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DAY
THIRTEEN COMMENTARY
I awoke just a
few minutes after 6 AM. I was disappointed, though
not entirely surprised, to find that my clothes, which hadn’t fully
dried when
I had retired for the night, had of course taken on more
moisture since then. This would actually be a
benefit for the
jeans I was going to wear, since it would make them cool me off while
passing
through the wind, but the other stuff might require attention lest it
all become a
mobile petri dish while wet inside the hot trailer.
Breaking
down the tent and packing up took longer than I’d hoped,
for no specific reason(s) I could identify. Still, I managed to hit the
road by
around 9 AM, which represented one of the earliest departure times yet.
Just
before I did, I used the remaining shower bag water to clean off, but
its having
sat outside overnight, the water was rather on the chilly side…HELLO!
It
seems unusual to see a 65 MPH speed limit on all these secondary
roads, but hey, for the most part they are well-paved and
little-traffic, so I
like the spirit of it. Of course, they also feature the occasional “35
MPH”
warning sign ahead of the steeply-banked turns, so don’t think that all
of Oklahoma
is just flat, or even necessarily warm,
as this picture will attest.
More
beautiful views
presented themselves on both sides of Rte. 271 as it
climbed
down from the remnants of the Ozarks and Ouachita Mountains, and the
temperature grew noticeably higher as I descended.
Having mostly
completed descending into Talimina, OK, I passed
“Barbara’s Laundry”
on the left and, noting the time -- still well
short of 10
AM -- then doing some quick thinking, I U-turned before making another
move and
came on back. Why not dry out those damp clothes right here, right now?
Throwing them into the dryer (but being careful not to break the rules), I
attempted to make cell phone contact
with a few
folks, not having had any signal at all up in the mountains, and this
met with
similarly limited success both indoors and out. I put the thing away
and waited
inside
the wonderfully air-conditioned laundromat, though for some reason I
neglected
to bring the hydration pack in with me.
Moments
later a fellow pulled up in a giant four-door Ford pickup
truck – even longer than the one The Chief (tm) had recently owned for
the past
year or so -- and, his also being a biker, began to chat all about long
trips out
west and so on. Turns out I had already had several of his recommended
spots on
my radar, and his commentary clinched a few of them for me. In return I
was
able to tell him a little it about parts of upper North Carolina and
eastern
Tennessee that he hadn’t yet had enough time to visit. Even the
proprietress,
who unbeknownst to me had been ironing in the back room, came out to
weigh in
with comments on places out in CA and OR. All travel, all the time!
Heading back out
after this nice little break, I eventually came
to learn that a road sign indicating something like “Business
District "
usually meant that there was a feed store down the street somewhere,
and not
necessarily anything else. Passing through Clayton, then Finley, then
Snow
(sign on general store: “Welcome Hunters”), what were to pass for
“towns”
became smaller and smaller -- at the Snow “crossroad”, there was that
store and two other structures,
then I was on the other side of
Snow again. There wasn’t a single vehicle within view in front of me
nor behind
for about forty miles, and eighteen vehicles passed in the other
direction in
those forty minutes or so, because I was counting. I had also taken to
making a
mental note of the odometer reading whenever I passed any home or
otherwise
occupied building, so I would have an idea how far back I’d have to
walk if
I
encountered motorcycle (or trailer) trouble. I watched a rabbit decide
to
sprint across the road almost right as I came upon it, and later had to
quickly
negotiate around a deer carcass that occupied practically the entire
width of
the pavement.
Here
and there
passing whimsical signs for places such “Jumbo”
and “Hugo”, OK -- joining earlier faves such as “Bunkie” and “Plain
Dealing”, LA
-- I eased into somewhat thicker traffic (read: more than “absolutely
none
whatsoever” -- Ed.), on the
outskirts
of Antlers, OK. One of the first things I saw was a sign offering
gasoline at
just $3.65
per
gallon, representing the new low for the trip. Knowing
I’d need
fuel somewhere between here and Dallas, I figured why not, right? Well,
one
possible reason why not was because of the second
thing I saw, which was that this was a Conoco,
and so what would the
dreaded “Conoco Effect” me this time?
