Tuesday, May 14th – Day 42 – Tulsa to Chelsea

Best part of the day: Finally light crosswinds and tailwinds

Worst part of the day: A mostly muggy day

Distance: 50 miles Riding Time: 4hrs 8min

Bed count: 25 Sleeping Bag count: 17

Once again it was nice to be indoors because it rained and thundered early in the morning. We could hear the thunder and see the lightning come through our windows. We had a short day, 50 miles, and since it was raining, we decided to leave a little later than usual. Our kind and generous hosts had a nice selection of breakfast items and Robert made French pressed coffee for us. What a nice surprise!

The storm system that had made the roads wet had pushed off to the southeast, but, it was still fairly muggy. We warmed up pretty quickly as it was in the low 60s at our ride’s start.

We said our most heartfelt “thank you’s” to Becky and Robert and started out going through the heart of downtown seeing a couple of beautiful churches. (Us with our fantastic Warm Showers hosts, Robert and Becky.)

(The two churches early on our route.)

We then ventured into more quiet residential streets and off of the busier Route 66 road. Heading out via the northeast part of town, we wound up on a backroad around some of the industrial parts of the city: a FedEx distribution center, an aerospace business, a car recycling place (flattened and stacked cars all over the place), and one other open area that didn’t have the most fragrant of aromas!!

Finally returned onto Route 66 where in Verdigris we stopped at a convenience store for a break. Picked up some O.J. to go with our flour tortilla & peanut butter. Fay dug into the bottom of one of her panniers and grabbed the leftover blueberry pancakes and bacon we’d saved from back at Rob’s brother’s place. Fay threw out, “Hey Rob, do you want to eat this and put PB&J on it?” Where he answered, “sure, that sounds good.”

We only had 25 miles left to get to our final destination and the winds were once again at our backs!! We were in heaven and flying along the relatively flat road.

We missed a turn to a side road in Foyil, Andy Payne Blvd. There was a statue of a person running at a corner of that road. Didn’t know it meant, but, later researched that Andy was a Cherokee who won the 1928 International Trans-Continental Footrace back in 1928 running the 3,423-mile route from LA-NYC much of it along Route 66 in just over 573 hours (or just under 24 days of time!) over an 84-day staged run!!

But, because of missing that turn, we stopped at another convenience store for ice cream sandwiches.

Tonight, we’re staying at the Chelsea Motor Inn. It has only 6 rooms.

The owners, Frank and Trudy, are so nice and funny. We had made reservations, talking with Frank, on the day when we had the storm back in Elk City. We guess we made a big enough impression that he stopped by our room to say “Hi”! He’s quite a talker and has lots of stories to tell. Even Trudy, his wife, said when we checked in that Frank reminded her that we were coming in today. (Our Route 66-themed room at the Chelsea Motor Inn.)

For dinner, we went over to the Mexican restaurant across the street. Frank and Trudy got there a little later with their friends. Frank was excited to see us there and still had many more stories to tell. (At the Mexican restaurant, Lindo Veracruz, with Frank and Trudy.)

After dinner, we walked next door to the grocery store and picked a up couple things for our possible long ride tomorrow.

The weather forecast for this coming weekend is for another thunderstorm to hit northeast Oklahoma! So, we started thinking about getting further into Missouri before it hits. Our original goal was to take 3 days to get to Springfield, MO, but, we might try to make it in two. That would mean tomorrow’s ride might go all the way to Joplin, MO (80+ miles), instead of Miami, OK!! The winds are looking to be favorable for the next few days, so, it might be a possibility! We’re keeping our lodging options open since we’re not sure where we’ll wind up tomorrow. We’ve done a couple of 70+ mile days, but, no 80-milers yet on this trip.

Wish us luck!!

Until our next post….