Entry for Tuesday, 19 September 2000

Malissa Hill and Jerry Lile at MacDonald's in Perryton, TX

Allison Unruh at MacDonald's in Perryton, TX

Here are 20 of the 22 dirt bike riding trophies won by a local 15-16 year old boy in Darrouzett, TX and on display at the local General Store filling station and convenience store.

The General Store in Darrouzett, TX (pop 441).

Jorge Ortega and Shawn Davis, Southwestern Public Service employees, the local electric company, at a convenience store in Follett, TX.

Entering Oklahoma again.

Jim's Metal Art Museum in Gage, OK. The dinosaur is made from auto wheel rims.

Last Modified on 9/25/2000 at 3:21:49

Day's Narrative: From the map today's ride was to be about 96 miles. It was clear there was no way I could do the ride if the wind was a headwind. I watched the weather last night very carefully, both on the Weather Channel and on the local channel from Amarillo. Both predicted 10-20 mph winds from the Southwest, which would be a tailwind except for a 11 mile stretch of riding due South just before Shattuck, OK. I could handle that, I believed.

It was an incredible ride. The wind was blowing from the Southwest at about 10 mph even before sunrise. It stayed that way all day, except for increasing to about 20 mph about 10 a.m. I cruised almost the entire day at 20 mph. Bicycling the Great Plains: when it's good it's very, very good. when it's bad it's horrid.

It's pretty easy to determine the speed of a tailwind. Just adjust your speed until you feel no wind at your back and no wind resistance forward. Since you have now matched the speed of the wind, just look down at your bike computer and see how fast you are traveling.

I had breakfast at McDonald's where I met Jerry Lile and Allison Unruh and, just briefly, Malissa Hill. See photos. Malissa was there working when I was starting to take the pictures, and we dragged her into the them. Most of the time while I was eating breakfast Jerry, Allison and I were talking about bicycling.

I started the ride about 7:40. In the next two hours and 20 minutes I rode 37 miles. That's pretty impressive, and was due to the tailwind.

Connie caught up with me about 10:00 just before Follett, TX, so we stopped six miles later in Follett, TX where I bought a submarine sandwich which I would eat an hour later beside the road. There at the store in Follett we met Jorge Ortega and Shawn Davis who work for the local power company, Southwestern Public Service. They had been reading rural electric meters. They each read about 5,000 per month in the very rural areas--lots of back-road driving. Shawn had seen me in Booker, TX about 25 miles earlier and was curious about where I came from and where I was going. We talked for quite a while, also explaining how Connie supported me on the ride.

Except for the due South 11 mile portion of the ride going into Shattuck, OK the remainder of the ride went very fast. I called Connie from Shattuck, OK to find where she had gotten a room. From Shattuck I passed through Gage, OK where I discovered that "Jim" was doing metal sculpture in his back yard along the side of the road. The entire yard (not shown) was full of sculpture, done mostly from found automobile parts.

The temperature now was above 95 F (35C) and I could hardly ride more than a few miles with stopping for more liquid. The water in my water bottles was hot, and not terribly useful for quenching thirst, so I poured some of it over my head instead.

As I rode into Woodward, OK at 4:00 p.m. the local bank thermometer read 101F (38C). Connie had found a room next to the pool at the motel and I couldn't wait to cool off there. However, nature had another surprise for me. About an hour after arriving I began to feel light headed and kind of sick. Another hour after that I discovered that it was not heat prostration, as I had earlier thought, but rather food poisoning. Once the offending food was out of my system I began to feel better, but not good enough to put up today's web page. That's why I'm a little late today.

Tomorrow we will layover for a day in Woodward. A cold front is supposed to come through tonight, and that will make the wind shift to the Northeast. The route of the few days will be adjusted to take advantage of the wind direction.

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© Ray & Connie Poore, 2000