Segment 3: Ride Day 17 - Rodeos and Funnel Clouds

Route: Pauls Valley, OK to Oklahoma City, OK (St. Andrew's United Methodist Church)

Distance: 56.7 miles

Riding Time: 3 hours: 55 minutes

Average Speed: 14.4 mph

Max: 28.1 mph
Weather: A little cooler. Mostly sunny. Beautiful sunrise! A little wind. Some really amazing clouds.

So, this morning we got up really, really early again (4am) so that we could be on the road by 6am - just in time to watch the sunrise. It was a little harder to get out of bed than normal since last night got... well... just a little late. Yeah, so um... I know it is probably shocking, but we stayed out until 10:15pm last night. Yikes! Gosh, now before you really freak out I can explain. We went to a rodeo and I haven't seen so many beautiful quarter horses together in one spot in a very long time and I just got sucked in. Couldn't help myself, as it turns out, especially since it was just a half mile from the church where we were staying.

So anyway that was last night. Then this morning was really, really early (and also really beautiful in rural Oklahoma rolling hills) and we wound our way northwest-ish to Oklahoma City. As we came over the last hills into the city of Moore on OK - 37 West the first sign that something was not right was a large pile of rubble on the side of the road near a hilltop farmhouse. But other than that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary until we crested the next few hills and subdivisions speckled with tarp-patched roofs began to appear. This was quickly followed by trees laid almost sideways and, eventually, entire neighborhoods razed to the foundations. It was gut-wrenching to see devastation of this magnitude. To hear, in what were previously bustling middle-class neighborhoods, the sound of roofers and dump trucks and hear the silence of people taking their Saturday to move 2x4's and piles of debris out to the curb for the front-end loaders and trucks to haul away.

As many of you know, on May 20, 2013 and EF5 tornado touched down in the rural-suburban neighborhoods of Moore, Oklahoma, leaving 24 people dead, hundreds injured and countless people without homes. Eleven days later another tornado hit the same area and, between those storms, the area received enough rain to cause extensive flash flooding. I also learned today that there was a horse stable/farm that was hit directly by the first tornado and at least 50 horses were lost. As we biked through the area and later arrived at the church to find a gym still filled with cots and donated supplies for storm survivors and heard stories from the people who live here, the reality of this hit home hard. I'm sure there will be much more processing to do as we stay in the area for a rest day tomorrow, attend churches in the area and then have a work day here on Monday to help clear some debris. But, for today, here are some of my thoughts on rodeos and the Moore tornadoes in poem form.

Rodeo: Oklahoma

When she presses his flanks he moves

like water through mesquite trees down

some desert wash. Then she barely

has to think slow before he lopes to

trot to walking gently the way you walk

quietly holding hands with someone

who loves you. Now, under the lights

they spring together without a word,

weaving between the barrels like

they were born moving together.

It was the most beautiful thing since

this morning when the wind swayed
the rising grass like horse and rider.

It doesn’t matter which is which.

Sometimes the story of this place

happens in the parking lot where

trailers line dirt lanes like husks

and horses seek familiar voices.

They remember the winds of Moore

weeks ago when the it fell onto

the heads of their children in a

funnel cloud and then another just

three days later when the wound

was wide as the sky. Now cowboys

lean and lope on truck hoods and

cowgirls weave bareback through

the sea of dust and anticipation.

Just try. Walk. Gallop. Turn. Twirl.

To a know a horse is to love, most of all,

the moments when no one is watching

and communication is rhythm and

posture and rush of wind over the

gentle rock of the saddle. Maybe that

is why we ride when the pain grows

wide and barren as an empty slab

where your house once stood – pipes

still bursting out like severed arteries

or the way you hold on to his mane when

everything else in the world is spinning.

Now they lead a paint out into the ring.

Her saddle is empty. Soft nose. Solid

step. Small black cowboy hat, empty,

slung over the horn. The crowd rises

from cold bleachers and holds on to

whatever they need to keep on standing.

Horse and human. Breath against

skin against soul – this is the only song.

This and a wide, wide western sky

littered with glistening stars.