El Reno OK, Kiwi Mike

An experience I forgot to report on yesterday was when I stopped by Finishline Motorcycles (not Fineline as I had reported in yesterday's blog) in Pampa. Jimmy the owner gave us 2 special business size cards from the Iron Riders titled "Courtesy Card". Jimmy is the Pres of this club and said if you ever run into any problems at all just give me a yell. We cover 8 states and even though I probably won't be the one getting to you, I've got someone who will. Wow, thanks Jimmy. That is big and means a lot to us. That's true old school bikers.


This morning I thought it would be a good idea to check my top triple tree nut at the motel before leaving but unfortunately I didn't have a wrench in my tool kit big enough (1-9/16) so we figured since Jimmy's Finish Line motorcycle shop was on the way out of town and we would swing by and ask to borrow a wrench. I said the ideal tool is a 15" Cresent wrench which he had. Jimmy would have preferred us using the right tool but to me when I'm out on the road and need to keep rolling, a Cresent wrench is my best friend.

Another beautiful day, coolish to start out with but it warmed up quite nicely as the day wore on.

Bob and Clyde were up early and raring to join us for the days ride. They are both great guys and are hard core riders. Even though Clyde rides a 2005 Harley, he has 190,000 miles on it. He is more than welcome to ride his Harley with us. Bob's ride is a 1950 Chief which he has owned for over 40 years. She runs great and is a brother to Greg's Dirty Girl. I reckon they enjoyed hanging with us and enjoyed the entertainment we attract.

Texas land was pretty flat but as we got into Oklahoma it got green and the last 80 miles seemed real nice rolling green hills. The red dirt we saw looked great against the greenery. This is some nice country.

I call this part of the country the bread basket of America. Down under us country folks call the city folks "city slickers" or "Townies" as they have no concept of how their food is created. They just seem to go to the store and it magically appears.

Townies don't realize what it takes to grow the wheat or other crops, harvest it, process it and so on. Likewise with raising beef or processing milk.

Farming is no picnic really and can be very high risk financially. If the weather is not favorable it wipes out the crop and if everything goes good, so does everyone elses crops which then creates a glut and depresses prices.

Farmers have my utter respect.

This is a great part of the country in summer as it is so alive and smells awesome (not if you have allergies though).

The wind can blow across this part of the country as you can see the trees have grown in the direction of the wind.

The 2 lane highway we were on for most of today also handles a lot of truck traffic. With 4 of us cruising down the highway we didn't like to hold em up too much (we do 60 and they do 70) so we used the big shoulders Texas has to let em roll by when needed. Road courtesy. But that came to an abrupt stop when we entered Oklahoma as there was no shoulder at all.

I was leading part of the way but for some reason the highway we always should be on shot off to the right a few times and the new road went straight ahead and I had a tendency to roll right on by. Sort of strange as the main road you usually travel on always goes straight ahead and the other roads feed on and off of it. Not here in OK and obviously tricked this Kiwi each time. The others got it right, but not me. I seemed to realize it a bit too late so I ended up doing some off roading through the weeds, over Prairie Dog mounds and ditches to get back onto the right road. The '45 just loves rough terrain. It's safer if Greg leads with his Redneck GPS.

While cruising down the road and approaching several towns we noticed a big building that appeared to be right in the way. It turned out the road we were on would end up at the foot of the county court house. All roads seem to lead to the court house and then take a loop around it, almost like a round about/traffic circle. The court houses look so majestic in the distance getting bigger and bigger as we got closer. One had to marvel at their classic old western styling and fine condition.

We saw a big sign on the side of the gas station that read, "Fresh roasted Oklahoma peanuts". Hmmm this sounds interesting, didn't know they grew peanuts in Oklahoma so we bought a paper bag of them for $3.19. Wow they were killer good.

Lunch was at the half way point. Authentic Mexican food out in the middle of BF Egypt know where and I mean know where. Just imagine 2 intersecting roads out in the middle of the boonies and you plonk a restaurant on 1 corner. It just goes to show you, you make good food and they will come. The parking lot soon filled up with pick ups and big rigs. It was full on joining tables for big groups, stealing other tables from others who could down size. The waitresses here knew how to hustle and make stuff work and keep the patrons happy. Many patrons are oil field workers and only have a limited time for lunch so these girls didn't muck around to seat and serve everyone. Thanks to Carl (previous gas stop) who told us about it, great call mate. Carl even sent us an email later on in the day to say he's now following us online, way cool mate.

The Sheriffs and law enforcement just seem to love us. It's always from a personal interest point to check out our bikes and see what sort of crazy guys would ride them across country. Sheriff Dan Marshall of Sayre saw us come into town, cruise around a bit looking for a gas station (which can still be a bit of a challenge). It's not a big town at all and he enjoyed a bit of a yarn with us. We enjoy sharing our experiences and we like hearing there's. Some times that's why we don't load up on excessive miles every day, it's these experiences that we can kick back and enjoy.

Tomorrow we will give our bikes a birthday with an oil change at Brass Balls Bobbers in OK City. Everything else seems to be rocking along quite nicely. No road hazards today, wow, what a change.