Day 16 Edmond, Oklahoma - Tulsa, Oklahoma

Day 16 Edmond, Oklahoma - Tulsa, Oklahoma'

Miles - 104

Roadkill 3 stuncks 10 possum, 8 turtles and 29 others smashed beyond recognition

It was a very short night.  I didn't finish my previous ious blog until well after midnight.  And since we were staying and sharing a bathroom, I wanted to get all ready to give Caoline plenty of time.  

It was a beautiful sunrise.  Bright red colors over the lake.  We threw stuff into the van to made it to the hotel by the 6:30 deadline.  And like everything else, there was a quick conversation with the front deck staff.  

All the guys left, oh, I saw around 8:00am or even early.  We followed behind catching up with them about 10 minutes later.  Then we got a call on the radio from Wes that neil was needing his eye drops.  Vela graciously said she would catch up with us.  Bless her heart she got lost.  How ever family about  10 minutes later she was able to catch up with us.  At this point, Glenn us off his bike, head bended now and crouching his eyes.  He couldn't see very we'll.  The eye drops helps d somewhat.  He then used a patch on one eye and used it later on the another eye.  By the end of the day, m Neils eye wasn't hurting as bad and I noticed he wasn't wearing a patch at all.

Vela was on her own, as he drove to Tulsa and got to do some class prepartion work.  We finally got back together at the hotel.

One of the stops we had was at a roadside fruit/vegetable stand.  Caroline had 2 flat tires.  Neil talked to two farmers.  Father and son business that was struggling.  They also mentioned the difficulty with the recent rains.  He pulled out of his pocket an old knife and sliced the cantaloup.  Delicious.  Neil also purchased a jar of pickles.  

As we were coming upon one of the towns along Hiway 66, things got really busy and hectic.  We were proposing a restaurant in this one town so the cyclists rode towards it then Neil and crew decided to stop at Sonic.  Again.  They were engaging in these 4 Latin America folks and then Glenn continued on the conversation in Spanish.  All 4 from Central America.  2 from Guatemala, 1 from Honduras and I forgot where the 4 person was from. They didn't have time to to have a conversation once they needed to return back to work at 12noon.  They were painters and were repainting inside the school rooms.

After lunch we continued on.  I started to take a short cat nap when all of a sudden Glenn stopped in the road.  I looked up and saw Wes on the road.  He quickly got up and brushed himself off.  What happened his tire hit the part of another cyclists wheel and down he went.  Just behind us a car stopped and the gentleman driving was a medic.  Wow, an angel showed up at the right time.  Wes didn't hurt himself.  I think he was more embarrassed than anything.  And of course this made a good part of the story.

I then looked at my text messages and there was one from Jack and Val Cox, who were up ahead waiting to cheer us on. They were parked along the side of the road.  Then I checked out a text from Jeff.  He wrote that Jon, the photographer, that his girl friends' father was riding his bike around White Rock Lake on Tuesday morning and died of a heart attack.  I showed Glenn's the text and he read it to the group. We immediately stopped to pray.  Wow!

We continued on our journey towards Tulsa.  There were several stops like at convenience stores where there was shade and also a bathroom.  We stopped in Spolovia, Oklahoma and Neil had a conversation with a police deputy, He mention how there has been some tragedy in the department.  We stopped to take a photo by the sign on the highway.

Finally arriving at our Best Western Hotel on Route 66 around 5:30pm.  I quickly got to my room to take a shower and get ready for dinner.  Everyone down in the Lobby by 6:30pm.  Glenn didn't get a chance to come up to the room as he was getting the van cleaned out.  The shower felt good.

We had dinner at Mother Road Market.  I texted John C and he came down to visit with us over our meal.  Good good good to reconnect with him.  We sure miss him and Gail down in Guatemala.

Tonight was a longer night.  I needed to call Apple Support to find out why my photos were not syncing with my computer.  Got that solved.  I was literally 'fading' and nearly fell asleep on the phone with the Apple computer person.

Day 16 is in the Books!  Next stop, Missouri