Wellington → Perry → Bell Cow Lake → Lake Thunderbird → Davis → Lake Texoma
Oklahoma has been a state of indecisiveness for me. I can't quite seem to get my groove, but i'm not sure if it's me or the situation.
When i last wrote i was in a KOA in Wellington, Kansas. That evening i met another couple of kampers who were thrilled by my backpacking adventure. They were RVing down from Wisconsin to Texas to find cool places to hike and enjoy silly roadside attractions, so we swapped some stories and recommendations. They were off to Gloss Mountain next, unfortunately a little out of my way. The only other tent camper in the KOA was a woman who was sleeping in her car, using it as a sort of cheap motel. In the morning she said it was her last day before getting home, so she gave me all her supplies - a bunch of different nuts and trail mixes, and some of those water mix things to make your water taste different.
It was a great spot to camp. Clean and friendly. I wish i had taken advantage of the laundromat.
See, my original plan had been to get to Stillwater - a student town - for my Skype drinks with R. But the storm left me too far to the west to make it in one day, so my next plan was Ponca City. But then, when i checked the motel reviews, it seems all the $50 motels had bedbugs, and then there was a big price gap to $200 and up (per night). I could probably swing a sketchy bedbug motel in case of emergency for one night, but i really didn't want to stay in one for my two day relaxation session. On the other hand, charging $200 for a motel that isn't in a major city is outrageous. It's already outrageous in a major city!
So i ended up heading for Perry, a small town with a cluster of motels next to the interstate (which was a couple miles west of town). Got a Super-8, which annoyingly did not have a coin laundry. I got very drunk. The next day i was so hungover i did nothing, but that was the plan, so it was alright. I ate Mexican food, which was good, and tried a burger from a local fast food chain, which was bad. I bought a pack of smokes.
I should talk about the smokes. When i left Kamloops, my landlord gifted me a pack of smokes. I have smoked and quit smoking many times over the past 30 years. Sometimes i quit for several years. Sometimes i start for a couple months then quit again. I started again during COVID in China, then quit when i got back to Canada. But i'd still social smoke with my landlord, bumming her Mohawk Nation smokes. Anyway, she gifted me a pack before i left on the journey. I accepted because tobacco is a traditional gift and who knows when it might come in handy? I smoked one cigarette on nights when i felt scared or frustrated, or when i'd had a few drinks. I smoked the last one in Kansas. I debated buying a pack because that would mean i was a smoker again, but if i can keep it down to one cigarette every few days then i don't feel so bad. Of course, Oklahoma has frustrated me into smoking one a day, so gah.
The next next day i got back to cycling. I figured i would go to Stillwater for lunch, then try push on to a city lake that had on-site payment for camping. On the way to Stillwater, i got a flat. My first puncture on the back wheel since getting that tremendous Schwalbe Marathon tire. It seems the puncture happened due to an absolutely vicious thorn that had somehow gotten embedded in the sidewall of the tire.
It took me an hour to change the fucking tube. I might still be there, on the side of the road, if it hadn't been for some kind soul passing by who decided to pull over and offer help. You see, this combination of tire (installed in Kelowna after a blow-out) and rim (installed in Brandon after my spokes went) does not fit very well. It was extremely difficult to get the tire off the rim, and then almost impossible to get it back on. Fortunately the guy had a large flathead screwdriver in his truck, and he used that to lever the tire on, since it could provide more leverage than my tire levers which are actually designed for the job. He also had an air compressor, which saved a lot of hand pumping.
Unfortunately, even with the tire back on it wouldn't seat properly. I messed around with letting air out and re-pumping to try seat it, then just gave up and cycled on the bumpy wheel to the local bike shop. Thank God i was near a student town where there was a local bike shop. The back tire was almost bald anyway from the past couple months of cycling, so i decided to get it replaced. I got a slightly skinnier tire (30mm All Condition Armadillo), but it looks fatter than the 32mm Marathon because the tread is wider. Not sure it rides any different, whatever. It's all they had. COVID shortages are happening at every bike store.
