July 8.
Wow! What a long week! This is the sixth day of riding, including 107 miles on July 4. It was a super good idea to take some of that time and ride in the van, since it is available. I have to admit that my daughter was right–riding this much strung together does eventually tend to wear me down! She’s a smart one, that’s for sure!
We got an early start again, arising at 4:30. Here is the sunrise from the bike picture:
I do well on flat days and can keep up with the front of the pack for a while. That means there is still a party going on when I arrive at the snack station. Sometimes there is dancing. This time I think there were donuts! Phil, there, in the orange shirt (!!) likes to get special treats for us and surprise us. Sometimes donuts, sometimes ice cream, sometimes soda pop, and he always makes sure to have a plentiful supply of ice. He rides a Cattrike, so he only rides when he can count on having an excellent, wide shoulder to ride on.
This is the trading post in Cache, OK where I learned about Quanah Parker. Grace, our van driver and support person extraordinaire, is somehow related to Quanah Parker through her great grandmother who was a Parker. His home is a historic site and was right behind the trading post. He was the last chief of the Comanches (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanah_Parker).
The other exciting incident of the day was seeing this monstrosity going down the road. It looks kind of like a giant bomb (at least one from the movies). It had three police escorts and wide load escorts. We pulled all the way off the road to let it by. It seemed a bit iffy whether it would make it over the bridge in front of us.
