DAY FOUR MONDAY JULY 11, 2011
On the Windy Plains
Crossing New Mexico, Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma
3 am a huge thunder clap sounded. I heard a torrential downpour going on. I sat up and turned on the light. I gave the roaches a few seconds to hide and
was about to get up to see if the rain was getting to my bike. It was then that I saw the water running into
the room from under the door. I jumped
up to get all my stuff off the floor.
I have many pet peeves… one of them is
wall-to-wall carpet. I refer to it as
socks you never change. Truth is, you
don’t change wall-t-wall carpet, you simply wipe off the top layer… somewhat. When my feet hit the soaked carpet, the grime
of God-knows-what combined with the water streaming under the door made a pool
of what looked like beef bullion come up between my toes.
Gritting my teeth, I grabbed all my
gear and threw it up on the bed I was not sleeping in. I slogged into the bath room, turned on the
lights and allowed all the roach neighbors in the bathroom subdivision to
complain about the sudden light and head back into their hiding places. I rinsed my feet of in the shower, grabbed
some towels from the bathroom and jumped from bed to bed so I could lob towels
at the door. I tossed a chair beside the
door, jumped to it and stuffed the towels into a make shift levee.
I sat cross-legged on the bed and
waited for the rain to slow. I woke up
an hour later to a train whistle that sounded like they had mounted the hideous
thing in the room with me. I think two
of the roaches died due to the volume and surprise, but I couldn’t prove that,
they may have actually drowned hours previous.
Trina complains about the train
whistles in Notasulga. She doesn’t complain
about the decibel level… her complaint
is that they aren’t in tune. Note: don’t
even bother about arguing with a musician about tuning a train whistle unless
you just want to mess with them and get them all riled up. It just isn’t worth it, mostly.
Bleary eyed, I open the curtains to
look out. It was still dark but the rain
had stopped and I decided to mount up and ride. The ride out of Gallup was actually
pretty cold. It had rained most of the
evening and the air was brisk. Sitting
still, the temperature was nice, but at 70mph on a bike was nippy. About 10 miles out on Gallup at 4am I caught
up to the rain. I stopped and got my
rain gear on and decided to find a bridge and take cover until daylight. This was because I didn’t like the pelting
rain and I saw numerous deer crossing warnings.
I think there was a bear crossing warning as well. Running at 70 in the dark and colliding with
a deer, or worse, a bear, seemed like too much excitement. I took the next exit and made a left at the
bottom of the ramp and headed under the ‘bridge’.
The bridge was made out of two very
large box culverts. Not the best place
for a bike to hole up in in the wee hours of Monday morning. I had a vision of a late night bar hopper
driving with blurred vision through the bridge and wondering why there was a
man stuck under his windshield wipers and what was causing that awful metallic
grinding noise under his car. I stomped
in the little river that had formed in the culvert, managed to splashed water up my pants leg, and got back
on the road.
I stopped in a Loves truck stop to wait
out the rain and wait for the sun to come up.
For the record, I do not love
Loves. They have wifi, but it is for sale. I went up to the counter and asked if there
was a free wifi. The woman at the counter had that dull attendant look… will I never learn? I said “Look, there is a McDonalds. THEY have free wifi.”
THAT got her attention “Well, why don’t
you go over there for your free wifey (wifey?)… ohhh, ‘cause they ain’t open,
are they?”
She did that side to
side head bob thing that some women can do while
she said “‘cause they ain’t open, are they?”
(How do they do that?) She spun around with a flourish and went to the
other side of the counter and scowled at me over the 5 hour energy drinks. I wanted to slap her.
Out of spite, I sat there anyway, sans
internet, and wrote on the computer.
The sun came up and McDonalds opened. I walked across the parking lot and into the
McDonalds. I checked the weather, bought
an egg muffin and a coffee and went outside and hoisted the coffee in the direction of Love’s
truck stop. Maybe they saw it, maybe
they didn’t.
The rain cleared up and I hit the road
in western New Mexico.
As I rode along Interstate 40, I
noticed something I hadn’t taken note of before: fences. Up until now, since I had gotten out of the
San Joquine Valley, I had seen no fences, but here, near Grants New Mexico,
were fences. There was also a smell of
hot grass in the air.
On the plains, once again, I could see
for miles and miles. Albuquerque was
coming into view. There is a mountain in
Albuquerque that the interstate runs along, then crosses its skirts. It was near this mountain that there were
rain clouds dropping water on the city.
