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.
If you would like me to ride in tribute of your loved one, please email a photo to [email protected] or [email protected], 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.
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.
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.
Century Farmhouse Handcrafted Artisan Soaps, one of West Bend’s local specialty shops, sends a shout out to me as I make my way back to West Bend from New Mexico on my bike for The Amazing Ride for Alzheimer’s 2016.
If you would like me to ride in tribute of your loved one, please email a photo to [email protected] or [email protected], 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.
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.
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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.
One of my most favorite encounters so far has been with Harley in Erick, Oklahoma.
After a much-needed rest stop at the Roger Miller Museum
I drifted down the road to a building that had
a ton of colorful vintage business signs.
“Take as many pictures as you like,” said Harley.
He was the owner of the shop, with was the former City Meat Market turned into a frequent tourist stop just off Route 66.
Harley was dressed in well-worn blue-and-white bib overalls. He was minus a shirt…probably cooler that way. Harley, 76, had his gray hair pulled back in a ponytail. His voice was gravelly and his personality eccentric.
I found him endearing, entertaining and lonely.
“Take as many photos as you want,” he said again as he flipped on the lights inside the store.
There are photos with Harley and his beloved wife Annabelle; the pair apparently drew more attention than the local museums.
“Now what are you doing on this bike trip,” said Harley. “You want a cold drink?”
I declined and Harley came back with a root beer and poured it in a frosty mug that looked like it could hold 64 ounces.
I explained the tour and then got distracted by a picture frame full of rattlesnake tails.
Harley had a lot of musical instruments mixed in with his old-school items.
There were tambourines and markkas. “Let me sing a song for your dad,” said Harley as he strapped on his guitar. “Roll that video.”
And with that Harley belted out a dedication tune of Route 66 to Al Steffes.
Some people might have been scared. I thought it was wonderful.
After the song Harley said, “You want to come over and see my house? I call it the castle-slash-sanitarium.”
How could a gal resist!
I felt a little uneasy. I could see through Harley’s shtick … But I was nonetheless a little wary so I …..
STAY TUNED TO FIND OUT…. Did I go along with him or not?
