Day Forty-Four: El Reno - Oklahoma City

We went back the Cherokee Restaurant for breakfast in the morning in hopes of having as large of a spread as the night before, and hopefully this time we wouldn’t have any rude people commenting on our ugly clothing (see previous post). We ordered eggs, bacon, and the rest, including pancakes, which we have decided are the miracle drug for cycling. Seriously, I feel awesome every time I eat pancakes. Funny how that works… when we returned to our campsite, we were greeted by a couple who had arrived late the night before and parked in the slot next to our tent. Their Dachshund, Dottie, was quick to wiggle our way, flaunting her pink bejeweled collar that gleamed in the morning sun. We visited for some time, casually conversing while packing up, until Peggy approached us with fruit, pancakes, and sweet tea, insisting that we take a few bites before heading out. Despite having just eaten, we gladly accepted the offer, shoved down a few more morsels, and enjoyed another thirty or so minutes hanging out with Dottie and her hospitable owners.

Just before taking off, Peggy flagged us down enthusiastically: “Do you want to see something cool?!” She told us since she thought we were so cool, she wanted to show us something cool in return (we’re not cool). She led us to the front of their RV, where she and her husband had opened the hood to expose a newly installed hydrogen generator. They explained how it works to nearly double their gas mileage—and no, it doesn’t cause a massive explosion in a collision because the solution is so diluted. She was right, pretty cool! We bid them adieu after exchanging information and taking a photo with Dottie; Peggy’s not a fan of having her picture taken, so instead she’s recording their travels with a “Where’s Dottie?” tagline. We rolled out of the KOA and back onto the freeway in hopes of finally reaching Oklahoma City, unaware of the massive mess of traffic that we were about to encounter.

The freeway became extremely hectic about 10 miles west of the city, and the shoulder was loaded with blown truck tires and stringy wires and broken glass (great for the tires). Oklahoma also doesn’t have the best drivers, as we have come to discover, so we decided to get off of the freeway about five miles before our exit, so as to avoid having to cross over off-ramps and on-ramps where drivers fail to use their turn signals and scare the living daylights out of us. The exit took us to an… interesting… part of town—sketchy, to say the least. The streets were cracked and potholed, forcing us to ride along the sidewalk where we nearly collided with a few people “working the corner” if you know what I mean, and even witnessed and arrest on the roadside. After five miles of red stoplights, we finally made it to Bricktown, the entertainment district where we were gifted a hotel for the night. And somehow, the instant we pulled up to the entrance of the Hampton Inn and Suites, I heard a loud THUNK and my back tire began to wobble, quickly deflating to a thin layer of rubber barely protecting my rim from the asphalt. “We’ll fix that tomorrow.”

The Hampton Inn, unlike scuzzy motels we have stayed at in days past, had cookies and tea and coffee and other fancy refreshments greeting us with a smile in the lobby (if cookies could smile, they would have been smiling, I promise). We rolled our bikes up the elevator and down the narrow hallway—well, Slater rolled, I bounced with a flat tire—and flung open our door into a frostily air-conditioned, pristine room with white linens. After the muggy day of riding and sweating, the sight of a clean, cold, empty room to sleep in was a greater spectacle than David Beckham—I mean Slater—eating an ice cream cone with his shirt off. A maintenance man outside of our room had helped us to hold the door open while we lugged in our gear, and he returned minutes later with chilly bottles of water for the taking, putting the cherry on top of our arrival. Minutes later, we headed down to the pool and hot tub to soak away the sting of the sun, then went back to our room to catch the semifinal win of the Women’s World Cup. If you’re not following it, you should be, and you best be watching this Sunday.

We finally took the time to explore town after we had rested our legs for a few hours, and we ventured (not far) down to the Bricktown Canal, a uniquely restored area of the city with a magical little canal that flows by southern-inspired restaurants, noisy bars that were poppin’ considering it was a Tuesday night, and other shops and eateries for tourists and locals alike. We blindly chose Jazmo’z Bourbon Street Café for dinner, which upon viewing the menu turned out to be much too pricy for our budget, so we ordered the cheapest items on the menu (but somehow justified dessert). We also failed to think about the fact that it was a Louisiana kitchen-type restaurant, meaning 95% of the menu was seafood, and I’m allergic. It was a wonderful dinner, nonetheless, especially the part that involved champagne mojitos, and we walked back to our hotel fat and happy. The wee hours of the night were spent watching a special on transgender children… who knows, we just needed something to get our minds off of biking.