I stayed on the bike and rode through the city on the interstate. As I was climbing a hill out of Albuquerque,
I went through the rain. It was light
and cool and pleasant. I looked to my
right just as I was clearing the rain and I saw the brightest rainbow I think I
have ever seen.
It is very dangerous riding a
motorcycle and being enamored with the sight of a rainbow in the rear view
mirrors, but it was spectacular. The
morning sun was bright, the clouds to the west were thick and dark and the air
was clean and crisp and clear.
Coming down the hill, just a little way
from Albuquerque, it stopped at a gas station and said hello and good morning
to the gas station attendant just to make him growl. There was bullet proof glass, so I was
safe. After paying for my gas I pulled
around to a McDonalds.
Coming across America and stopping at
McDonalds, I have noticed something… there are a lot of 50+ year old men who
meet at McDonalds in the morning. A
whole bunch, as a matter of fact. There
has to be a place where men can meet and just sit. They don’t always talk, some of them just
come in, get a drink and sit down beside another man and the other 3 of 4 just
nod to each other. No talking required
other than the old man groan them make as the sit down or stand up. If you ask most women, this whole concept of
interaction is like behavior from another planet.
That said, my wife could walk around
nearly all day with a phone attached to her ear and either say nothing, or just
shoot the breeze with no objective in mind at all. The fact that sitting without uttering a word
in person is abnormal, but listening to a person breath over the phone is
perfectly normal makes no sense at all to me.
These men, all across America, who can
either sit and talk, or sit and breathe are a great comfort to me… it means
that there IS something in our land which unites us. It’s McDonalds.
Well, actually, it is the fact that we
share the same dreams and the same loves as each other. Black, white, Hispanic, Indian… we all want
the comfort of friendship and the safety of being accepted no matter what.
A pastor friend of mine named Craig
used to say that we all come to the checkout counter the same way… we tally our
stuff, which are our desires, and we have a moment of expectation until we see
that word “APPROVED”. We all cringe at
the word “DENIED”. Even Bill Gates would feel
smaller if he was denied. We want
acceptance in our home, work, church, and in McDonalds over a cup of coffee. These men don’t need words, or group
hugs. They need to see that they are
seen and welcomed without fanfare or swiping some silly magnetic strip.
I talked with these men in Albuquerque
for about a half hour. No names, just
men. One of them warned me that the exit
in Memphis which gets you to Birmingham is hard to see and doesn’t seem like it
was a major route to a significant city.
I’m glad he warned me because on day five, he was right. They warned me that the heat would really set
in at Santa Rosa NM and I would be in that heat from there out.
From here out I was in a mood to make
some major miles. I had a goal of
getting home and as I looked at the temps on the US map, it looked pretty grim
in Texas and Oklahoma. I was thinking
about that heat as I rode through New Mexico.
The land is pretty flat in NM. The surface of the land is rolling with occasional
spires of rock towering out to cast long, thin shadows in the grass.
As I passed Santa Rosa, it wasn’t that
I felt hotter, but I felt wetter. In the
desert, the moisture evaporated quickly, but here in East New Mexico there was
just enough humidity keep some sweat on me.
About 30 miles east of Santa Rosa I
stopped at a station. I needed to eat
some and rest. As I sat on the curb in
the station and drank some water and ate granola, a beat up Mercedes pulled
up. There were three young people in the
cabin of the car along with a good portion of Fred Sanford’s inventory. Two girls piled out of the front seats. One was wearing a tank top with camo cutoffs
and army boots. The tank top didn’t
really do too much for modesty, but then again one look was enough for me. Her hair was in dreads and was previously
colored something, but was now washed out.
She had odd sun-dial looking tats and some tribal ink plus those small
of the back tats. She did not look
happy. The other girl was wearing khaki
shorts over fishnet leggings with a tank and a plaid shirt over top and suede
looking boots. She was pierced and inked
in mainly druidic looking symbols that reminded me of the hex signs in
Pennsylvania.
What struck me about them most was the
look in their eyes: they looked angry and ready to make a scene. They rounded the car and headed for me. I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with
these two. They were unshaven and, it turns out, unwashed, or at least sans
deodorant. There was an additional
prevailing odor I couldn’t place at first.
The slouched against the build a few
feet from me and the army boot girl pulled a few markers out of her boots while
the fishnet girl dropped some cardboard on the ground between them. They started to stare. I ate my granola and
sipped water. There had been a stand
where I bought so veggies and I pulled out some carrots and an apple. They glared louder.
