Today's ride was 72 miles, after going 108(.7) on Monday and 96 yesterday. They left an hour later (to them) than usual due to the time change; it felt like 8 am. I kept clarifying that they didn't REALLY leave an hour later, it was still 7 am, that THEY had just gained an hour, but the point is they enjoyed the extra sleep. Today was quite flat, but they had a very stiff wind coming from the north that was blowing in their faces all day (fun; we all know by now that tailwinds = very good and headwinds = very bad). The road's surface was also rough, so today's average speed was a paltry 10.8 miles.
He described the landscape they left (in Tucumcari, NM, which is kind of fun to say out loud) as "scab land," which he defined as desert-y scab land. Aren't you not supposed to use the word you're defining when defining it? Anyway, I didn't get the impression that it was a compliment to the landscape. The landscape changed throughout the day to "greener stuff" as they moved further north. They came across some irrigation systems - well water and circular sprinklers - and he said the area looked a lot like eastern Colorado except that there were even fewer dwellings. The landscape turned quite green and they could see wheat and new corn growing (I hope OUR wheat and corn are growing...), and there were "nice little white clouds in the big blue sky." He also noted that the sky came right down to the horizon. As I suppose the sky often does. I think the point was that there weren't a multitude of buildings between the sky and horizon. "We were in Big Sky country!"As they rolled along, pedaling their little hearts out, they could see the grain elevators for each town from 12-15 miles away. Which was really kind of depressing, because they were pedaling furiously into the wind, not going all that fast, and those dang grain elevators weren't really getting any bigger. I think grain elevators lost a bit of their charm for him today. He sounded bitter.
The first SAG stop (30 miles in) had, of course, a Dairy Queen. He went into the tour looking forward to the DQs, and they're really coming through for him. At this point he was considering getting in the van and taking a break - his arm, elbow, and hand on one side were really hurting him. But after he had "the biggest sandwich they had to offer" (essentially a quadruple burger) and a big cup of coffee his arm felt much better, so he decided that he would at least ride the next 20 miles to the Oklahoma state line.
So he made it to the state line. At that point he was riding by himself because his fellow Pile Drivers were going a bit faster than him today. He was taking it easy with his arm pain, and told them to go on ahead since he wasn't sure whether or not he would end up hopping a ride in the van later. When he got to the next SAG stop, he had some more food. (because hey, why not? No one's gaining weight on this trip! We don't want Gil wasting away.) At that point he figured it was only another 20 miles to Guymon, OK, so he rode on. He caught up with another rider (Harry, "a pretty good friend") and they rode together for the last 20 miles. Or 19 miles, because...As they came into town, just a mile from the hotel, he saw a pawn shop and an antique store! Sitting right next to each other! It was clearly destiny. Meant to be. So he just had to go in. He wound up buying a black powder cowboy pistol. It's about/at least 50 years old, and doesn't work without black powder and a bullet. (I feel I could have figured out that the gun doesn't work without a bullet without Dad telling me, but there you have it.) He says it was very reasonably priced (I didn't ask him to define "reasonable"), and has a wooden handle and brass trigger-guard. Even came with a cool Old West holster! (Great. My father has a holster and a complicated-to-use gun. This bodes well.) "A great old western gun" and a great memento of the west. It's his treat to himself. His brother-in-law "Ted will just love it!" The guy he bought it from said that it would operate if he got powder, but he's not so sure. In any event, it looks real nice. The dealer said that registration rules don't apply to black powder weapons, but he'll check on that before shipping it home - it's about 5 lbs, and he's really exceeding his 30 lb luggage limit with it. Mom is of course thrilled to have another gun in the house. She got home while we were on the phone and I went, "guess what Dad bought?" and he kind of interjected from the phone "uh, I'm kinda worried about how she'll feel about this..." But she's a champ and had no objections (so long as he figures out the legalities and keeps any black powder really far away from the gun itself) and told him he deserved to treat himself. She seems to have fewer objections to things when they're already a done deal. He seemed a bit relieved. The last time he was that concerned about her reaction to a new toy it was a kitten that he'd already brought home. See Mom, you shoulda let him get another cat!
