was great to have some rest time, it was actually hard to force myself to stop riding, but 4 rest days has done me the world of good, am not sleepy all the time anymore. spent the first night in a 20 quid motel, man it was horrible, dirty, dead bugs on the floor, and live ones came out at night, so moved to a big new ramada with its own pub, room service, etc, and for only 30 quid a night! crazy
spent some quality time with the bike, giving it some hands-on lubed up lovin', which it really needed, is running sweet now i degunked the chain and got all the sand and salt out of its vital parts. No problems with the bike at all even though it has had an absolutely incredible pounding on these roads. I'm pretty much out of the hurricane zone now so the roads are much better, and in texas they are supposed to be super-sweet for bikes, with massive smooth shoulders. I'm looking forwards to it.
Before the sweet lovin'
After, it is clean, but I am filthy. By the way, the green thing is a 'dumpster', not a skip.
3 comments:
Sounds good Kelv - a bit of R'n'R is always a good idea - hopefully you are not too wound up with schedules and targets to enjoy the trip. You've been holed up in Natchitoches for a few days I see, now there's a concept.
As I'm bored, I've taken it upon my self to supply you with oodles of useless information, to sustain you on your journey through the midwest.
Give me some route details, and I'll supply the information. With my vast geographical brain and bountiful meaningless resources to hand, hopefully I can speed your journey to Denver from Shreveport - still 1067 miles away by my reckoning. You must be thinking of the mountains. I know I would be.
So looking at where you are, and where you want to get to, I would just have to pass through Paris, Texas. Purely on account of the Wim Wenders film (1984) dealing with social alienation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris,_Texas_(film)
I dunno, maybe I had issues! But I loved it when I was 25...
However, none of the film was actually shot there, and it may be a shithole for all I know, but I'd still have to go.
Apologies again for teaching you how to suck eggs - I'm just staring at an atlas, which is what I do! - but I would skip Texas really, give Dallas a miss and and head into Oklahoma as close as possible to the Arkansas state line. Maybe pick up US State Highway 259 heading North, to cross the Red River beyond Beaver Dam. (???)
From there you can pick up Oklahoma State Highway 3, at Broken Bow. That heads exactly where you are aiming for, 130 miles of it. From Ada, its's 100 miles to Chickasaw on Oklahoma State Highway 19, before taking the US highway 281 then 270 by which time you're almost in Colorado.
On the way, you will be a month or three too early to visit the American Indian Exposition at Anadarko. 15 plains tribes (Apache, Arapaho, Caddo, Cheyenne, Comanche, Delaware, Fort Sill Apache, Iowa, Kiowa, Osage, Otoe-Missouri, Pawnee, Ponca, Sac & Fox, and Wichita) meet here in August, probably joined by Southern tribes, who were forcibly removed from Florida in the Trail of Tears, following a similar, if rather more tortuous and painful journey than yours.
But nevermind - you can still visit the American Indian Hall of Fame nearby.
aimless as ever,
cooch
At last! Communication! Good to hear from you Kelv. Look forward to the photos.
Cheers, Alf & Kate
P.S.
Does this mean you won't be needing my "find me a bike shop" skills anymore now you have a newer, slimmer model to do the search ? ;(
cooch - that's great stuff, thanks! Paris, Texas is indeed my next stop, after that i'm crossing into oklahoma a bit further west, goes to a little town called yuba, can't remember the bigger town nearby
will dig the map out in a bit and let you know my rough route, i wanna see missile silos, indian reservations, umm, and other stuff
kate & alf, glad you is enjoying it all. Kate I nearly needed your skills today actually, had some problems with my tyres, but pretty much fixed now. So don't let your skills go rusty!
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