Elvis was in his rhinestone jumpsuit phase, before the burgers and pills finished him off, but after the rural deep-south swivel-hipped youth that my mother loved so much, she cried when he died. People say that’s one of the things where you remember exactly what you were doing when it happened. I think the recent British equivalent was Princess Diana dying, the death of a pampered, over privileged socialite provoking a weird national event of official grief, newscasters using their ‘serious story’ tones, the tv and radio networks all but playing constant martial music for most of a week, people who had never met her crying and emoting. Truly bizarre, it made me angry for all the other young mothers who die every day without a word said about them. I remember where I was though, drunk as a skunk with my friends in Cardiff.
Turns out the pedals on my bike are ideal for opening bottles of beer (not whilst riding). Result. Shiner Bock will be happy.
Woke up this morning to a strong urge to stay snuggled up in the comfy beds of the Holiday Inn. A quick call to Clint on the front desk sorts it out and I am into a rest day after covering about 320 miles in 5 days from Natchitoches, averaging about 65 miles a day, ranging from 90 down to 40 ish. It’s been a really cool week, I am loving this trip, the only thing that could make it better would be for James and Bert to come out, which is cool because they are in 2 weeks. I asked the waiter dude last night where a good bar was, and he said the only decent bar was 20 miles away. The family at the next table offered to tow me there, but that seemed a little dangerous so I declined.
After my brush with fame in Mount Pleasant, Texas I left the campsite early and headed towards Paris, Texas. The pine hill forest fades out into more and more open grassland. There is a tail wind, the road is fast, flat and smooth, and I tear along the highway at 20mph or so, reaching Paris by noon. A quick pit stop in a superstore and I’m in the centre. It’s a nice little town with a square, but I’m not in a stopping mood so head on through, finding my exit road easily enough and heading North-west towards Oklahoma.
It seems people are ready for the crusades around here, I pass a sign declaring that it’s the home of Archers for Christ. I’m not really sure what they do on their weekends, but it doesn’t sound healthy.
I have to admit, as I sit here writing this with my laptop playing cool tunes, my bike next to me ready to open more beers, and a 6 pack of shiner bock steadily decreasing, that I am quite liking my new life. Now I just need to find a way to make it pay.
Highway 79 from Paris leads me to the most isolated section I’ve ridden so far. The land is open grassland, incredibly beautiful and stretching away to the horizon. Imagine a lush, fairytale meadow, full of wildflowers, streams, lakes and birds, then drape it over gently rolling terrain and cover it in a blue sky.
There are hardly any houses, many of them are abandoned, the car count drops to one per hour and all is peaceful. Unfortunately, the houses that are around usually have at least one dog, each of which is outraged at the thought of a cyclist using the public road, and the dog attack count soars. Each one howls in disbelief when it spots me, then comes bounding several hundred meters from the house to the road, barking aggressively and snapping at my heels, growling and baring their teeth. I notice that my body hair fluffs up every time, a hardwired reaction from the days when we were hairy like chimpanzees and fluffing up made us appear bigger to put off an attacker. It doesn’t do much to help me though.I really hate it when dogs harass me like this, and although I must have gone through several hundred of these encounters each one feels like they are gonna start tearing through my leg and pull me off. I get sick of it real quick, especially when the owner shouts something like ‘he’s only playing’. Yeah right lady. I like dogs, but one of these days I’m gonna buy some pepper spray and see how fido likes it. No doubt the owner will be horrified at me spraying their lovable family pet, just like whenever someone gets attacked the dog was always ‘provoked’. Having seen my friend George being bitten on the ass whilst jogging through the park I know this is rubbish. At one point I have 3 dogs harassing me as I ride along, no fun at all. I have a big knife in easy reach on the handlebars just in case it actually does turn serious and one of them drags me off the bike and goes for my throat, but hope never to use it. I guess I look a bit like a stray herd animal on the bike, but I wish people would keep control of the damn things.
Packs of wild dogs are even more scary, I haven’t seen any here yet, but several times when riding across Spain I would be in a remote area, hear excited barking and the pack would come bounding through the countryside at top speed. I would have no way of speeding up being in a dip between hills. This is quite a scary sensation, the only thing that kept the fear down was that if they were a problem the Spanish would have shot them immediately, not having the British qualms over such actions. But the packs seemed to be more happy to see me than anything, and would stop at the roadside barking excitedly without harassing me.
After at least 30 angry dog encounters I roll into Telephone, a few miles before the bridge over the red river into Oklahoma at Sowells Bluff. I can feel it’s going to rain, I’ve done 90 miles and the next campsite is still 10 miles away so I take a little cabin at the Telephone Travellers Rest. It is utterly deserted round here, tiny little communities of a few houses, everything quiet, the gas station a haven of tranquility. The people here speak with German-American accents, making it feel even more isolated.
Later on the wind picks up, the sky darkens and I can hear distant thunder. Suddenly the rain starts, and the world is lit by a long, blinding, ultra-white lightening flash that seems to go on for at least a second, not the quick blink of a british storm but a long, drawn out white-out. Then the thunder, not the boom and rumble of a British storm, but whip-crack shockwaves shaking the building, I can feel the air in my lungs being pummeled, and the crack-boom is so loud I have to stop myself dropping to my knees and putting my hands over my ears like a child.
