If I had to imagine the terrain around Tulsa prior to today I would have guessed flat and dry. Nope - we had 5922 feet of climbing across 94 miles today - a LOT of hills and a lot of creeks, lakes, and reservoirs (and a handful of armadillo road kills). Lots of trees too - not the open prairie we've been experiencing. Rest day in Tulsa tomorrow so more on Tulsa later - had lunch (pizza!) in Cleveland (OK) city park, also passed through Pawnee which has no relation to 'Parks and Recreation' but was named for one of the local tribes who used to own the land the town is on and grew thanks to the convergence of two rail lines - now down to a population of about 2000... Chester Gould who created 'Dick Tracy' is from Pawnee and in 2016 the town experienced the largest earthquake in OK history - 5.8 on the Richter scale - possibly due to 'fracking' natural gas in the area destabilizing some of the layers of porous rock underground. A beautiful day with light winds up to 15 (at home, that would be significant winds) from the south and temps in the 60s (though started out with heavy frost and in the upper 30s). Our third rest day - only 14 riding days of 36 left - which seems a little hard to believe. The terrain generally from here east will involve a lot more hills than we've seen - not the sustained climbs of the Rockies but steeper, shorter hills.
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| 'Frost angel' made by one of the group :) |
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| Need deer bait? Short on time? Pull up to the corn dispenser and get 30 pounds of corn through the spout into your bag, bucket, backseat, mouth, whatever... |
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| OK has a lot of random 'roadside tables' - which have vanished in most states but going strong here - covered wagon parking available... |
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| The Arkansas River - largest we've seen so far on our trip - begins its journey to the Mississippi near Leadville, CO |
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| Cool dam and one-lane bridge |
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