I also got some gloves. I haven't mentioned it, but for the past few weeks i have had pins and needles in my fingers. I knew it must be because i am putting too much stress on the heels of my hands, but i wasn't sure how to fix it. Turns out those stupid-looking bicycle gloves are actually designed to prevent exactly the numbness i am experiencing. We'll see if they work, i suppose it'll take a few weeks for the nerves to recover.
Anyway, after that very long unplanned break i pushed on to Bell Cow Lake. Which turned out to be the most perfect lake i have camped at yet. I had a spot on the east side of a little outcrop on the north shore. The sun rose directly shining onto my tent, giving me a delightfully warm and dry morning. Some neighbors blasted classic rock all evening till someone rolled by and told them to shut up. The fish kept jumping around and plip-plopping all night.
The couple RVing opposite came to chat too - they thought it was remarkable that i had found this lake out in the ass end of nowhere to camp. The guy suggested i head down highway 3 where the landscape gets real rugged and there are a bunch more beautiful lakes.
The ride through Oklahoma has had some different phases. Coming into the state it was the same kind of flat marshland that was in southern Kansas, except with more oil derricks. Then things started getting increasingly hilly and tree-ish, worryingly Missouri-like. Somewhere i crossed the Cimarron River, which is a reddish brown color, like the soil in the surrounding countryside. But around Chandler, the town by Bell Cow Lake, i had this weird feeling of déjà vu. It started to feel a bit like i was in New Zealand.
Of course Oklahoma is nothing like New Zealand. The native flora and fauna are completely different. But something about the climate - hot, but not too hot, humid, but not too humid... Something about the weatherboard houses... The cow and horse farms - too small to be called ranches, really... This sort of humble, hilly, farmy landscape reminded me of Waikato, where i used to live as a child.
Chandler had some interesting hippie-looking things, but my biggest surprise was going into the local bakery and finding something close to a Hong Kong style hotdog bun. Like, where the hotdog is baked into a sweet cocktail bun-like pastry. Sadly it didn't have the exciting trend of putting custard in there too, but that probably would've blown these Oklahomans' minds. They also sold donuts, which is what everyone else was picking up, presumably to bring to church.
My next stop was Shawnee for lunch. I had an average Mexican meal, then continued cycling south until i saw a sign: FRY BREAD TACO. Goddamnit. If only i had held on, i could've had the biggest heaped Indian taco of all time on the Citizen Powatomi Nation. Instead i got dessert - strawberries and cream on frybread. It was so good. It was fantastic. It might even have been better than if i'd gotten the taco!
After that i rechecked my destination options, which were a bunch of RV campsites near the highway 3 spur a good few hours to the south. The wind has been blowing really heavy from the south and all the hills in the area meant i'd be zonked when i arrived, so i really needed to be sure i could actually camp.
Every place i called either had a dead number or didn't pick up. The website links on Google Maps are wrong for most Oklahoma RV parks, pointing to campsites in a different states entirely. I found some Facebook pages, not updated in 6 months or more.
I decided not to take the risk and headed west to a nearby state park instead. I thought that'd be the safe option, but when i got here i saw the dreaded "all campsites must be booked in advance online" sign. Fuck every fucking place that does this nonsense. Sunday night, end of the season, almost every tent site is open, but i still can't just set up and put some money in an envelope? For fuck's sake.
Of course their site's DNS entry was borked. Of course i had to hack my way onto the booking site using my tablet instead of my phone. Of course the maps on the booking site don't match the actual campsite layout so i had to cycle around with my tablet in my hand like a total douchebag. Of course they didn't accept my Canadian bank card for payment. Of course i didn't discover that till 10 minutes later when they sent an email saying it didn't go through.