I knew they saw my inventory of them:
arm pit hair, obvious life style brandings all over them and they were traveling
in a car… they were likely in a relationship together, or they were daring
people to say something so they could pounce… I think they were pouncers.
I looked back to their car and the
third person in the triad was spread out over the junk in the back seats. I thought it might be a guy, but I turned and
looked at the girl and decided that opinion was premature. Whoever it was had been asleep all this time
with their head tilted back and mouth wide open. It was a very large mouth. Judging by the amount of arm pit hair and the
shadow on the chin and neck, I was getting closer to pronouncing the third a
male, but not to be hasty.
I reached in my pack and pulled out the
third course: beef jerky, teriyaki flavor.
Fishnet girl made a noise and army boot girl was placing her finger in
her mouth. I ripped of a really big
piece and made a point of smacking as I chewed.
It turns out that Number Three was
male… tall, lanky, smelly, hair all in knots wearing Birkenstocks and tatty
khakis. He scratched in places you
shouldn’t in public and went to the trunk of the car and pulled out plastic
jugs. The smell was fryer oil. They were burning cooking oil in the
Mercedes. The cardboard was a sign
asking for oil or work. I wondered some
at their story, but not enough to risk the encounter.
The boy didn’t look angry… why is it
that when girls go bad they can scare the water out of you? Mean girls are tougher than the tough boys
for sure.
Back on the road I felt a renewed
determination to get some miles done. I
tucked in behind a truck and twisted the throttle. The miles churned by as the lands changed to
more and more grass and some scrub oak style trees. The air smelled more and more like
agriculture has been here. Just shy of
the Texas border I stopped at a gas station and called home. Rae was home and I let her know where I was.
I crossed the border into Texas and my
resolve to be home grew. The roads are
concrete there and the sun glared up off the road painfully. I felt the beginnings of a terrible headache
coming on. I stopped and put on
sunglasses in addition to my shaded inside visor on the helmet.
I was about an hour into Texas when I
saw a strange thing: there was a truck with what looked like an airplane wing
which was slightly twisted. I thought it
might have been a propeller of some sort, but of what sort, I had no idea. I was musing about the propeller when I saw a
bunch of people walking out into a field.
They were in a line walking out into the field and raising dust as they
went. I craned my neck over and saw a bunch of cars planted out in the field.
When you see pictures of the Cadillac
ranch, it looks better as a picture. I
doubled back and stopped to gawk. To be
honest, I wasn’t impressed. I got back
on the road and passed through Amarillo.
Just on the east side of town near what looks like a defunct store are
eight or so Volkswagon beetles planted nose down. Now, after seeing the caddies, the bug ranch
was funnier to me.
The lands in Texas were almost
completely fenced and had the look of well-established agriculture. Cattle farming seemed to be the biggest aggie
industry in this part of Texas. This
wasn’t the case with Nevada, Arizona, and less so in New Mexico. The land was flat and gently rolling. It was dotted with dark green scrub oak and
stunted piney looking trees. It wasn’t a
land that seemed hospitable to life, but it didn’t seem to hate it either. Over-all, it was a reasonably pleasant place,
if it were not for the heat.
The temperatures had climbed into the upper
90’s by noon and seemed to be planning on triple digits by late afternoon. It was, as Trina puts it “Africa Hot’. I had planned on staying on the US highways
as much as possible. There were signs
advertising Route 66 all along this highway.
As the air heated and grew more humid I decided the trip had become a
quest to return and not to discover.
I noticed more of the odd propellers as
a traveled East. I saw one pulled off
the interstate on a side road and I got off the interstate and back tracked to
it. The base had to have been 4 feet in
diameter and about 65 feet long. I
didn’t stay long enough beside the propeller to ask what it was for. But my interest was peeked.
I stopped at Shamrock to rest. The winds coming off the plain were beginning
to become punishing. They had to have
been 15mph to 30 mph coming at a 45 degree angle to the bike. The wind whipped my head back and forth and
beat against by chest like King Kong beating his chest. As I came up on a semi, it would shield the
wind, but as I rounded the front of the big rigs, the wind combined with the
wall of wind bouncing off the front of the truck was really exciting.
As I made my way into Oklahoma, the
wind grew in intensity. As I clung to
the bike behind a big truck with a nearly reflective back door, I could see my
reflection. The bike was tilted at about
a 10 degree list. The effect of the wind
was like being in a constant turn to the right.
The wind was beating on my helmet, tiring my neck and back, it was
buffeting my torso causing my arms and abdomen to work hard to keep my seat,
and my legs and arms and back were getting a workout in an effort to hold the
bike at the right angle to keep moving in a straight line.
