Oklahoma Freewheel – Heavener to Muldrow
For supper last night, Roger and I walked down to the Southern Belle Restaurant. It’s dining room is an old rail passenger car, so it was kind of a neat experience. I tried the “Southwest Grilled Catfish”, and got the list of spices on it from the waitress so I can try it at home. Seems simple enough….
As we returned to the campground, we happened to pass a campsite where Dick was knapping, so we stopped to watch and chat a little bit. He was very pleased at our interest, and was very willing to share his techniques with us. He said he hadn’t been knapping much lately because of a “catastrophic diagnosis”, which impressed us since he was a little sunburned as if he had at least ridden part of the day.
Later in the evening, we started getting word of a storm heading our way. We knew that parts of Oklahoma had been pounded pretty hard, so the warnings were sounding pretty dire. I was a little concerned because my tent was pitched in a spot where it looked like water could collect if it got very wet.
By about 9:15, the storm was upon us with lightening and thunder, but luckily we didn’t get the wind they had been concerned about. It rained pretty hard for a few minutes, then settled into a steady rain that lasted another hour and a half. It started again about 3:00 AM and lasted until right at 6:00. That rain was actually pretty nice, because it kept all the early birds in bed until a reasonable hour!
As I headed out of town this morning, a lot of the country side felt like home. With rolling hills and lots of cow pasture with an occasional chicken farm thrown in for good measure, there wasn’t a lot of spectacular scenery to look at today.
If anything, the theme of the day was “bad roads”. The Freewheel planners try their best to keep us off busy roads, but sometimes that comes at the expense of the riding experience. I suppose some of the guys on their touring rigs had it quite a bit easier than I do on my road bike, but by the time I had spent at least 20 miles on crappy roads, I really had to work to keep from getting grumpy.
I pulled into Muldrow just a few minutes after noon, still riding strong in spite of 65 miles. I noticed the distance today at 66.47 miles was about a mile and half further than yesterday, but I finished it almost fifteen minutes faster than yesterday. Part of that was due to forgetting my mantra of “ride like a girl” the last 20 miles or so, and part of it was due to a little less climbing through the course of the day.
After I hit town and got my tent up, I went for a four mile run up and down the main strip of town in front of the park where we’re camped. This was the first time I had ever run after a significant bike ride. I felt a little bit like an “iron man”, but realized that I’m nowhere close to that status yet!
God bless….
TW
Explore posts in the same categories: bicycle, Cycling, Fitness, hills, Muldrow Oklahoma, Oklahoma FreewheelTags: bicycle, Cycling, Fitness, hills, Muldrow Oklahoma, Oklahoma Freewheel
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