I fucking hate these bullshit online campsite booking systems. They're always terrible. You just know that they aren't user tested, they aren't designed by or for actual campers. They're probably just some bullshit money grab by lazy private contractors, the kind of business conservative governments love to outsource what is supposed to be a public service to. For fuck's sake, if you don't trust people to pay using an honesty box, then get a volunteer workamper to host and accept payments. Plenty of full-time RVers would be thrilled to get a free site in exchange for collecting money from walk-ins.
I grumbled about it with a homeless guy who offered for me to set up my tent on his site. "I just got some real cheap hamburger meat, good quality too, 90% lean. You're welcome to join me, i'll grill up extra. You don't have to worry or nothing, i'm not into men, i love the pussy." He got kicked out of his place in Broken Bow during COVID and had been bumming around the state living in his truck and camping in town trying to avoid the (apparently) gun-toting urban homeless until he found that the state parks had reopened and they had a discount for people with disability. He's been living in this park since the summer, but said that they're trying to kick him and other long term campers out at the end of the month. "So where am i going to live then? This is public land, how can they tell us we can't stay?"
I get a sense there are a lot of homeless - or perhaps i should better say houseless - people in Oklahoma. I suppose i'm one of them too. I just wish safe places to camp weren't all driving distance apart. And i wish the government made it easier to camp on what is supposed to be the people's land.
-o-
Did i mention i met a homeless guy in Wichita too? He was waiting for his bike to get fixed at the bike shop. He suggested next time i get stuck in a storm i get under a bridge or an overpass, which would be good advice closer to the city where the highway actually has exits. He'd been living in a storage unit for a year or so, waiting for public housing to come through. Survives off benefits and doing odd jobs around the place. No driver's license, so he doesn't get too many. The homeless are everywhere, in plain sight, and most of them don't look like stereotypical bums. Housing should not be as expensive or as hard to qualify for as it is.
-o-
I can't tell you how relieved i am to find a hassle free and fabulously situated campsite tonight. I couldn't contact the place up front, but i decided to risk it and cycled past the town of Davis and down to I-35 and now basically have hundreds of acres to myself. This campsite seems to be more outfitted for scout jamborees or big events, and this time of year, in the middle of the week, it's all mine. No site numbers, just some picnic tables, a few water hydrants, and even a couple of power outlets for the glampers. I camped by the creek and left my battery pack up near the road charging. Hopefully tomorrow morning i will get a face full of sun.
The ride down here was fine. It started out feeling a bit Missouri-ish with endless hills and trees, but then it opened back up to those small farms, with some goats, or donkeys, or chickens. I got that Waikato feeling again. It's very weird. I don't have especially good memories of New Zealand - i never really fit in anywhere down under - but i suppose it was the age when i first started going on bike rides out in the country, so it feels familiar and a bit nostalgic. Some of my friends lived on acreage, so cycling past these small Oklahoma farms reminded me of that.
Then i crossed the river to 77, the highway that parallels the interstate, and it was back to American scenery. The more south i went the more Texas-y it got, with the ranches getting bigger and Spanish becoming the primary language at every gas station, restaurant and shop. I found a tiny little taqueria in Pauls Valley and got the best tacos since Coralville. I think the Coralville carnitas is still número uno, but the Pauls Valley al pastor was very good.
I also talked to a grocery store clerk in Paoli who was either high or just feeling whimsical and philosophical, talking about how she wanted to travel in Canada because she felt getting in touch with nature would be a good way to get in touch with herself. She also said that it's lonelier to live with people all around than it would be if she was in the wilderness. I would've liked to've chatted more, but she had a customer so i left. I hope she finds what she's looking for.
I have added a Rosetta Stone Basic Spanish deck to my nightly flashcards. I felt like an idiot today surrounded by Spanish speakers and being the one annoying gringo who never bothered to learn. It happens every time i am in California, and the one time i visited Texas before too. I did a few terms of Spanish in community college in Toronto but it never went anywhere because you don't hear it around you all the time like you do in the US border states. Perhaps this time some of it will stick.