Ah, for that price I had to risk it. Walked inside, was greeted by the
sight of
two very pretty young ladies -- lifeguards somewhere, they said --
waiting for
ice cream or something or other. Guy behind the counter was sporting an
original-design Met hat, though it was clear he did not hail from NYC.
I paid,
I got my change, I got out of there, and nothing went wrong!
Aside
from
the fact that a mile down the road, both a Shell
and a Valero were offering it at $3.57.
(Just
twenty
miles away, still in OK, the prices were back up
into the high-$3.80’s/mid-$3.90’s. At forty cents’ worth of
discrepancy, it
would make financial sense, based on the price of the gas only, to
drive the
forty miles round-trip if your car got a minimum of only 20 MPG.
Driving there
to fill up a Prius, which could make it there and back on about eight
tenths of
a gallon, would cost you about $3 to get there and back, but save you
$6 on the
fill-up, if it holds just fifteen gallons. Of course, you’d have to
decide what
dollar value you put on your time spent making the trip. As they say,
your
mileage may vary!)
Electronic
billboards said it was between 105 and 107 degrees
now, down here where the hills and the cooling breezes had long receded
into
the distance. Yet another excellent street sign went by in Atoka, OK,
telling
me that I had experienced “Chicken Fight Road” at last. I passed a
“Sinclair”
gas station, which I used to love when I was a kid because of the
company’s
dinosaur logo, and crossed over the Red River into Texas, where I
stopped at
the attractively-designed and ultra-clean Visitor Welcome Center. This
was in an
attempt to correct what had become a very annoying right contact lens,
though
the effort met with little success. Could do little other than push on…
Passing by the
headquarters and manufacturing plants for both
Texas Instruments and MEMC -- apparently in the middle of nowhere --
the
road
began to get wider and the interchanges began to come more frequently
and the
traffic definitely got much heavier. Soon I was well within the
incredible
suburban sprawl of the Dallas area, and if I had been starting to get a
little
tired before and the contact lens continuing to annoy, there would be
no rest
through this stretch as the road was now jammed with traffic moving at
varying
speeds through the narrow lanes. I had to bring the “A” game here and
kept it
in fourth gear to maximize passing power, which I did frequently in
order to
avoid the rolling roadblocks and trucks changing lanes (compare this to
the
“traffic” described in eastern Oklahoma just a few paragraphs ago).
Nominally,
this was a Triumphant Return to the area, having visited for a work
engagement
back sometime not later than April of 1991
-- ah, the IRSA days! But the truth was that even
after negotiating several
“loops”, “beltways” and roads designated with such bogus numbers as
“I-35e”
(which ran north-south) and possibly “DFW-27-H” (whatever the hell that
is), I
was barely able to see Dallas proper in the distance, and then only for
an
instant or two before needing to avoid being obliterated by yet another
tractor-trailer.
Having
mentioned
IRSA, I should explain that it was the first company I worked for after
graduating from college. Our hosts during my previous
visit here, the
Dallas Convention & Visitors’ Bureau, had piled a bunch of
meeting planners from all over the country onto
one of those
luxury “party buses” and took us to a game at Irving Stadium. Not only
were the Cowboys playing the Giants, but the Jints rode an early
kickoff or
punt return TD to a “W” over their hated rivals! And now, as it turns
out, nearly
twenty years later the route to my hotel took me right next to the
stadium
again -- and I have to say, it is looking pretty dumpy from the
outside.
Football fans, help out The Chief (tm) here; are the Cowboys waiting on
a new
stadium these days?