About the time I was wondering how long
this wind would last, I saw the first of the wind farms in Oklahoma. Tall, stately poles rose out of the prairie
grass. Each pole had a three fingered turbine turning lazily at its top. The poles stretched out as far as the eye
could see. I realized that the
propellers I was seeing on the trucks were for these turbines… the height of
the pole had to be at least 150 feet.
The total diameter of the turbine with propeller was about 130 feet.
My heart sunk because I realized that
the wind I was riding into was no fluke or a random wind storm. For this many turbines to be operating, this
HAD to be a regular weather pattern… it was windy.
By the time I realized what I was in
for, it was too late to change. I was on
I 40, and that was that. The winds
increased to a level I found hard to believe.
I stopped at a gas station and a man in a minivan looked at me and said,
“Nasty wind, isn’t it?”
He had Missouri plates on the
back. “Sure is. I feel like Rocky Balboa at the end of the
movie. I’ve been sluggin it out the last
4 hours.” I looked at the van, “I
imagine the wind pushes that around as well.”
“It does, but the worst is the wind
around the tractor trailers.” He looked back at the highway, “wish I had picked
another way to go.”
“Me too.” I finished gassing up, “I’d
warn any biker about riding through this part of the country… is it any better
north or south of here.”
He shrugged “Can it be any worse?” Point.
I still think that, had I to do it
over, I either would have set more time aside so I could ride on US highways at
55mph, or go far enough north or south to be out of the cross winds. The interstate speed being 65, the wind was
vicious mean, but slowing down below 65 was dangerous due to the barreling
traffic intent on speeds in excess of 70.
Slowing to 55 had another draw back: my seat, the one permanently
attached to my bones, was feeling the miles and another 3 days may have left me
with a lifelong limp. So interstate it
is.
On the Interstate it didn’t seem to
matter if I went 70mph or 80mph, the wind was going to beat me sore no matter
my speed. I grit my teeth and pushed her
up to 80 and hung on. The wind eased up
about 30 minutes west of Oklahoma City so I decided to stop. There was a man on a Suzuki Intruder. We talked bikes and he tried to get me to
ride on Route 66 instead of the interstate.
It might have been more comfortable, but I was ready to be home. Oklahoma was a vast and solid country, but I
was less interested in learning the land than making time and miles.
One of the striking things about Oklahoma
are the cattle farms. Some of them have pens
close up against the interstate. I think
some of the pens I saw were holding pens for the slaughter house. The smell was truly… memorable… nervous cows
all packed into an area too small to break down the manure. Here is the cost of our diet and survival…
animal life packed in tight, set in line for death and butchering.
I looked at the maps and watched him
the guy I was talking to ride off on his Suzuki and I decided that the quicker
I was home, the better. I saw how close Oklahoma City was and decided that Fort
Smith was within my reach. It was about
200 miles away. I looked at my cell
phone and it was 5:30… I could make Fort Smith by 8:00. If I did that, I would have made 825 miles in
a day. That left me 700+ miles the nest
day and I was off the bike and in my house.
There is a ‘club’ called the iron butt
club. If you register the ride before
you leave and can document your trip and map 1000 miles in a day, you get a
patch. Not a very good deal, in my
opinion… having come within 175 miles of the 1000, I really don’t think it is
worth it.
I pushed on through Oklahoma City and
watched my shadow grow long in front of me as the sun went down. I approached Lake Eufaula at sunset. There is a zone that surrounds a lake. It is hot and incredibly humid within about a
quarter mile of the water, but you break the shoreline and get on a bridge over
the water and the temperature drops quickly.
I crossed the bridge over lake dreading the other side, rode through the
sticky heat and saw the signs for Checotah Oklahoma… this is the end of the
road for me tonight. Google Maps said I
traveled 794 miles in one day… my odometer said 825. What a day.
I pulled into a truck stop with a
motel. I got a room in the back right
hand corner of the L shaped motel. The
room was amazingly hot. I got all my gear inside and turned on the AC. I decided to try my luck at dinner in town. I found a Sonic not too far away and had a
chicken wrap and watched the martins catch bugs out over a field lite by a
purple sky. There were some high school
kids hanging out at the Sonic. I
listened to the drama of adolescence for awhile, then cleaned up my table and
headed back to the Motel.
The room had cooled down. I showered and hardly remember getting into
bed. The sound of trucks revving up woke
me in the morning.
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