Well, I wanted proper weather on this trip and it looks like I’m in for it. The rain moves in properly, so dense it looks like a fogbank approaching, cutting off the outside world as it sweeps before the wind. All the land immediately disappears under about an inch of spattering water, everywhere is so flat there is no time for it to drain, and I see places I would have happily camped in turning into massive puddles. A big truck drives past, sending up plumes of water on both sides that reach way higher than its cab. I can’t imagine any tent standing up to this onslaught and am glad I took the cabin.
People often ask me what I do when it rains, and I rather glibly reply that I’m British and used to rain so just keep going. I’ve changed my mind about that now, the road would be no place to weather a zero visibility downpour like this and I’ll seek shelter wherever I can.
The storm is so intense it’s actually quite frightening. Doobie from Marley’s Marina said that when he first moved down south the storms scared him and I didn’t think much about it, but I understand now.
But my little wooden cabin is keeping me dry and safe, even though the constant massive lightening strikes are a bit of a concern, and the thunder keeps trying to trigger my animal reflexes. My apprehension is upped significantly when I look round the side of the building and see the unmistakable shape of a tornado funnel reaching down from the clouds, with dirty dark patches of cloud forming in the gap between the funnel and the ground. I stare in disbelief and horror, it is only a few miles away and I can’t see any lateral movement which means it’s probably heading towards me. I go inside and turn on the tv to see if there are any ‘get inside’ warnings going on, but after a minute or so the satellite tv goes dead. Hmm.
I look outside and to my horror the funnel has got a lot bigger, well defined, and closer to the ground. After seeing many of those ‘extreme weather’ and ‘storm chaser’ programs I know that most of these things don’t actually turn into tornadoes, but some of them do, and it’s just over there! I consider running to the nearest house and telling them about it, but the occasional car driving past doesn’t look panicked, and there are cars going both towards and away from the storm, so I figure it’s probably quite a common occurrence. Just in case I identify the safest bit of my cabin, the bathroom, and get ready to take the table and mattress in there to cower behind. I grab my wallet so that my body can be identified, my phone to call for help, and my camera to take cool pics. Happily the funnel gradually gets wider and moves away to the northeast, dissipating as it goes, and I relax, keeping a wary eye out for other funnels and being impressed by the atomic lightening. The tv comes back up and has a special on a tornado formed by this very storm shortly before, about 100 miles away in Forth Worth. So these things are real, and scary, and I don’t ever want to be anywhere near one.
The storm marked the passing of a front, and the next morning my usual tail wind turns into a headwind, a river of chilled air streaming down from the still-frozen north. I figure I’ll get breakfast at the next little town but have underestimated the isolation and it’s 30 miles before I find hot food, a very welcome bacon cheeseburger and fries in a gas station (where y‘all from?), it sure is tasty. I cross the Red River into Oklahoma, the river really is red from cutting a deep channel through the red earth of the plains, and very beautiful, but the bridge is no place to stop and take photos. Just before I crossed the bridge I rode past a run-down house with a couple of decayed animals hanging by the neck next to the road. Unsettling to say the least. Best to keep riding.
The bridge over the Red River into Oklahoma:
Oklahoma calls itself ‘Native America’, which I take as a bad joke after reading up on Native American history before I came out here. Ethnic cleansing, brutality and colonialism is no stranger to the country that prides itself on freeing itself from colonialism and standing for liberty and human rights.
The sun is welcoming here on the plains, the colour of warm golden honey, the sunlight feels almost tangible, enveloping you in its soft embrace when you step out of the shade. Further south it had a much harder edge to it, you felt like it was shining straight through you. An old lady worked in a Florida Walmart on the door, ostensibly to meet ‘n greet, but really to keep an eye out for shoplifters. I asked her where a cash machine was, to be greeted by a long blank stare, later I realized that I should have asked for an ATM. Her face was deeply lined, cracked and expressionless, like a sun-baked mudflat, covered in foundation with rosy cheeks painted on. Her long vacant stare made me feel that the harsh sun had shone through her eyes too much during her life, tracking daily across the back of her once-lively skull, bleaching out the joyful colours of a human mind and turning it into a faded sepia photograph locked in a dark and empty attic.
I gladly end the day early in a holiday inn in Durant, Oklahoma, the freezing headwind and long cold hours without food destroying my urge to camp rough in the prairie.
2 comments:
'Suddenly the rain starts, and the world is lit by a long, blinding, ultra-white lightening flash that seems to go on for at least a second'
You have been there too long son, come home now - It is not the World that is lit, it is just a little part of America, see this is the problem with America; it is so big people forget that there is anywhere else in the world! we are having one of those rainy storms now, by bike is safely wrapped under a blanket keeping warm and ready for action when required.
Hey, you can take my advice in the can of whiskers from last comments and adjust them to pedigree chum, should do the same job with the dogs, just lace them with ketamine first. onwards sir and keep entertaining the world with your tales :)
Epic post, Kelv. Great reading, as always.
Be safe out there :-)
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