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Sixty days on the road.

Tuesday, May 16, 2017

East to Oklahoma

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After Amarillo, I had mostly smooth sailing, mostly along frontage roads of I-40, which was once The Mother Road—Route 66.  Almost no cars travel the old way, now that I-40 gets them there faster.  But for me on a bike, the frontage road and the old road are mostly smooth and without the irritation of cars.  




Shamrock is the last town in Texas and a day off for Mother’s Day.  Even though I’m not a mother, they assumed I am at McDonalds, and gave me this rose, as to all the women coming there for morning coffee or to chat.  Strange that McDonalds has replaced the old local cafes that once served locals and travelers on Route 66, but it has.  








A single blade for a wind generator travels through Shamrock, and the locals pay it no mind.  Thousands have come before it.








And there’s a quaint, old part of town—but not really, it’s a huge mural trying to attract visitors to a town that has no more reason to exist.  Most shops have already closed and others look like boards will go on the windows next week. 







Texas ends and Oklahoma begins with not even a sign to say so.








The first town in Oklahoma is Texola with the Tumbleweed Café.  Margaret, the owner, talks about her travels to the only customer in the café, and she talks about the weather. Baseball-size hail, tornados, severe rain, and flooding roll off her tongue like poems at an open reading.    She seem proud to live in a place where weather can kill you on half-an hour’s-notice and where many a house and car has succumbed to the ravages of severe weather.







Oklahoma is wetter and greener than Texas; and it has more creatures.







Bikers from Spain






Swallow City under a bridge 







As I write this, the weather report says “Thunderstorms possible at 6:30pm.”  It’s now 3pm and they have moved that warning from 3:00 to 6:30 and changed it from “Severe thunderstorms” to “Thunderstorms.”  Oklahomans revel in their weather forecasts, like watching a action-filled movie.  They talk about cousin Sam caught out in a hail storm, and “By God I’d better get the car inside; don’t want any hail on my car.”


I stepped outside the motel room in Weatherford just now to take a picture looking southeast, the direction of incoming clouds.  I stopped here early today because all this weather talk had me worried.  It doesn’t look severe, but it’s hard to stand in the 30mph wind. 


After Texola, I spent last night in Elk City, a town that seems thriving.  I asked at the café this morning in Clinton, the next town along this march through Oklahoma, why Elk City looks thriving, while Clinton is mostly closed and abandoned.  “Oil’s gone,” the waitress said.  “It just stopped all at once—drilling, trucking everything.”  “What about wind?” I asked.  “Oh we’ve got plenty of wind.  Texas has wind farms, Weatherford to the east has wind farms, but the politics here prevents it.” 

And after leaving Clinton and approaching Weatherford, I saw the difference.  Both towns lost their oil industry, but Weatherford is installing wind generators, just like Texas has, and the town is booming.



The map below shows the places I have slept, prepared by Michael Angerman.  Click on the link below to open an interactive version of the above map, where you can zoom and pan.


11 comments:

  1. Hi Sharon, Thanks for the travel log and photos

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    1. You're welcome, Mary. Glad you're following.

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  2. We had friends from Oklahoma when we lived in Texas for a year at Texas A&M where I studied Shakespeare and "Modern Poetry" ... Wanda and LeVan Watts, Wanda made my three "pregnancy dresses" I have written tanka about, adopting me in those early days and surprising me by sewing one blue one lavender and one wildflower all with lace edges... so if you see Wanda... tell her thank you...

    your adventures continue battling the elements... I am happy to see the smiles from Spanish bikers to cheer you on.

    stay still and covered
    avoid hailstones and tornadoes
    pitfalls and sinkholes
    of life around every corner
    we sail through

    Wavies and smiles from our last day in Japan, we leave for Taiwan tomorrow...

    lovingly, Kathabela and Rick

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    1. Wow, you've given a lot to avoid. The TV tonight adds tennis-ball-size hail moving up to where i am from the southwest.

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  3. Is that a wind
    generator blade
    in your pocket
    or are you
    happy....

    Lois

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    1. Ah Lois, tut-tut, funny-funny, but you are with the bounds of this G-rated, Midwestern blog.

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  4. Anyone for tennis?
    It looks as though the dreaded hailstones are getting smaller - from baseball sized in Northern Texas to tennis ball sized in West-Mid Oklahoma. I think that the Williams sisters swinging at them together would fare no better than Babe Ruth. I hadn't imagined hailstones getting so large. (And you thought kidney stones were bad!) So I calculated, an ice ball the size of a specification baseball weighs about 6.8 ounces, which is about 1-1/3 the mass of a specification baseball. The mass of an ice ball the size of an average tennis ball is about 91% of that, about 6.2 ounces. I believe they fall quite a bit faster than snowflakes. What would be the most effective defense-survival strategy? Stay in bed for this trip, probably. Otherwise, maybe lie face down with your pannier bags covering at least your head, neck and spine. Do you have a defense-survival strategy - other than the default "Hail, Mary"? - pun jubilantly intended!
    Paul, Altadena.

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    1. Paul, your calculations are interesting and descriptive, but last night the effects of those calculations were scary, expensive and deadly. See http://www.koco.com/article/tornado-damage-multiple-injuries-reported-in-elk-city/9664055

      I slept in Elk City the night before last, and the tornado struck Last night. Elk City was partly destroyed last night, and that same powerful storm was heading for me and many others in Weatherford. We heard that elk City was hit, but only sketchy infortmation. We stood in the street last night watching the sky until the power went off, internet went down, and all we heard was a car radio telling us that the storm would just miss Weatherford, passing us on our north side. I went to bed at that point with my clothes on.

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  5. I wish I could hear that waitress talk: she talks about the weather. Baseball-size hail, tornados, severe rain, and flooding roll off her tongue like poems at an open reading. I hope you've escaped safely from such a natural disaster, but if you see a tennis or baseball sized hail, I'd like to see a photo. But please don't go out to take photos in that case,

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    1. I can't imagine such big hail, Keiko. And if I'm ever out in it, imagining stops. They said that in Elk City last night the hail was the size of grapefruit. This morning half the town was gone. And I slept there two nights ago.

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  6. The size of grapefruit! You'll die if you go out to take photos! I saw this your comment after I wrote my comment on your most current blog. So glad you missed the worst! My goodness!!!

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