Shout out to KTVO, Missouri; thanks for the KUDO!

It took a couple years but someone finally compared me to another cross country adventurer... and I take it as a total compliment!


CLICK HERE to watch the video!

Stephen Sealey, KTVO (Missouri)

IN TRIBUTE: Victims of Alzheimer's, Families, Caregivers

Today I'm riding in honor of all those who have been affected by Alzheimer's disease, their loved ones and their caretakers.

Peggy Jablonski is sponsoring today's ride and says, "I was a nurse for many, many years and took care of many residents that were affected. In honor of all of those affected, and their loved ones."

If you would like me to ride in tribute of your loved one, please email a photo to thebikewriter@gmail.com or judyharley@yahoo.com, include the person's name and a brief note if you like, and send your contribution.

The entire $100 donation is tax deductible and will go toward Alzheimer's programs at Cedar Community. 

Of course, you may also make a donation to support the ride!

Click here http://imthebikewriter.blogspot.com/p/donate-here.html to submit your donation. 

So much to do so little time

Two weeks into the tour and I'm reluctantly starting to accept reality. I've pedaled from Albuquerque, N.M. to Oklahoma City, OK but I'm pathetically slow and have a lot of territory to accomplish in the next seven days. 

So, on to Plan B! With severe heat warnings in northeastern Oklahoma I've rented a car for a day to get me at least up to the Midwest. 

The brilliant decision affords me a couple luxuries, including a visit to the American Banjo Museum in Oklahoma City. 

I saw the museum on July 4 as I was pedaling around Bricktown. 

The museum is in a former candy cane factory on Sheridan Avenue. 

There are over 400 banjos on display, including this one (below) with Wisconsin ties. 

Les Paul of Waukesha started his career playing the banjo. "He actually bought the banjo, took it apart and electrified it," said Dustin Pyeatt, museum development manager (photo below).

Pyeatt leads me on an exclusive tour of the two-story museum pointing out some of the highlights and sharing the history of minstrels and jazz, blue grass and the amazing talents of Steve Martin. 

Martin got his start in music and magic at 10 years old working at Disneyland. As far as the banjo was concerned he said, "As a beginner you can't practice the banjo or violin around anybody as they'll go insane, so I would sit in my car and roll up the windows even on the hottest summer days -and struggle to learn the banjo."

Photos courtesy the American Banjo Museum.

Behind the scenes: The updated tour now looks like this,,,,

To get home in the scheduled three weeks I'm hoping to leave the excessive heat behind me and resume pedaling this afternoon from Columbia, Missouri. 

A bit happy to have a vehicle since this is how my morning looks before the day gets under way. 

Dedicated to the City of West Bend

Here's a photo gallery of the river walk in downtown Oklahoma City. It's an example of what West Bend is aiming for in its downtown - minus the corporate Sonic headquarters, the baseball stadium and a bigger waterway.

It's called Bricktown and the historic district was funded with a penny tax on every dollar.

The Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark is just one of the centerpieces. And that's former Milwaukee Brave Warren Spahn, a native of Oklahoma.

Surrounding the ballpark is a waterway with shops and parks

and restaurants and might large sculptures.

The walkway is crowded with couples and families and ducks with fancy hairdos. 

The sculptures are of the Centennial Land Run. It's beautiful cowboy and western art.

I chat with David and Irma (above) while on the trail. They relocated to Oklahoma City about seven years ago and rave about the foresight of city leaders.

"This is a conservative community but the MAPS tax really has been money well spent, "said David, "The tourism increased and the shop owners and local economy really benefits."

The arena is just outside Bricktown and on a side note....

The hot topic of conversation was that Kevin Durant is

leaving the Thunder for the Golden State Warriors.

Situations.....

So sometimes on these tours I get myself into situations that even I can't imagine.

I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. On the road for about two weeks and the weather in Oklahoma is so steamy even my socks are soaking wet.

I join Joyce and Jackie for breakfast after pedaling 15 miles from Clinton to Weatherford. We eat at Lucille's, a well-known stop on Route 66.

"Got married when I was 16," said Joyce. "We've been married longer than you've been alive."

The couple had three children and more than 10 grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Joyce and Jackie had already attended a great grandchild's soap box derby race that morning.

