstates, so I am now on US 60, heading east through southern Missouri, in route to my next major stop, New Harmony, Indiana.  US 60 is a better road with a good shoulder, but since it does not parallel an Interstate, it has many more trucks.  Again, the topography changes at the state
line.  The broad horizon and vast ranches of Oklahoma are behind me.  Missouri is undulating straight stretches of shallow swales, up to three miles long.

Neosho, the first town of any size in Missouri, is hopping tonight.  After stopping at several fully booked motels I found
a room in a clean but basic place (no Internet access, so I am borrowing from the Super 8 next door). Who knew, but there was a revival in town!  Maybe it is taking place in the Cowboy Church and Arena I saw on my way in this afternoon.
You know that the place is for real; I could not make that up.

Tepee Park  Fiyol OK

Packard Museum  Afton, OK

Cowboy
Church and Arena  Neosho, MO

Start:  Bristow, OK

Finish: Claremore, OK

Weather:  110 degrees, sunny

Bike Time: 6.5 hours

Miles:  71

Distance to date: 1,061

When the sun came up this morning it was a fireball, not a cloud in the sky; 95 degrees by 9:00 am, 110 degrees before noon.  Fortunately, I planned an easier day and rolled into a cool motel with a pool by 2:00 pm. I took a long swim and have spent the rest of the afternoon charting the next week’s route – it is a challenge to find a bike friendly path that is not on Interstates.

I left my cell phone charger in some hotel, so I took advantage of going through Tulsa to get off Route 66 and visit to a Verizon store for a new charger.  Once off the route, I took the bike path along the Arkansas River for several miles, wandered through the neighborhoods, dropped by the Philbrook Museum, and generally soaked in a bit of Tulsa.  It is a beautiful, shady city.

I reunited with 66 on the east side of town and had a wonderful ten miles heading east on 11^th Street.  Officially I was still in the City of Tulsa, but it was beautiful ranch land.  Then I headed northeast to Claremore along a highway that had a great shoulder and also had a series of terrific bridges.

I have hit the 1,000 mile mark but my expensive leather bicycle saddle has still not worn into a comfortable seat. I have used up all the saddle soap that was supposed to make it soft, but my butt is still sore, so I picked up more saddle soap and some cream for me.  Already it feels a bit better.

I am in the land of Will Rogers.  So far, I haven’t met a man here that I didn’t like.

Start:  Oklahoma City, OK

Finish: Bristow, OK

Weather:  105 degrees, sunny

Bike Time: 8 hours

Miles:  76

Distance to date: 990

A completely different period of history filled todays’ travel – the 1930’s through the 1950’s.

I left Kenyon and Kay’s at 6:30 am when the morning sky turned light but before the sun had risen.  The eastern sky was blanketed in clouds and for the first few hours I enjoyed cloud cover and only double digit temperatures.  I wound my way along section roads (Oklahoma has a north/south road and an east/ west road every mile.  These are referred to as section roads, and they define a square mile, 640 acres.  Homesteaders received a quarter section, or 160 acres.  Although the section roads are sometimes interrupted for features like lakes, in general one can zigzag through Oklahoma
easily on section roads).  After a few miles I hit OK66, the former US Route 66.

Oklahoma has made a tourist attraction out of Route 66.
They have built three museums about its lore across the state, developed many roadside markers, and printed a picture book about traveling the road, all of which added up to a day of many, many stops for this intrepid cyclist.  Today I saw the awesome Pops gas station and soda fountain in Arcadia, a recent tribute to roadside architecture very well done, the famous round barn in Arcadia, the phenomenal motorcycle museum in Warwick, the Interpretive Center in Chandler, and numerous vintage gas stations, some intact, others in ruins, each with descriptions of events both legal and illicit that went on along the road.

I had a tremendous breakfast in Luther, at which I added my last carbo-charged Oklahoma food – biscuits and gravy.  It stuck to my ribs so tight I rode 50 more miles before I felt even a tincture of hunger.

Since Route 66 is shadowed by I-44 the whole way, there is very little traffic on the road, and the traffic is polite to slow moving vehicles.  This is good because much of the road has
zero shoulder, and cars have to go into the opposing lane to pass me. However, since the whole point of this road is not to go 65 mph, no one minded a bit.

