Day Twenty                       Sun 10 August                                       Enid - Hominy, OK   

Distance: 103.1 miles          Total Distance: 1724.7 miles

Ride time: 7hrs 00 mins       Including stops: 8hrs 27 mins

Ave speed: 14.6mph            Max speed: 29.2mph

 

88°F (90% humidity)We seem to be getting into a routine of waking at 6am now, and once again that was the time that we headed out to the RV for breakfast.  The humidity today was extremely high and made everything in the RV feel very damp. 

 

Keith is definitely looking forward to leaving Oklahoma, as the road surfaces just seem to be getting worse.  Today there was no hard shoulder in places and the surface was bumpy.  Even when there was a decline in the road, the headwind meant that he was cycling all day and so overall the last few days have been tough. 

 

Lots of the towns that went through today were old Wild West towns and seemed to be “more dead than alive” today.  The buildings were fascinating though as you were able to imagine riding into town on your steed, as Keith rode in on this “Sunday” bicycle.

 

Keith was riding later today and there was some gentle rain this afternoon, making it difficult for the last 15 miles.  But eventually we drove into Hominy, our days destination, to find yet another run down town, with no RV sites and just one independent motel, so we checked straight in. 

 

Although there seemed to be little in town, there were a few historical sites; the last triangular gas station in the state, and an original soda shop.

 

Day Nineteen                    Sat 9 August                                              Seiling – Enid, OK   

Distance: 76.4 miles            Total Distance: 1621.6 miles

Ride time: 4hrs 52 mins       Including stops: 6hrs 16 mins

Ave speed: 15.6mph            Max speed: 30.0mph

86°F

 

We headed out of town at just gone 8am, and 13 miles down the road, made a pitstop to celebrate the HALF WAY MILEAGE mark – 1558 miles  :O)  We celebrating by sharing a Budweiser between us all!  Perhaps we will be able to find some champagne when we get to the end!

We passed through a town called Fairview, where Brian decided to brave the local barber.  Check out his new tan line on the photos page!! 

 

Roads are still bad today, although the houses and ranches seem to be much better looked after in Oklahoma, with mowed lawns and white picket fences. 

 

We headed for Enid, where we were spending the night and also had information regarding a bike shop.  Found the shop in a really lovely town square, and the owners of the store were extremely helpful with the items that we needed – finally we have new inner tubes. 

 

We checked into a hotel for the night and waited for Keith to arrive.  We decided to celebrate further tonight by going out for a really nice meal at a Italian restaurant/Tapas & Wine bar, although we were still in bed by 10:30pm!!

 

Day Eighteen                    Fri 8 August                                         Miami, TX – Seiling, OK

Distance: 114.6 miles          Total Distance: 1545.2 miles

Ride time: 7hrs 24 mins       Including stops: 8hrs 25 mins

Ave speed: 15.4mph            Max speed: 34.3mph

88°F

 

This morning Keith left the RV site at 7.45am, closely followed by the RV, although today it was actually the RV that was chased out by the local dogs instead of Keith. 

 

Today started to get a little more humid, and the road surface was very poor.  There was a strong headwind, most of the day and the road was undulating making it difficult for Keith to keep up any speed.

 

We made a stop in a town called Canadian, Texas, where everyone was extremely friendly and interested in both Keiths cycling and the RV itself.  It seems that although everyone has RVs over here, the concept of renting one is rather new to the people in the middle states. 

 

Civilisation is starting to creep in a little more now, with a large Lowes foodstore, rodeo arenas, gun clubs and golf courses.  We ran by the railroad for a while today, which Keith decided to race, just for kicks! 

 

At just before midday we crossed into our seventh state – Oklahoma, where the road surfaces seemed to get even worse, much to Keiths misery. 

 

Due to discovering that our planned overnight stop, Cestos, is actually a real-life ghost town, we made a stop in Vici, OK thinking that we may make an overnight stop there.  However upon getting to the RV site sign, it turned out to just be a sign with no RV site in sight!  So we decided to continue on further down the road to see what we could find. 

 

Upon arriving in Seiling the motel that we were looking for was derelict, although an opportunist store owner next door had set up some RV sites with full hook-ups so we decided to stay there for the night.  Only thing being, there weren’t any on-site facilities and therefore we had to clear out the shower in the RV which we had been using for water bottle storage, so that Keith was able to take a much needed shower! 

 

Day Seventeen                  Thurs 7 August                                      Dumas to Miami

Distance: 95.3 miles            Total Distance: 1430.6 miles

Ride time: 6hrs 24 mins       Including stops: 7hrs 41 mins

Ave speed: 14.8mph            Max speed: 27.8mph

92°F

 

Due to breakfast starting at 6am in our hotel, this morning we were actually able to take advantage of the complimentary breakfast, so we had Texas shaped waffles to fuel us for the day. 

 

The forecast for the day was 60% rain and thunderstorms, although thankfully this did not actually happen. 

 

We seem to have settled into more of a routine now of 20 miles between pit stops and in the RV it seems that we have more time to do things, such as chores, read, wash up, etc.  

 

We passed through several towns today, all of which were a little “down and out”.  Nothing much to say about any of them really, except that the roads were very rough, and the hard shoulders were extremely gravelly for Keith to be cycling on.

 

There seemed to be a lot more animals out in the fields today, be that of horses and cattle, and to our surprise alpacas! 


We finally arrived at our stop for the night, the Red Deer RV Park at Miami, TX, an extremely small town, and parked up for the night by the lakeside.  Most of the people hooked up at the site were actually oil workers who stay there for several months before they get a week off to go home, so we were a rarity in that we were only staying for one night.  Once we were settled, Pam & I headed to the showers, only to find the resident toad had already thought of the idea, so we decided to give it a miss and just head straight for bed instead!
 
 
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