Okay, so clearly we were tired as I am sure our partying motel neighbours didn’t turn the music off as soon as our heads hit the pillow, but that is when it stopped for us both.
We decided for a late morning start as we both had Britsail and personal admin to catch up on… well, that’s our excuse and we are sticking with it.
We finally checkout out of the motel at 10:40 am. Not the best motel we have stayed as they had run out of body wash and shampoo last week and ice this morning, so we set off with matted hair and warm drinking water. When I was checking out a chap walked up to reception complaining that his microwave didn’t work and ask for a replacement. The receptionist told him there were no spares and if he needed one he should go buy one… it was that sort of establishment.
We didn’t really have a destination to aim for today. The only consideration was that tomorrow night we will be staying with a Warmshowers host in Claremore, so the further we cycle today of the 110 total distance the shorter the cycle tomorrow.
We didn’t get far along the road before pulling over to stock up at a Wal-Mart. By the time we really hit the road, it was almost 11:30 am, so not looking good for making a reasonable dent today in the mileage we need to cover over the next two days.
Thankfully, while the road was quite busy it was as flat as a slightly wobbly pancake with chocolate chip sprinkles, which made for reasonably fast progress. Having to avoid the chocolate chips sprinkles was the only hurdle to achieving even greater speeds as they, unfortunately, were of the sharp and pointy variety.
It wasn’t long before we were at the state line, leaving Missouri and crossing over into Kansas, our fourth state (again, if you count stepping foot in Indiana way back on our first day).
Kanas only has about 15 miles of Route 66, but they certainly made the most of it. While it took a couple of miles to get into the swing of it, once the swinging started it didn’t stop until we reached the state line.
The Kansas town of Galena certainly went for it as far as Route 66 goes, it is one of only three Kansas towns on the route, Riverton and Baxter Springs being the other two. While most of the attractions were worth the time to stop and get off the bikes, the Minions made from strawbales on every corner of every street will remain a mystery. I might have asked someone the relevance given the chance, but it was a ghost town. We counted seeing 6 people in the 30 minutes we spent passing through it. Maybe the residents were all dressed as strawbale Minions and spend all day still on street corners. We will never know.
Within an hour of leaving Galena, we were through Riverton and Baxter Springs, finding ourselves standing at the state line between Kansas and Oklahoma. Both Riverton and Baxter Springs were the grown-up brothers to little sister Galena that loves to dress up in sparkly dresses, but still, they seemed proud of their Route 66 heritage.
Crossing into Oklahoma also had us entering Quapaw tribal land. On the face of it Quapaw seemed no different to other small towns that we had passed through, just maybe a little poorer.
From Quapaw, we cycled on through the town of Commerce, which had a few Route 66 attractions worthy of a dismount, before heading into the Miami tribal lands and on to the town of Miami itself, although not the one you are thinking of when you hear the name.
Upon entering Miami we pulled off the road to a Wal-Mart, noting that this is becoming a regular occurrence. We bought a backup dinner of nachos and a layered tub of nachos dip. I use the words ‘backup dinner’ knowing all too well it will likely become dinner (it did).
We also took a minute or three out to consider out options for a bed for the night. With no Warmshowers hosts or campgrounds, the options were finding a hotel or stealth camping. We flipped a coin to help decide which it would be, with heads being a hotel and tails being a hotel. A hotel won through, so we set a course on Google Maps to the area of the town that most hotels appear to hang out.
After 30 minutes of cycling through the centre of Miami, with the Garmin insisting that we make a u-turn at every crossroads, we arrived at a spot between two hotels, separated by a busy road. With the Days Inn on our side of the road and the Microtel on the other, both I hastened to add ‘by Wyndham’. We consulted the oracle that is booking.com to decide by review. $5 more expensive we threw caution to the wind and chose to brave the traffic and cross over to the Microtel.
We checked in once we confirmed our steads would be allowed to stay with us in the room. A quick bite to eat and we headed along the corridor to the other reason for choosing the Microtel over the Days Inn… the indoor pool.
After a swim and a soak in the hot tub, we are back in the room for more food, more admin and a sizeable helping of chill out.
Deborah has finally calculated tomorrows route at 70 miles, so a good night sleep and an early start are required. The Microtel also comes with free hot breakfast, so plenty of opportunities to take on the fuel for a long day without the need to find a Wal-Mart in the morning.
An interesting day and certainly a big ride tomorrow. Hope all goes well.
Didn’t quite make it due to the relentless head wind, so a longer day tomorrow to make up for it. We will be sleeping in Tulsa tomorrow for sure.