April 9.....93.35 miles in 6:51....It worked out well that a long day out of necessity ( there are not many towns in this stretch) had warm weather and a semi-tail wind. I hopped onto US 60 again, out of Vici, and the terrible road surface that brought me into town, was not near as bad going east. As a matter of fact, it wasn't bad at all. A 20 mph wind was out of the southwest, bringing warmth, as opposed to yesterday, when it was out of the northwest. I expected heavy truck traffic, like yesterday, but it really didn't happen. That was good, considering that my shoulders were of the two foot variety, not 4,6, or 8 ft. Yesterday, I was either buffeted by an oncoming truck, or sucked along by trucks going my way, because of the direction of the wind. Today that didn't happen, and it was nice that there was so little traffic today. Monday ( yesterday) must be a big day for transporting big loads in this area.
The first half of the trip was once again very rolling, nothing steep or long, just constant rolls. The fields were broken up by lots of pine, oak, and other kinds of trees, which really helped break up the wind. I ended up climbing about 1600 ft today, and almost all of it was in this first half of the ride. There were lots of little creeks, and several ponds and lakes, so we are getting out of the dry, dusty areas, and getting into a less drought stricken climate. This portion of the ride reminded me a lot of central Ohio. It seems that everything I saw here, you can see in central Ohio, all the way down to a few Mennonite churches. I don't know if Ohio has any guinea hens roaming the fields, like I saw on two occasions here. I had to use the Internet to identify what they were.
Right after Pam passed me, and stopped for me to get some lunch, at about the 45 mile mark for me, things changed in the landscape. I crested over a rolling hill, and a valley opened up for me to descend into. I dropped about 500 ft over about five miles, and I was in a very agricultural valley. I'm guessing it was the Cimarron River Valley, because I eventually crossed over the Cimarron River, after passing through the town of Fairview. US60 turned to the north in this valley, and I got to ride with a true tailwind for about twelve miles. Once I descended, it was pretty flat all the way to Enid. US 60 eventually turned back to the east and met up with US 412, and that is where the road picked up traffic, but the shoulder also widened nicely. There were oceans of green fields throughout this area, all the way into Enid. The road widened to four lanes with a median as I got close to Enid also.
Enid has a unique history. It is a big town, about 50,000, with a history of natural disasters. It had the first McDonald's I've seen since Amarillo, along with all the other chains. That is something that you just didn't see in all the small towns we've been traveling through for the last 250 miles. The Wikipedia entry about Enid is just littered with tales about hail storms, floods, snow storms, and of course, tornadoes, which constantly rip through here. There was also an interesting story about how the town got its name. Back in the Cherokee land rush days, all the pioneers in the area came here to file paperwork. A chuck wagon entrepreneur hung a sign out to feed the travelers that said 'Dine.' Well I guess he hung it upside down, or backwards, and somehow it came out 'enid,' which is dine backwards, and the name stuck. Really? Yes. It has to be true because it was on the Internet.
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