He's real pleased that he made the whole ride today. His arm and hands felt fine the moment he got off the bike; he thinks the lousy road surface yesterday plus some of the same today plus gripping the bike much harder with the strong headwind just put too much pressure and vibration on his arms. He explained that you have to grip and hang onto the bike much harder when the wind's blowing so hard (makes sense to me), and then to top it off big cattle
trucks would come along from the opposite direction - their pressure wave runs ahead of the truck, and would hit them at the same time they already had a headwind. "Sometimes it was a bit much." Everybody struggled today and a lot of people took hops in the van. "But not your dad! He just kept his head down and kept pedaling." Until he lashed out by purchasing a firearm, at least.A/V news: He of course got a picture at the Oklahoma state line, which was around the 50ish mile mark. He also videotaped an interview with a rancher and his son at DQ. Everybody at the DQ was real interested in what the heck was going on with these riders. They were in the little town of somewhere phonetically similar to Stockton, TX (which isn't quite right, because google maps doesn't know what I'm talking about, and google knows all things), in real cattle/ranching/farm country, then all these (I would assume disheveled and a little smelly) cyclists in weird clothes showed up. "We were really out of place." So they all got to talking, and everybody was "most friendly and nice." He handed out the blog site (no pressure there) - hey, if any of you are reading, what town was he in? Stratford, as my map suggests? Seriously, comment and let me know. - and they had a nice time exchanging stories. He overheard some of a local group talking about ranching, and kind of got into talking about that then asked one of the ranchers and his son if they'd mind him whipping out his (RJ's) trusty video camera. He asked about their ranch; they're growing about 1,000 acres of wheat and have 20,000 other acres for cattle. The rancher came into the land through his father, who inherited it from his father before him. The son wasn't in school because they had a day off (Memorial Day Week?). So he enjoyed that diversion. I make friends in airports, Dad makes friends in local establishments while traveling.
Guymon, OK (where they're staying tonight) is fairly nice. They have a Radio Shack and Walmart, and the nice hotel has an outdoor pool with some set-up shade and snacks, so keep these important criteria in mind next time Gil tells you somewhere is "nice." His impression may or may not be based on any more than these factors. Certainly beats Dalhart, though! They had their Road RAP in the shade with the snacks, then moved to the hotel restaurant, which was very nice - a huge buffet with good food, which Gil had three plates of.
Tomorrow they get into Kansas, "which will be kinda cool." There's a fair amount of anxiety among the group in terms of the fact that they're moving into bad weather (ie tornado country). They've all been given directions in terms of what to do during lightening, etc, and CrossRoads can cancel a day's ride if they think it's too dangerous. Their concern is mostly more generalized than worrying about specific weather phenomena - Kansas has been hit with a lot of bad weather recently, and they're spending quite a bit of time there. They're in Kansas until they move into Missouri next Thursday, so they'll spend 7.5 days going across it. He thinks they have more miles in Kansas than any other state. Looking at the map, the only state with comparable mileage (based on me looking at the line, not adding numbers - what do you want from me, it's after 1 am) is New York. The good news is that tomorrow is a VERY easy day - just 40 miles and virtually no elevation change. (Hopefully they won't have another headwind.) They get to start two hours later than usual, at 9 am, and it's viewed as kind of a recovery day for everybody. Been a hard week so far, and they don't have another rest day until next Tuesday in Abilene, KS (nine days after their last rest day in Santa Fe, which I still love to type).
Pictures for today will be added when I get them [added mid-Thursday]. He also promised to send along pictures of the endless cattle from yesterday, and apologized for ripping me off yesterday. [Edit: It appears that I'm an idiot and he DID send a picture of endless cattle. It's with that paragraph of yesterday's post, and appears to just be bland land until you enlarge it (click on it) - that darker "grass" on the left is nonstop cattle, standing room only. But hey, none of you noticed either - or if you did, you didn't speak up - so I won't feel too badly about it.]
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