The couple knew a lot of people at the diner. Jackie was 83 and a retired truck driver. 

Jackie wanted to drive me in the worst way to see the real Lucille's truck stop on Route 66.

The story of Lucille raising a family during the 1940s was one of fortitude and then despair when the government shut off access to her gas station when they rerouted the new interstate. 

Lucille's was a photo op for all travelers on the Historic Route 66. 

Not long after that stop I started to cramp up. Maybe the sweltery weather or something I ate. I pulled under an overpass and sat for a while. Temperatures were sunny and in the 90s. 

I eventually got back on my pony and made it 10 miles to a Love's truck stop.  

Two words: Air conditioning. 

I sat for a while, crunched some ice and weighed my fatigue and my options. 

After about 40 minutes a man exited a van hauling a mobile home. He was in his 70s, wore a Navy hat and said, "Pretty hot day for biking."

Next thing you know I'm in the back of the van talking to his wife, Sue, and they're giving me a safe lift to Oklahoma City.

Sue and I talk about books, the demise of media and the adventures of touring. 

The couple drop me off in downtown Oklahoma City, with its skyscrapers and traffic lights. 

I don't think I'm going to find a church in the vicinity so I roll into the lobby of the Courtyard Marriott. 

It's located next to the Chesapeake Energy Arena where the NBA Oklahoma Thunder play. 

I ask the clerk, Josh Allen, for help and directions to a youth hostel. 

Josh asks if I would stay if he could make a night at the Courtyard affordable.

That definition of 'affordable' is something that's probably not going to be in Josh's wheelhouse. 

And you are not going to believe what happened next....

This is me in my room at The Courtyard in downtown Oklahoma City.  Let's give it up for Josh Allen.

He totally was excellent customer service. He got me a bottle of water and a banana and I was getting out credentials and ID and going on and on about the tour and all he said calmly was, "I believe you."

I must have just looked and smelled like a total mess; I KNOW I wasn't their normal clientele... and Josh just helped. 

Let's hear it for Josh!

If Pictures Could Speak....

A quick photo gallery of my adventures on Sunday. 

Trucking along on the Historic Route 66 and finding the bones of some old motels along the way. Some are obviously closed while others can still turn a buck or two.

Stopped at the Route 66 Museum in Elk City and it was closed. 

Then I pushed along to the museum in Clinton, about 23 miles away... But it sure felt farther.  

The art at the museum in Clinton is colorful and the photos totally grasp the hard times and the changes going on across the country.  

Typical road conditions of Route 66 in 1920.  

Originally commissioned in 1926, Route 66 became the first national highway to cross the Midwestern part of the country from east to west.  It was 2,448 miles.

BELOW: This is a sharecroppers family near California in April 1935.

A migrant family in Oklahoma pushing a truck to get it started and head to California. Photo c. 1939.

The first graduating class of Oklahoma Highway Patrol Troopers, c. 1937.

Greyhound bus from c. 1937. I'm trying to remember where the Greyhound stopped in West Bend. I think it was at George Webbs on S. Main. Did it make a stop at the Red Owl on Highway 33?

ABOVE: A soldier saying goodbye to his gal before getting on the Greyhound.

Just simply a classic photo. 

________________________

On a side note, today's Kindness of Strangers Award goes to
Kimber from St. Mary's Catholic Church in Clinton, OK. 

Kimber helped get me settled in a house across the road from the parish. At 58 she lost her mother in February and her husband shortly there after.

"It's not fun, I tell you, to lose your two best friends like that," she said.

Kimber had an upbeat personality and spoke about keeping busy.

A secretary in the church office, Kimber had lived in Clinton her entire life.

Her husband was 15 years her senior.  "I just gotta keep movin on," she said. "What else can you do.... but, it hurts - there's no foolin anybody about that."

Black and white photos courtesy the Route 66 Museum. 

Where's Judy?

View nm las vegas in a full screen map

Oklahoma, You're OK!

Crossed into Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon. This monument marker was about 25 feet off the highway. I nosed my front bike wheel through the dry grass and high-stepped it to the sign. I'm not sure how much longer my luck will hold out that I don't eventually run into a rattlesnake.