I think tomorrow i am going to make for Lake Texoma, right on the state border. It will mean i missed the scenic parts of Oklahoma more to the east and the west, but today's ride just put me in a Texas mood and i feel like i'm ready. Give me all of the tacos. Every single one.
-o-
I am in Texas, y'all! Home of big hats, politicians who hate women, proper goddamn frontage roads, and tacos.
My first stop this morning was the chain restaurant Arbuckle Mountain Fried Pies, which i allowed to break my "no chains" policy because it was the original location and because it's not a chain you can find everywhere like Sonic (whose original location i also passed a few days back). I bought a peach for energy to go up said mountain and saved an apple for later. My conclusion is that fried pies fucking suck. It's like they surgically removed the best part of the pie (the soft, doughy base that absorbs all the fruit juice and could be a meal on its own) and replaced it with the worst part of the pie (the crumbly, crispy top that doesn't taste of anything). Like, at that point you might as well just be eating a water cracker and the original piece of fruit. Spectacularly overpriced. Two thumbs down.
Then i climbed the Arbuckle mountain range over highway 77, which is a bizarre post-apocalyptic highway that nobody uses any more because I-35 runs right alongside it. It's half overgrown and strewn with trash on both sides. There are a bunch of cabins and theme parks along the route, apparently owned by a cabal of Christian capitalists, because they all have exorbitant cover charges and Bible quotes on the signs. It's really creepy. There is a fucking walled compound up there which belongs to whatever damn church and it's like... what kind of church has a locked, gated compound? Aren't the doors of salvation supposed to be open to everyone? It was like a horror movie. Well worth the detour if you're driving from OKC to Dallas.
The landscape reminded me a bit of BC. It was refreshing to climb a mountain again that actually went, like, up. To the top of a mountain. Not this half-assed, relentless, Sisyphean up/down hill cycling that leads nowhere.
The top of the mountain had a windmill farm and was very fucking windy. I had to pedal hard to go down the other side because the wind was so strong. I knew it was going to be strong, but there's no point waiting it out because it seems the prevailing wind through exactly the parts of the country i chose to go south through is southerly. So. Fuck. I am fighting all the way down.
I was exhausted by the time i got to Ardmore, which i think was only like 30km from where i started. Absolutely brutal. I didn't even cycle downtown because i was so tired, i just headed straight out to the east and resolved to eat lunch from my Ursack. But then i saw a shack on the side of the road with a cafe sign. So i went in. Turned out to be a little southern diner. They had a vege plate. Three veges and cornbread for 6 bucks. Add more veges if you like. Fucking. Finally. Finally i found the kind of place that would let me eat "aspirationally vegan", like i did in China. It's not so fucking hard. They just need to serve a bunch of veges, that's all. I got pinto beans, black eyed peas, green beans and deep fried okra. Yeah, they probably fried some of it in bacon grease. But at least i got to eat some fucking vegetables, praise the lord and hallelujah.
The rest of the ride was tough. Heading east wasn't so bad, but eventually i turned south again and slammed straight into that wall of wind. Is what it is. Just gotta persevere. When i got to the campsite it was another one of those stupid online reservations only things, and on top of that all the tent campsites were apparently unavailable. Fuck! So i am currently camped in (having paid for) a full 50A, water hookup RV site on the shore of Lake Texoma. It's so fucking hardcore that they don't even have the 20A/30A standard plug socket connected, so i can't even charge my shit. My neighbors all have very, very expensive RVs, trucks and boats. On the same damn lot. This campground is way above my pay grade.
Of course, because RVers like this have their own toilets and shower, the toilet and shower block is miles away and full of spiders. Fuck it. I needed a shower. I paid 26 bucks. I deserved a shower. So i had a shower.
