After yesterday night’s failure, we both finally managed a wonderful sleep, woke only by songbirds singing a most wonderful tune from the branches… actually no, while the sleep was wonderful it was the horn of a passing locomotive that woke us. While there are a few birds around I think they are all mute.
We breakfast on burritos. Not the breakfast variety, but the leftover from last night variety. They weren’t that great last night, so this morning we had to convince ourselves they were required fuel and do our best to keep them down.
As Route 66 literally passes the front door of the Motor Inn and Chelsea is very small we were back into open country within 3 minutes of setting off.
While it looked like the wind might have died down when we observed the trees across the road from behind the curtain earlier, now that we were outside it seems if anything it was a little stronger than yesterday.
As we had fifty miles to cycle today a new tactic was in order over that adopted yesterday, which was basically cycle without any tactic. Remembering the way the professional lycra-clad teams operate, I pushed out in front and Deborah took up position in my slipstream. I would like to add that I use the word slipstream loosely. More the way it is less windy on a windy day when you cycle the other side of a wall, albeit in this instance a slowly moving wall.
We/ I also decided to try to break the day down into manageable blocks, stopping only at each 10 miles interval or service areas that likely sells unnaturally brightly coloured brain freezing beverages, whichever came first. Unfortunately for us, the first two stops were due to reaching the ten-mile marker, so the third stop was well overdue when it came.
The road was again quiet with wide hard shoulders for much of the day. There was very little to confirm we were even cycling Route 66 until we arrived in the town of Catoosa and the sight of its famous Blue Whale.
We pulled over for photoshoot, as we have done for most of the Route 66 roadside attractions we have passed. On closer inspection, it was immediately obvious that what was once a big attraction Route 66 had clearly seen better days. Whereas the attractions appear to be maintained, the Blue Whale appears to be on its last legs, if indeed whales had legs.
It seemed the whale had originally been created as a platform from which to launch oneself into the pond that surrounded it, with slides and ladders built into the whale’s sides. While the slides were still open, there was no need for signs to discourage visitors from sliding down them into the murky muddy water below. While it was very hot, topping out at 35oC, I certainly didn’t have even the remotest urge to jump in, leaving the turtles that seemed to be enjoying the tranquillity of the setting to it.
Shortly after leaving the Catoosa, we turned off the main road, taking a more scenic route along a narrow two-lane country road through a corridor of trees and hedges. This blocked some of the wind but added to the intensity of the heat from the sun.
After an hour or so the trees and hedge began to be replaced by industrial units until we were on the outskirts of the city of Tulsa. The route that the Garmin had come up with through the outskirts of the city and to our Warmshowers hosts for the night was industrial. At this point, I’m not sure if we were even still on Route 66 or not. As the traffic intensified on what was a narrow road without a hard shoulder, the road surface deteriorated.
One misjudged attempt to navigate around a muddle of small holes and my front wheel went into a large deep hole, hitting with such force I would likely have broken the front fork on a cheap road bike. A minute later and my front wheel started to feel a little bouncier than usual with steering becoming sloppy… puncture number two of the trip.
With the inner tube replaced without finding anything obvious in the tyre that might have caused the deflation, which is always a little disconcerting, we cycled the last 6 miles to our home for the night, literally a block or so from Route 66.
Becky and Robert had informed us they would be out at the State Fair when we arrived and to let ourselves in, which we did.
Their home is amazing and again demonstrates how kind and generous people can be toward complete strangers. As Becky and Robert would likely not be back until 10 pm we quickly took a shower, finding the shower room by following a trail of post-it breadcrumbs.
We had a wander around an area of town within easy walking distance that was dominated by large office blocks and larger churches and cathedrals, very larger churches and cathedrals.
The streets were in the main devoid of people apart from the odd dog walker, jogger or homeless person, which for a godly centre of such magnificent town sad to see. Due to the lack of people walking around the area at 6 pm, the homeless accounted for a noticeably disproportionate percentage of those Tulsa residents encountered on our mission to find food.
There wasn’t a great deal of choice of eating establishments that were open, guessing many of them likely only catered for office workers during work hours, but a Mexican restaurant that we stumbled upon looked good and had been recommended by Becky in a previous communication, so we went in.
The food was amazing and to sit at a table, in a chair and use real knives and forks was a pleasure.
With our bodies fuelled up on something that was actually pleasurable to eat, we took the scenic route back to the house. Within 10 minutes of finding our way back, Becky and Robert arrived home.
A lovely couple that appears to host man cyclists from all corners of the world, with plenty of stories to match. We talked in the kitchen for a while about the two subjects that we promised ourselves to stay clear of, religion and politics. However, as it was clear we all shared the same views on both the risk of being thrown out on to the street at 10 pm was small.
As Robert has a very early start in the morning we said our goodnights and headed to bed for a well-earned rest.
Bob,
Your tyre..tire deflation was caused by a pinch due to hitting the hole. Sometimes called a snake bite because it kind of looks like that, but nothing punctured the tire.
Larry
Happy Trails 😉😉
Possible, but I also got a spike through. That would explain the deflation after hitting the hole, but not the overnight deflation of a new inner tube. All holes patched now and everything appears to be okay, but I may pick up a couple of more inner tubes before we cross New Mexican and Arizona, just to be on the safe side.