Thanks
to the
generosity of a cousin’s husband -- who shall remain
nameless to protect the innocent -- I had been sitting on a pretty
healthy stash
of Red Lobster gift certificates. Now, having logged two decades up in
New
England, typically there had been other, more local choices for
seafood, and so
I had never actually been to one. Having thought about it, I figured
this would
be the most likely place where I’d be near one somewhere, and so I
wanted to
put them to use, which would also help me keep a low-dollar spending
stretch alive
(having laid out only eight bucks on non-lodging, non-gas expenditures
in the
past fifty-some odd hours). Keeping an eye out for a restaurant, in
between
trying to stay alive and straining to make sense of the GPS’ directions
(rendered
tiny by the sheer length of some of the roadway names), I hadn’t yet
seen one of these restaurants,
so I figured I might have to research a location and ride to one. That
would
limit, if not preclude my ability to consume alcohol with dinner, not
to
mention cause my butt to ask my brain, “Why the hell are you climbing
back on
this thing?” Then, suddenly, I spotted one. Wanna know where?
Across the road
from my hotel the Best Western Irving Inn. COUNT
IT!
I registered in
the nicely-appointed lobby and went to my very nice
room,
with thoughts of (1) cancelling “radio silence”, i.e., getting
back into
cell phone contact; (2) firing up the laptop (free wi-fi in every
room); (3)
doing a quick push-up “workout”, then (4) jumping in the pool before
going to
eat.
Step one: check.
Step two: check. Step three: 116 pushups in the
first round -- you gotta be kidding me! There must be another
explanation beyond
the elevation/gravity/O2 equation recently proposed by a learned
scholar. The
pool? Enjoyable, and also featuring a hot tub, which helped loosen up
the
muscles nicely.
Waltzing back
into the lobby to print a boarding pass for
tomorrow’s flight -- and no, I’m not telling the destination, because
you’ll
just have
to wait for that update -- the dudes behind the
desk shot me a few questions.
Was I going to the airport? Did I have a vehicle? Because
they have
free parking for up to one week beyond one’s stay, and they offer a free
shuttle service to and from, beginning at 5 AM.
Hmmm, I thought,
and you could have seen the smoke pouring from
The Chief (tm)’s ears. Aside from the difficulty of having to plan to
get
dressed in safe riding gear, then get to the airport, then park a bike
and
trailer, then change into traveling wear, then find my way around what
I knew
was a gigantic facility, my biggest fear was what if they bagelled me
at the
garage for some unknown reason, Guantanamo-style? That would be a
DISASTER. And
here it was that all of it would be taken care of for me? Yes, yes,
YES! The
system works! Sign me up, I said.
Out into the heat
and across the road -- probably one of the only
pedestrians ever seen in this area, ever -- I ambled over to my
"local",
the local
Red Lobster, that is. Sitting down at the bar and being immediately
greeted by
bartenders Stewie and Felix (think “capable young gun” and “savvy
veteran”
here), we got right to it, and my “Steak-Lobster-Shrimp Oscar” hit the
spot
like you read about. Hey! First time at one of these joints, and I must
report
success. Not only that, but I’ve still got a like amount of
certificates
burning a hole in my pocket, and you’d best believe that those’ll be
put to
good use somewhere on down the line.
Only
bummer here
was that my contact lens had continued to be
very bothersome, so I went to the men’s room to check it out. It almost
looked
like it had become misshapen, and having worn the set for many days
consecutively, I figured that had about had enough and tossed it. With
the left
lens in and the right lens gone, vision was a little odd, but not
terribly so,
especially since I wasn’t driving. Problem was, my right eye continued
to hurt,
and so I think I may have had something on my eyelid, not a problem
with my
lenses at all. Bottom line, I’ll be starting with a brand-new set!
Sure,
when I went to bed it was late -- 1 AM for a 4 AM wake-up --
but what can I tell you? Time stands still for no man, and The Chief
(tm) does
not stand still for time. See you tomorrow, or, um, “today”, just a few
hours
from now!
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