And now i will drink my one can of hard seltzer and eat some Ursack food and listen to the waves lapping on the shore of this big, badass lake. I'm in Texas! Woohoo!
When i last wrote i was in a KOA in Wellington, Kansas. That evening i met another couple of kampers who were thrilled by my backpacking adventure. They were RVing down from Wisconsin to Texas to find cool places to hike and enjoy silly roadside attractions, so we swapped some stories and recommendations. They were off to Gloss Mountain next, unfortunately a little out of my way. The only other tent camper in the KOA was a woman who was sleeping in her car, using it as a sort of cheap motel. In the morning she said it was her last day before getting home, so she gave me all her supplies - a bunch of different nuts and trail mixes, and some of those water mix things to make your water taste different.
It was a great spot to camp. Clean and friendly. I wish i had taken advantage of the laundromat.
See, my original plan had been to get to Stillwater - a student town - for my Skype drinks with R. But the storm left me too far to the west to make it in one day, so my next plan was Ponca City. But then, when i checked the motel reviews, it seems all the $50 motels had bedbugs, and then there was a big price gap to $200 and up (per night). I could probably swing a sketchy bedbug motel in case of emergency for one night, but i really didn't want to stay in one for my two day relaxation session. On the other hand, charging $200 for a motel that isn't in a major city is outrageous. It's already outrageous in a major city!
So i ended up heading for Perry, a small town with a cluster of motels next to the interstate (which was a couple miles west of town). Got a Super-8, which annoyingly did not have a coin laundry. I got very drunk. The next day i was so hungover i did nothing, but that was the plan, so it was alright. I ate Mexican food, which was good, and tried a burger from a local fast food chain, which was bad. I bought a pack of smokes.
I should talk about the smokes. When i left Kamloops, my landlord gifted me a pack of smokes. I have smoked and quit smoking many times over the past 30 years. Sometimes i quit for several years. Sometimes i start for a couple months then quit again. I started again during COVID in China, then quit when i got back to Canada. But i'd still social smoke with my landlord, bumming her Mohawk Nation smokes. Anyway, she gifted me a pack before i left on the journey. I accepted because tobacco is a traditional gift and who knows when it might come in handy? I smoked one cigarette on nights when i felt scared or frustrated, or when i'd had a few drinks. I smoked the last one in Kansas. I debated buying a pack because that would mean i was a smoker again, but if i can keep it down to one cigarette every few days then i don't feel so bad. Of course, Oklahoma has frustrated me into smoking one a day, so gah.
The next next day i got back to cycling. I figured i would go to Stillwater for lunch, then try push on to a city lake that had on-site payment for camping. On the way to Stillwater, i got a flat. My first puncture on the back wheel since getting that tremendous Schwalbe Marathon tire. It seems the puncture happened due to an absolutely vicious thorn that had somehow gotten embedded in the sidewall of the tire.
It took me an hour to change the fucking tube. I might still be there, on the side of the road, if it hadn't been for some kind soul passing by who decided to pull over and offer help. You see, this combination of tire (installed in Kelowna after a blow-out) and rim (installed in Brandon after my spokes went) does not fit very well. It was extremely difficult to get the tire off the rim, and then almost impossible to get it back on. Fortunately the guy had a large flathead screwdriver in his truck, and he used that to lever the tire on, since it could provide more leverage than my tire levers which are actually designed for the job. He also had an air compressor, which saved a lot of hand pumping.
Unfortunately, even with the tire back on it wouldn't seat properly. I messed around with letting air out and re-pumping to try seat it, then just gave up and cycled on the bumpy wheel to the local bike shop. Thank God i was near a student town where there was a local bike shop. The back tire was almost bald anyway from the past couple months of cycling, so i decided to get it replaced. I got a slightly skinnier tire (30mm All Condition Armadillo), but it looks fatter than the 32mm Marathon because the tread is wider. Not sure it rides any different, whatever. It's all they had. COVID shortages are happening at every bike store.
