Day Forty-Five: Oklahoma City - East Oklahoma City

Soooooo, we didn’t get very far today, due to a number of reasons. The first order of business was continental breakfast, obviously, which was quite possibly the best continental breakfast I have ever laid eyes on: scrambled eggs with various fixings, breakfast potatoes, fresh fruit (the good kind, not melon), waffles with toppings, banana bread and pastries, you name it. They should start advertising that breakfast. Next came sitting—you know, digesting—and sipping coffee. We returned to the room to see my flat tire that we had almost forgotten about, and discovered that Slater’s back tire had also gone flat overnight. I had one tube left and he had run completely out, so I fixed mine quickly and rode to the nearest bike shop, about a mile away. The ride wound through a lovely part of the city, and I was able to see a few bridges and high rises, and parts of the city where I’m sure locals spend time, rather than tourists like myself. I pulled up to the cyclery and hassled a salesmen for six new tubes: three for me, size 26 x 1.75 with a presta valve, and three for Slate, size 700c x 32, also with a presta valve. The salesman seemed on his game; he does this all the time, like a seasoned waiter handling a hefty order. He dove into the back room and returned in no time with boxes of tubes stacking up to his chin, and rang me up at the front counter.

The thought never crossed my mind to check the sizes, considering he seemed to know what he was doing… wrong. I rode back in the muggy heat that was getting worse by the second, and pushed my bike into the hotel room with a heave. I was sweaty and smelly, and tossed the three tubes of Slater’s toward him, and we both instantly realized that I had purchased the wrong tubes. They had the wrong valve—an honest mistake, obviously—but I was pissed. I huffed and puffed in anger back to the shop, sweating even more profusely, and tried to tame down my sass when exchanging the tubes, then trudged back once more to the hotel. I cooled off and relaxed for a few minutes while Slater ventured into the city in an attempt to find a barber’s shop, which turned out to be in the basement of an uncomfortably fancy bank building, and I’m sure he smelled (heehee). By the time this was all said and done, it was nearly 1 o’clock, and though we had new tubes and a buzz cut, we were not happy about leaving so late. We checked out of the Hampton Inn and gazed longingly back at it as we took off for what we thought would be another 60 mile ride.

Well, long story short, it was really hot, really late, and we were worn out, so we only made it 17 miles. There was a KOA on the east end of the city—this we knew because we had planned on staying there before being gifted a hotel stay—and we opted for staying there that night, rather than pushing it to the next town in complete exhaustion. We pulled up the long dirt road and found our moods instantly lightened upon seeing a clear blue pool full of saltwater and frolicking bodies. The old man at the front desk spoke in a Jeff-Bridges-deep voice and drew meticulous arrows and lines on our campground map to direct us to our site, which was only about fifty feet away from where we were standing. We couldn’t help but love his genuinely cheery mood and numerous smile lines, and we grinned as we walked our bikes down to our patch of grass to set up the tent.

By that point, it was hottest part of the day, so we dipped in the pool for a refreshing cool-off. In an attempt to get rid of some gnarly tan lines, we chose to lay out on the pool deck for a few minutes, but we were prompted to cut that time short when a 16 year-old chatty Kathy with snakebite piercings wouldn’t stop talking to Slater about his multiple ATV accidents and his girlfriends in other states and “the things you do for love.” He wished us well on our relationship (thanks, dude) and said goodbye after 30 minutes of incessant rambling during which Slater probably said “Uh-huh” 500 times and “Oooooh” every so often for a little variety. That whole shindig made us (mainly me) quite frustrated and a bit hangry, so we covered up and headed to Subway for dinner. We laughed and retold the kid’s stories in our own words, exaggerating and elaborating, over footlongs and a shared bag of chips, which seemed to transform our frustration into relief. The rest of the night went a little bit smoother, and we returned to the campground for a night of journaling and relaxing, despite the fact that the inside of our tent was a sauna. We sweated ourselves to sleep, completely ruining the showers we had taken at the end of the night, and tossed and turned in the heat the whole night through.