Hold Tight and Fly: Segment 4: Ride Day 20

Route: Elk City, OK to Canadian, Texas (River Ministries - church building downtown)

Distance: 91 miles

Riding Time: 6 hours: 30 minutes

Average Speed: 13.9 mph

Max: 42.5 mph (Yeah, that's a lot. It might be almost the fastest I've ever gone on a bike.)

Weather: T-Storms and a little rain before departure that cleared up before we left. A few sprinkles and partly cloudy for the morning... and then the wind picked up. All day it was out of the South with a vengance creating 20mph+ crosswinds across the open plains of Western OK and into Texas. Oh well... at least it was still relatively "cool" (ie. not much over 90).

Extra-Special Bonus Stats

Feet Climbed Today: 4928 feet

Current Elevation: 2447 feet

Total Elevation gained since this morning: 500 feet

Population of Canadian, TX: 2761

Today was a good day. Ok, so today's ride was a pretty hard one. The morning sunrise clouds were absolutely beautiful and it started out still and calm for the first 2 hours or so. Dawn was laced-through with bird song and the occasional far-off dog announcing our presence. We spun on past ranch land and houses that grew increasingly far apart and were slowly replaced by red-dirt hills and the occasional wind farms or else giraffe-like heads of bobbing oil wells with sputtering engines. We also biked through some of the Black Kettle National Grassland and watched as the soil turned from farmland to beautiful red clay planted out with yucca and prickly pear and rambling herds of Black Angus cattle.

But, after that, things started to get exciting. We headed out onto the true open plains of western Oklahoma and on into the tip-top of Texas - pretty barren country occupied mostly by oil wells and compression stations and the occasional horse or cow. The wind began to pick up out of the south and, with it, so did our climbing. So I found myself biking out in the middle of rolling nowhere, holding on to the handlebars for all I was worth as the oil-carrying semi trucks barreled on past - my whole self feeling like a sail, or a leaf, or something very very small in a big, big whoosh of wind and sky.

On the up side there are a whole lot of things to be grateful for today. Here are a few:

A wide, smooth shoulder on the side of most of the roads to wander about on as the winds blew.
A van and trailer to meet us every 20 miles with food and encouraging folks and nice, cold water and Gatorade.
An absolutely fabulous and completely enlivening 7-mile descent into Canadian, TX (complete with a wicked awesome tailwind) and amazing scenery the whole way. I might have yelled Yeeee-hawww! at the top of my lungs and possibly done a little yodeling. It was awesome!
There are lots of wonderful friends to hang out with at the end of a long day.
A lovely sanctuary to spend the night in with my favorite kind of church bed so far: "The Big Crib." This is created by taking cushy church pew chairs and turning around the front row to face the next row. Add a Thermorest or two on top and you have pretty much the most comfortable bed/nest ever.
Tomorrow the wind is expected to be just as strong out of the South... or perhaps even stronger... and we are headed North. Bring it, Texas tailwind! :-)
Ok, now I need to go to bed. Soooooo sleepy... I might just have to imagine all the fireworks in my sleep.