I also got some gloves. I haven't mentioned it, but for the past few weeks i have had pins and needles in my fingers. I knew it must be because i am putting too much stress on the heels of my hands, but i wasn't sure how to fix it. Turns out those stupid-looking bicycle gloves are actually designed to prevent exactly the numbness i am experiencing. We'll see if they work, i suppose it'll take a few weeks for the nerves to recover.
Anyway, after that very long unplanned break i pushed on to Bell Cow Lake. Which turned out to be the most perfect lake i have camped at yet. I had a spot on the east side of a little outcrop on the north shore. The sun rose directly shining onto my tent, giving me a delightfully warm and dry morning. Some neighbors blasted classic rock all evening till someone rolled by and told them to shut up. The fish kept jumping around and plip-plopping all night.
The couple RVing opposite came to chat too - they thought it was remarkable that i had found this lake out in the ass end of nowhere to camp. The guy suggested i head down highway 3 where the landscape gets real rugged and there are a bunch more beautiful lakes.
The ride through Oklahoma has had some different phases. Coming into the state it was the same kind of flat marshland that was in southern Kansas, except with more oil derricks. Then things started getting increasingly hilly and tree-ish, worryingly Missouri-like. Somewhere i crossed the Cimarron River, which is a reddish brown color, like the soil in the surrounding countryside. But around Chandler, the town by Bell Cow Lake, i had this weird feeling of déjà vu. It started to feel a bit like i was in New Zealand.
Of course Oklahoma is nothing like New Zealand. The native flora and fauna are completely different. But something about the climate - hot, but not too hot, humid, but not too humid... Something about the weatherboard houses... The cow and horse farms - too small to be called ranches, really... This sort of humble, hilly, farmy landscape reminded me of Waikato, where i used to live as a child.
Chandler had some interesting hippie-looking things, but my biggest surprise was going into the local bakery and finding something close to a Hong Kong style hotdog bun. Like, where the hotdog is baked into a sweet cocktail bun-like pastry. Sadly it didn't have the exciting trend of putting custard in there too, but that probably would've blown these Oklahomans' minds. They also sold donuts, which is what everyone else was picking up, presumably to bring to church.
My next stop was Shawnee for lunch. I had an average Mexican meal, then continued cycling south until i saw a sign: FRY BREAD TACO. Goddamnit. If only i had held on, i could've had the biggest heaped Indian taco of all time on the Citizen Powatomi Nation. Instead i got dessert - strawberries and cream on frybread. It was so good. It was fantastic. It might even have been better than if i'd gotten the taco!
After that i rechecked my destination options, which were a bunch of RV campsites near the highway 3 spur a good few hours to the south. The wind has been blowing really heavy from the south and all the hills in the area meant i'd be zonked when i arrived, so i really needed to be sure i could actually camp.
Every place i called either had a dead number or didn't pick up. The website links on Google Maps are wrong for most Oklahoma RV parks, pointing to campsites in a different states entirely. I found some Facebook pages, not updated in 6 months or more.
I decided not to take the risk and headed west to a nearby state park instead. I thought that'd be the safe option, but when i got here i saw the dreaded "all campsites must be booked in advance online" sign. Fuck every fucking place that does this nonsense. Sunday night, end of the season, almost every tent site is open, but i still can't just set up and put some money in an envelope? For fuck's sake.
Of course their site's DNS entry was borked. Of course i had to hack my way onto the booking site using my tablet instead of my phone. Of course the maps on the booking site don't match the actual campsite layout so i had to cycle around with my tablet in my hand like a total douchebag. Of course they didn't accept my Canadian bank card for payment. Of course i didn't discover that till 10 minutes later when they sent an email saying it didn't go through.