I got a blow out about 60 miles into my day.  It is only my second flat of the trip, but I gained new appreciation for my bike, since this was a sudden puncture and could have sent me spinning, but the heavy, stable Surly took it in stride.

One interesting aspect of travelling on Route 66 is that many of the people traversing the full route from Chicago to LA, are European.  I met a couple from Denmark at the Chandler
Museum who were taking two weeks to drive the entire route.  They had Route 66 shirts and caps and were consumed by the mythology of the road.  Later I met a motorcycle troupe of at least eight people, all from Germany, who were also tracing the entire road. I suppose the road fulfills a foreign notion of something distinctly American.

A second observation, which is less engaging, is that most everything about the road that was so rich, the motels, the swimming pools, the roadside cafes, the neon signs, the drive-thrus, are gone.  I anticipated that Route 66 would have a roadside motel every few miles, and indeed the remains of them are there, but I passed only one functioning cabin
court; everything else had either been turned into low rent apartments or was simply abandoned. I had to ride much further than I hoped to find a place to stay, and where I am is at a newer motel at an I-44 interchange rather than a vintage Route 66 venue.

Route 66 may be a legend, but it is not a living legend.

Pops Station and Soda Fountain, Arcadia, OK

Motorcycle Museum in vintage Gas Station, Warwick, OK

Start:  Oklahoma City, OK

Finish: Oklahoma City, OK

Weather:  105 degrees, sunny

Bike Time: 1.5hours

Miles:  14

Distance to date: 914

Today was a superb day for visiting.  After a leisurely morning Jeff, Jamie and I went to lunch at Chili’s and spent two hours discussing all matters great and small. I am pretty sure that we righted all the wrongs of the world several times, which is always gratifying. I left their place late afternoon to ride over to Kenyon and Kay Morgan’s home in Northeast OKC.  I worked for Kenyon when I first got out of school, 30 years ago, and we have kept in touch since.

OKC is so large that crossing town can put you in a completely different microclimate.  The west side of the city, where all of my family lives, is high, dry and flat.  People have introduced many trees, but few are native.  As soon as you cross Santa Fe (the East/West division street) the landscape begins to roll and there are more natural trees.  By the time you get to Oakmont, five miles east of Santa Fe, the land is almost forested.  It is usually about five degrees cooler on
the east side of town.  Historically Northeast OKC has been the black side of town, so despite the beautiful landscape, cooler
breezes, and even better highway connections, it is much less developed than the west side.

Kenyon and Kay had an incredible dinner prepared for me when I arrived.  We had a great evening catching up on our
work and our families, and I camped out overnight in one of their girl’s rooms – all three of whom are now grown and moved away.

Start:  Watonga OK

Finish: Oklahoma City, OK

Weather:  105 degrees, sunny

Bike Time: 6 hours

Miles:  66

Distance to date: 900

Contrived, yet true, my odometer turned over 900 miles as I entered my nephew’s Jeff’s driveway in Oklahoma City.  I have finished the first third of my trip – now for a few days of family fun.

Today I spent most of my ride contemplating cows.  Have
I been in Oklahoma too long already?  Every cow that I pass stops grazing and looks at me. Groups of cows all stop and look.
Cars whiz by ahead of me and the cows are unperturbed, yet they all lift their heads for the bicycle.  I do not believe I possess any cow attracting pheromones, but a quick Internet search reveals that cows have reasonable hearing and very good eyesight, so there is something they either hear or see about the bike that attracts them.  I am glad that I offer a distraction, their lives seem awfully monotonous, and it always feels nice to be noticed, if only by cows.

I was happy to leave dusty, swimmingpoolless, Internetless Watonga in early dawn light and strike east to Kingfisher on a stunning morning.  There was a bright golden haze on the meadow, and, well, you show tune types know the rest of the soundtrack, which I hummed or whistled or sang outright across some of the most beautiful land ever conceived; wheat in the breeze, rows of north bending trees between the fields,
distant cottonwoods in the creek beds, night’s coolness lingering over the land.

