Oklahoma FreeWheel, 2002
Day 5 - Perkins to Pawnee
Day five was to be a short ride - 45 miles from Perkins to Pawnee with a lunch stop in Glencoe. Mother nature was not kind to us this day. With a warm, calm morning after the storm, we all packed our rain and cold weather gear in the truck, donned our hot riding gear and headed towards Pawnee. Half way to Glencoe, we are drenched by the coldest, windiest thunderstorm you can imagine. It stays over us until we hit Glencoe where the FreeWheel management effectively "red flags" the ride. FreeWheel and Glencoe personnel work hard to compensate for the unexpected stay of so many riders for a few hours.
Here you see Dean decked out in the trash bag-cum-raincoat to keep warm during our downtime in the Glencoe gym.
He's not the only one suffering from hypothermia working hard to get here while getting soaked and then stopping all activity.
Do I look happy with the situation?
Board, pissed, and happy - the Texas contingent of the ride spans all of the emotions while we wait for the storm to clear ....
...... but we are not alone.
As always, Dean finds a way to take this opportunity to catch up on his much-needed sleep quota.
I'm a quick learner.
David has his own technique.
Kudos to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol! They keep us safe on all of these rides and I'm glad to see that a couple of them, at least, got some well-earned bennies out of our downtime in Glencoe.
Storm over, the paved roads are dry but we still have "fun" on that little gravel/dirt road stretch on our route between Glencoe and Pawnee. (Depends on your definition of "fun", I guess ..... none of us had the talent and daring to take our camera out and photograph this part of the route!) All of us navigate that without crisis and arrive in Pawnee under clear skies. (Gee, what a switch! The storms usually chase us IN to Pawnee and hammer us there during the night.) We do, however, have clothing in need of drying out.
Despite the weather delays, we arrive, set up camp and still have time to tour the Pawnee downtown area. I've never seen a sign quite like this on a store in Dallas, Tulsa or any of the other "cities" I have lived in. Maybe business owners in these smaller towns have the right idea!
Ok - day's ride over and camp set up .... it's time to hit the Pawnee bars before we turn in. I don't remember the name of this place (about a block Southeast of the town square) but we always have fun here. Looks like some of the locals are having fun with us, too, tonight.
She's still having fun, and so am I but I think my ex-brother-in-law, Bruce (in background) might be having more fun than both of us put together.
More of the local ladies join in to make me feel ..... "more at home"?!?!?!
Hat's off to Libby, the producer of FreeWheel. Despite all of the logistic changes brought about by today's late-morning storm, despite our carousing in local bars, she still finds the time to have a little fun of her own. Nice dance moves, Libby!
This should be on the FreeWheel home page - Libby pointing the way to http://www.okfreewheel.com/.