I fucking hate these bullshit online campsite booking systems. They're always terrible. You just know that they aren't user tested, they aren't designed by or for actual campers. They're probably just some bullshit money grab by lazy private contractors, the kind of business conservative governments love to outsource what is supposed to be a public service to. For fuck's sake, if you don't trust people to pay using an honesty box, then get a volunteer workamper to host and accept payments. Plenty of full-time RVers would be thrilled to get a free site in exchange for collecting money from walk-ins.
I grumbled about it with a homeless guy who offered for me to set up my tent on his site. "I just got some real cheap hamburger meat, good quality too, 90% lean. You're welcome to join me, i'll grill up extra. You don't have to worry or nothing, i'm not into men, i love the pussy." He got kicked out of his place in Broken Bow during COVID and had been bumming around the state living in his truck and camping in town trying to avoid the (apparently) gun-toting urban homeless until he found that the state parks had reopened and they had a discount for people with disability. He's been living in this park since the summer, but said that they're trying to kick him and other long term campers out at the end of the month. "So where am i going to live then? This is public land, how can they tell us we can't stay?"
I get a sense there are a lot of homeless - or perhaps i should better say houseless - people in Oklahoma. I suppose i'm one of them too. I just wish safe places to camp weren't all driving distance apart. And i wish the government made it easier to camp on what is supposed to be the people's land.
-o-
Did i mention i met a homeless guy in Wichita too? He was waiting for his bike to get fixed at the bike shop. He suggested next time i get stuck in a storm i get under a bridge or an overpass, which would be good advice closer to the city where the highway actually has exits. He'd been living in a storage unit for a year or so, waiting for public housing to come through. Survives off benefits and doing odd jobs around the place. No driver's license, so he doesn't get too many. The homeless are everywhere, in plain sight, and most of them don't look like stereotypical bums. Housing should not be as expensive or as hard to qualify for as it is.
-o-
I can't tell you how relieved i am to find a hassle free and fabulously situated campsite tonight. I couldn't contact the place up front, but i decided to risk it and cycled past the town of Davis and down to I-35 and now basically have hundreds of acres to myself. This campsite seems to be more outfitted for scout jamborees or big events, and this time of year, in the middle of the week, it's all mine. No site numbers, just some picnic tables, a few water hydrants, and even a couple of power outlets for the glampers. I camped by the creek and left my battery pack up near the road charging. Hopefully tomorrow morning i will get a face full of sun.
The ride down here was fine. It started out feeling a bit Missouri-ish with endless hills and trees, but then it opened back up to those small farms, with some goats, or donkeys, or chickens. I got that Waikato feeling again. It's very weird. I don't have especially good memories of New Zealand - i never really fit in anywhere down under - but i suppose it was the age when i first started going on bike rides out in the country, so it feels familiar and a bit nostalgic. Some of my friends lived on acreage, so cycling past these small Oklahoma farms reminded me of that.
Then i crossed the river to 77, the highway that parallels the interstate, and it was back to American scenery. The more south i went the more Texas-y it got, with the ranches getting bigger and Spanish becoming the primary language at every gas station, restaurant and shop. I found a tiny little taqueria in Pauls Valley and got the best tacos since Coralville. I think the Coralville carnitas is still número uno, but the Pauls Valley al pastor was very good.
I also talked to a grocery store clerk in Paoli who was either high or just feeling whimsical and philosophical, talking about how she wanted to travel in Canada because she felt getting in touch with nature would be a good way to get in touch with herself. She also said that it's lonelier to live with people all around than it would be if she was in the wilderness. I would've liked to've chatted more, but she had a customer so i left. I hope she finds what she's looking for.
I have added a Rosetta Stone Basic Spanish deck to my nightly flashcards. I felt like an idiot today surrounded by Spanish speakers and being the one annoying gringo who never bothered to learn. It happens every time i am in California, and the one time i visited Texas before too. I did a few terms of Spanish in community college in Toronto but it never went anywhere because you don't hear it around you all the time like you do in the US border states. Perhaps this time some of it will stick.
