Oklahoma Freewheel - Day 3 (tuesday, June 14)

Today we went 78 miles and crossed I40, which divides Oklahoma in half north and south.

Crossing under I-40 near Henryetta

This was a great day to ride, as it was overcast and so never got hot. We left a bit earlier - around 6:15 and made great time. My average was 17.1 mph, the fastest I had ever averaged.


The route was mostly West to East from Wewoka to Checotah, via Wetumka, Weleetka and Henryetta. Kinda scary when Henryetta sounds like the big city. And it is, because it had a Wal-Mart and a McDonald's. But then it also had this lovely institution - the House of Overalls, which was doing a booming business.

In one of the smaller towns - population under 1000, I met an interesting guy at the convenience store, where our 800+ riders descended like locusts and sucked them clean of ice and food. The guy was dipping scoal and worked at the pharmacy down the road. He was really excited by having all these people come through his town and double its population for a few hours.

We rolled into Henryetta at about 10 a.m. There were about 12 of us who headed into the Subway for "lunch". (We had ridden 40 miles after all and had breakfast at 6 a.m.). There was one poor girl working at the Subway that Tuesday morning which shall forever be known as Black Tuesday. She was taking orders, making sandwiches, checking us out. And amazingly fast. She HAD called a coworker in and a bit later they reduced the Red Alert to just a yellow alert. By then there were 25 cyclists at the Subway. Side note: there were only about 2 bikes parked at the McDonald's across the street.

At the Subway, I ran back into my friend Kevin whom I had not seen for 24 hours since we got separated on the road.

my "non tent". resting the legs in the cool breeze and shade. 

Kevin's tent and bike

Another 38 miles later, we pulled into Checotah, home of Carrie Underwood. What a great host city. They were handing us free bottles of water and bananas. Kevin and Josh and I found a great place under the high school football bleachers for our gear.

Or at least it seemed like a great place until about 8 pm when they said a severe thunderstorm was on the way.

storm on the way

Someone I had just met offered me a place in his tent should the storm hit and it DID at 9 pm. I took refuge in Kenny's family-sized tent.
After about 20 minutes, the storm became really strong. The front of the tent was being blown parallel with the ground and so we had to sit and push it up. Eventually we were STANDING in the tent, holding up the front wall like human tent posts. After thirty minutes or so, it stopped and we discovered the tent was ripped and irreparable. They told us winds would continue from 11 pm to 1 a.m. of 60 mph (100 kph). if you are not from Oklahoma, this IS possible. We should take cover.

So I moved into the high school weight lifting room and had a very short night which made for an even LONGER day the next day.