The Long Way Home - Day 23 - Don't Fence Us In

Thursday, July 16th

The plan for the day was very similar to yesterday's plan: Ride west along the Oklahoma-Kansas border.  Our destination today was Boise City, Oklahoma.  Distance was just over 200 miles.

The day's ride started out very similar to yesterday's ride: with about 30 miles of straight road.  We had an option planed on today's ride that was a bit risky but we decided to take the chance and see if we could make it work.  About 5 miles in we came to this:

We read the signs but we weren't quite sure if they meant we could or could not go through this road so we decided to go on through.  We're glad we did because the roads were fun.  Look... Curves!

Then there were more locked gates.  This one had a big chain around the middle with padlocks

Luckily, the hinge pins were both facing up so we could lift off the gate at the hinge!

We ran into a few more locked gates that took some creative approaches to get around, under, or through.  At this point, we were not sure if we were fenced out or fenced in.  It didn't matter, the roads were getting less and less traveled and more and more fun.

Eventually, all good things come to an end, and we hit the straight roads with a goal of making up some time - all those fences slowed us down a bit.  One more fence to the highway (this one had a very large chain and padlock, but one link was removable):

It looks like most landowners in Oklahoma have been lucky enough to find some amount of oil on their property.  These rigs are scattered all over the state.

Shortly after we hit the straight roads, we were stopped by a flat on Hank's bike.  It's a miracle that it happened right next to the only shade in 15 miles!  This was a random power distribution panel for for either a water pump system or maybe an oil pump system.  We felt so lucky to find this!  We even could use the power panel to strap up the bike to remove the tire - very handy.

Tire was fixed and we were back on the road quickly but not before Bill took a walk in the corn field.  Can you find him?  Sort of a Where's Waldo.

The truck of the day was in Boise City (our destination).  The wind turbine blade and truck together was 195 feet long!  There were three of these trucks in the parking lot next to the hotel

We were lucky to have some visitors today.  Jimbo is in our family (cousin or something).  He and Mitch were out in Indiana racing their model airplanes.  They were explaining that the planes can reach speeds of 200 mph.  It was great hanging out with someone we knew - that hasn't happened in a long time!  Jimbo is on the right.  Safe travel back to California you guys!

Tomorrow we leave Oklahoma, cut the corner off of New Mexico and enter Colorado.  

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Where are they now?