I think tomorrow i am going to make for Lake Texoma, right on the state border. It will mean i missed the scenic parts of Oklahoma more to the east and the west, but today's ride just put me in a Texas mood and i feel like i'm ready. Give me all of the tacos. Every single one.
-o-
I am in Texas, y'all! Home of big hats, politicians who hate women, proper goddamn frontage roads, and tacos.
My first stop this morning was the chain restaurant Arbuckle Mountain Fried Pies, which i allowed to break my "no chains" policy because it was the original location and because it's not a chain you can find everywhere like Sonic (whose original location i also passed a few days back). I bought a peach for energy to go up said mountain and saved an apple for later. My conclusion is that fried pies fucking suck. It's like they surgically removed the best part of the pie (the soft, doughy base that absorbs all the fruit juice and could be a meal on its own) and replaced it with the worst part of the pie (the crumbly, crispy top that doesn't taste of anything). Like, at that point you might as well just be eating a water cracker and the original piece of fruit. Spectacularly overpriced. Two thumbs down.
Then i climbed the Arbuckle mountain range over highway 77, which is a bizarre post-apocalyptic highway that nobody uses any more because I-35 runs right alongside it. It's half overgrown and strewn with trash on both sides. There are a bunch of cabins and theme parks along the route, apparently owned by a cabal of Christian capitalists, because they all have exorbitant cover charges and Bible quotes on the signs. It's really creepy. There is a fucking walled compound up there which belongs to whatever damn church and it's like... what kind of church has a locked, gated compound? Aren't the doors of salvation supposed to be open to everyone? It was like a horror movie. Well worth the detour if you're driving from OKC to Dallas.
The landscape reminded me a bit of BC. It was refreshing to climb a mountain again that actually went, like, up. To the top of a mountain. Not this half-assed, relentless, Sisyphean up/down hill cycling that leads nowhere.
The top of the mountain had a windmill farm and was very fucking windy. I had to pedal hard to go down the other side because the wind was so strong. I knew it was going to be strong, but there's no point waiting it out because it seems the prevailing wind through exactly the parts of the country i chose to go south through is southerly. So. Fuck. I am fighting all the way down.
I was exhausted by the time i got to Ardmore, which i think was only like 30km from where i started. Absolutely brutal. I didn't even cycle downtown because i was so tired, i just headed straight out to the east and resolved to eat lunch from my Ursack. But then i saw a shack on the side of the road with a cafe sign. So i went in. Turned out to be a little southern diner. They had a vege plate. Three veges and cornbread for 6 bucks. Add more veges if you like. Fucking. Finally. Finally i found the kind of place that would let me eat "aspirationally vegan", like i did in China. It's not so fucking hard. They just need to serve a bunch of veges, that's all. I got pinto beans, black eyed peas, green beans and deep fried okra. Yeah, they probably fried some of it in bacon grease. But at least i got to eat some fucking vegetables, praise the lord and hallelujah.
The rest of the ride was tough. Heading east wasn't so bad, but eventually i turned south again and slammed straight into that wall of wind. Is what it is. Just gotta persevere. When i got to the campsite it was another one of those stupid online reservations only things, and on top of that all the tent campsites were apparently unavailable. Fuck! So i am currently camped in (having paid for) a full 50A, water hookup RV site on the shore of Lake Texoma. It's so fucking hardcore that they don't even have the 20A/30A standard plug socket connected, so i can't even charge my shit. My neighbors all have very, very expensive RVs, trucks and boats. On the same damn lot. This campground is way above my pay grade.
Of course, because RVers like this have their own toilets and shower, the toilet and shower block is miles away and full of spiders. Fuck it. I needed a shower. I paid 26 bucks. I deserved a shower. So i had a shower.
And now i will drink my one can of hard seltzer and eat some Ursack food and listen to the waves lapping on the shore of this big, badass lake. I'm in Texas! Woohoo!