Route 66, Day 14 by Bryan Patterson June 29, 2015 - Not
an early start, but none the less we were all ready to ride. With 5
bikes and 6 riders someone had to ride the van, so Cristian and our
driver James in the wagon. It seems that having the wagon park every 5
miles is a good thing even if we didn’t stop it’s a good marker. We
rode out of the camp site, which was actually West of El Reno
city, but we had soon past by and were into our stride on Route 66. A
wonderful route, which was off the main highways, so that the James
gang were safe from any distraction. Pretty amazing route with, once
again, buildings that were in ruins. Houses, small cafes, gas stations,
restrooms, all sorts of properties which must have seen some wonderful
times when Route 66 was the Mother Route. It’s sad to see it in such
disrepair.
We were riding well and soon reached Clinton, a small town which felt
very friendly. We had lunch at the Clinton Café (we wondered if this
was where the Clintons had holed up in the bad old days and maybe named
the town??!!) The café was on Fresco Street and the owner is Carlos who
gave us a heads up about Route 66 and some of the things we might see.
Really great sandwiches served by his wife, cool water and oh yes AC.
Oklahoma is much more agricultural than Texas, and with rolling hills.
Some of which were extremely long and tough getting up. Still on Route
66 we reached Weatherford, which is where Thomas Stafford was born and
lived and he was one of the early an astronaut.
On the rolling hills and going up one of these Jerry had a lucky escape
from a dog! We had heard sayings that if anyone said “My dog don’t
bite” that really meant “Yes” it does!! Following up behind I was lucky
enough to have a car pass and scare the dog away!
We were basically staying parallel to highway 40 crossing the Canadian
river which looked like when in spate would be a huge river. Today it
was still a very wide river but not much water in it. Lots of trees
stuck on sandbanks which made it look likely that when in flood it
would be a dangerous river. Over the bridge there was a huge dead
rattle snake, on the side of the road.
Close to our camp site we met two Japanese guys who were walking to New
York and pulling a cart behind them, and we thought that we were tough,
what!! They were from Osaka, Japan. Passing through a gas station to
get to our camp site I talked with Terry who had a wonderful 3 wheeler
bike and was gassing up. I rounded the bike and found to my amazement
that he had two prosthetic legs! He’d been electrocuted and lost both
his legs, was from Buffalo, Oklahoma, not NY.