Route 33 turned out to be a minefield of Historical Markers, and of course I was compelled to stop at them all.  Turns out
this road parallels the northern edge of two separate Oklahoma land runs – the big one of 1889 and a smaller one in 1892, each of which used 98 degrees longitude as an east/west divider.  This got me thinking about cartography.  Dodge City, KS had many references to the 100 degree longitude line that runs right through that town and was an early border during the colonial settlement.  The term ‘100 degrees longitude’’ made no sense
before the establishment of the prime Meridian in Greenwich, England, which was not until 1674, well after initial European exploration of the Southwest.  By the time of the Oklahoma land runs, the meridians were well established, but it still baffles me how a reference point half way around the world was the basis for establishing boundaries between territories.  One marker states that “settlers lined up along the 98^th parallel before the land run”. I can’t help but wonder, who knew where that was?

After another incredible breakfast, this one at the City Cafe in Kingfisher, I emerged into the heat of 9:30 am and was hot and heavy breathing for the next 40 miles while the farms yielded to subdivision, the blacktop shoulders developed concrete curbs, and I was in the city.

Jeff and Jamie moved to a new house a year ago, a classic OKC ranch of the 1960’s era with sunken living room big enough for two sofas, a ping pong table, a piano and a trap set, indoor garden/fountain, wings of bedrooms, media room with 144” TV (I kid you not), three tier deck overlooking a pond, and an immense central kitchen where 16 of us all feasted on a taco spread.  It is great to see everyone again, and to be back in Oklahoma.  It feels like home, even though it is nothing like New England.

Cows are my biggest fans.

Start:  Woodward, OK

Finish: Watonga, OK

Weather:  100 degrees, sunny

Bike Time: 7 hours

Miles:  76

Distance to date: 834

This was the most uneventful day of the trip; riding from early morning to early afternoon through the landscape of a Hollywood Western with a mid-morning break for barbeque and a cinnamon bun at the My Way Café in Seiling.  The first half of the ride was glorious, the second half scorching hot.  Every few miles I took a short water break under the scant shade of a roadside tree and coasted on those rare occasions when a cloud threw the blacktop into shade.  Being Sunday morning, I had long stretches without vehicles, just my own quiet on the road.  As I travelled south and more trees appeared the cicadas nesting in them chirped along the breeze.

At one point I stopped at the crest of a rise and looked back towards Woodward.  To my surprise, the wind turbines I passed yesterday were still in full view across the horizon – over 50 miles away!

I arrived in Watonga by two, a dusty oil town without so much as a motel with a pool or Internet access.  But my room at the
Watonga Inn was quiet and cool, so I took comfort in that.  Outside my room is a pair of giant azaleas where more cicadas chant.  First one, then another, building to a shrill cacophony.
It is deafening.  Until, without notice or reason, they fall silent together.  The silence rings louder than the noise, until they start up again.

A few people have asked what I carry.  My organization is simple; I travel lighter than any other touring cyclist I have
met.  I have the two smallest waterproof Arkel saddlebags (aka panniers), which clip on to the heavy rack attached to my rear wheel.

I hang my ‘dry’ pannier on the chain side of the bike. It includes my netbook and mouse and all my clothes – one pair of microfiber pants, one pair of microfiber shorts, one black nylon t-shirt, one Columbia sunshade collar shirt, two pairs of rinsable underwear, and five pair of cycling socks.  I wear my cycling shorts, bright yellow shirt and NewBalance 835’s when I ride, but picked up two additional cycling shirts and a Courage Classic T-shirt in Denver, which I don’t need but carry anyway.  At the top of the pannier, easily accessible, I keep my baseball hat and rain poncho.

My ‘wet’ pannier hangs on the dismount side of my bike, where I can get at it during the day.  This includes four zip lock bags –
one each for toiletries/first aid, snacks, maps, and bike repair items such as tubes, lights, chain lube, patch kit, universal allen wrench, saddle soap and rag.  I also keep two one-liter water
bottles in this pannier plus my book and camera and phone chargers.  I keep my sunscreen and my active state map in the open pocket of this pannier.

The back of every cycling shirt has three pockets.  I keep my wallet, camera, phone, bike lock key, and lip gloss in those
pockets.  I have two more one liter water bottles mounted on my bike, as well as my lock, tire pump, and odometer.

That is all there is to it.