Day 1 — Stillwater to Pawhuska, OK or Deja twos

Monday, April 16, 2012

Today I ride Memory Miles for the following individuals who are missing from our lives but not from our fond memories. Thank you all for your mile donations for these individuals:

· Bill Burke, Sr., a likable but crotchety curmudgeon who began cycling in his mid 60s and for years rallied Red Dirt Pedalers to PreWheel & FreeWheel, wind rides, weekend tee-shirt rides, and our winter centuries and Saturday morning rides (always with a café break before the return). For several years, Bill and I rode together nearly every day after work. I miss the old devil.

· Mary Ellen Cooper, Mary Cooper Cash’s, mother, famous as M.E. Cooper, a writer of mysteries and true crime stories; her daughter, Mary Cooper Cash, owns Cooper’s Bicycle Center, a Bronze Sponsor of my ride

· Larry E. Hamby, RDP Carl Hamby’s father and a resident of Pawhuska since the late ‘70s. While in Pawhuska, Larry worked as a petroleum engineer for the Bureau of Indian Affairs until his retirement in 1990

· William G. “Bill” Luce, retired OSU Extension Swine Specialist and amiable Red Dirt Pedaler who was felled by a stroke while exercising at Total Rehab. Bill lived the rest of his life in a nursing home and died just a few days ago on April 3, 2012. My condolences to his wife Nancy and to their four sons, Harmon, Bowie, Glenn, and Bryan.

· Bonnie Mussett, Kevin Mussett’s many-talented and plucky mom, and a woman whom I had the pleasure to know

· Joshua Raymond, Red Dirt Pedalers Terry & Cindi Raymond’s son. Terry writes: “He was a great son and is greatly missed. We know we will see him someday in the future!”

· Florence Wass, dear friend and fellow Audubon member and birder who loved Oklahoma and would have been thrilled to follow my ride east.

Despite the weekend storm and tornadoes, the day dawned sunny, so B.O.B and I left on our great adventure at first light . . . or intended to. I didn’t actually get started until 7:15 or so. At 6:30 Valerie calls: “Where are you?” She has been at the end of the lane since 6 a.m. wanting to get a photo of me starting out (below).

Leaving my drive in a blur of speed at 7:15 a.m. April 16th

The first 23 miles of my route to Hwy 99 N are familiar because I’ve used this route for training rides. The first town I ride through, Yale, OK, should really be called Hole, OK, I think, because it rests at the bottom of a V. Part way up the east side of the V, I passed God’s Garage (photo below). God’s Garage, an old filling station, has become part of the Church of God behind it. Each Saturday the Church conducts a God’s Garage Sale. Here one might expect to find white robes, halos, used pearly gates, clouds, and many more heavenly items.

Took this photo (see me reflected in the window) on an Easter Sunday training ride, hence the puny B.O.B. bag

Jim Thorpe lived in Yale from 1917 to 1923. At the top of the hill out of Yale is Jim Thorpe Park and the Jim Thorpe House. As well as the Rice/Kirby cabin the oldest known homestead in Payne county.

Took the above two pix on Easter Sunday when I was still carrying 25 pounds of  birdseed in B.O.B. Should have been carrying 50 pounds of birdseed to make the training more realistic.

Here I met Kathy Legako, a friend and RDP club member, who had donated her time to sagging me today. She passed me as I was dragging B.O.B. — who is overloaded and weighs 53 pounds — up the last portion of the hill. All the while I am thinking, “Why am I beating myself up on the one day that I have SAG support?" When I got to the top and the Jim Thorpe house, I loaded B.O.B into Kathy’s Avalanche pickup. He had dragged his (w)heel a mere 13 miles.



Kathy waiting before the Jim Thorpe house

As I was leaving the JT house, my chain came off when I tried to shift out of “Granny Gear,” which I’d needed on the hill. Took a moment, and then I was on the road again. Some time after we turned north on Hwy 99, I woke up Granny again to help me up a steep hill. She stuttered and stammered. More ragged shifting. When we reached Wynona, 9 miles south of Pawhuska, we stopped in a little café, and Kathy treated me to a sandwich. She is a very good SAGtress: "Ice water? Cold banana?  Do you want my chicken sandwich?  It’s more filling than your BLT, and you need to keep your strength up." Kathy should have been an athletic trainer instead of a computer whiz.

 All of Osage County

Vast ranches on today's route. Many of the fields filled with great numbers of horses--hundreds. Later that evening Mary Kay told me that these were mustangs from out west and that the government is paying the ranchers $1.38 a horse per day. No one can "adopt" or buy these horses. At this government pay rate, ranchers are switching away from cattle to being a retirement community for mustangs. I looked this up and found a good Tulsa World article about the practice. Here's a bit from the article:

• The Bureau of Land Management has contracted with 16 privately owned ranches across the Midwest, nine of them between Tulsa and the Kansas state line. The bureau will add three more ranches in Oklahoma next year.
• The Drummond Ranch alone keeps 3,400 horses, receiving an average of $1.30 per head, per day.
• That adds up to $1.6 million a year.
• In total, the bureau has placed more than 28,000 horses into "long-term holding," paying more than $13.2 million a year.

Mustangs on a ranch near Pawhuska

While in Wynona, I called Mary Cash, owner of Cooper's Bicycle Center to ask about bike shops in the area. There were n-o-n-e.  After Mary had us check this and that, we discovered that the derailleur was misaligned and the alignment too complex to tell us how to fix on the road. So . . . I called Mary Kay Warren, Mary’s Cash’s cousin with whom I would spend the night. Could we drop the trailer at her house? She was agreeable, so we dropped B.O.B. and headed in the truck for Stillwater via Ponca City, a longer but faster drive. Long story short-er, we got the bike fixed, Kathy switched the truck for a car that got better mileage, and we drove back to Wynona where Kathy dropped me so that I could pedal the 9 final miles to Pawhuska.

Leaving Wynona sans B.O.B. for the final 9 miles to Pawhuska.

I started out and the going was tough! I had no energy to get even the trailerless bike up hills. Had I sat in the car too long? Were my muscles fried? I was too proud to call Kathy, but my mind circled around the feasibility of this ride. If I was this weak . . . .  After four torturous miles, I discovered that the front brake was closed on the rim! DUH-UH! This because of the way Kathy’s bike rack works and my failure to run through the ABC's (air, brakes, chain). I centered the brake and sailed off.

Whew! What a day. The whole thing took until 7 pm. Kathy was planning to stay overnight with her mother–in-law Juanita Hamby, and we discovered that Juanita lived only a few blocks from Mary Kay. The four of us ended up having a fab home-cooked chicken dinner at Juanita’s. Thank you Juanita! R.A.K. (Random Act of Kindness) #1.

Didn’t get back to Mary Kay’s and showered until 9:30 p.m., so called it a day. Don’t be alarmed if I miss a blog or two. I may be too tired or not have Internet access.