June 5, 2018 western OKC ( Yukon) to Chandler, Oklahoma

63.25 miles. When I got up this morning, my bike was a little wet, bringing back memories of the thunderclap that about gave me a heart attack in the middle of the night. It was accompanied by about a tenth of an inch of rain. But we really didn't get to see or feel it. I was gone at about eight a.m., headed for the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. It's a terroristic event that is often forgotten. I rode along the Reno Ave, that I started on as a gravel road yesterday, and turned into a major artery right into downtown OKC. I took a few residential streets close to downtown, onto Fourth street, and boom, I was there. I walked up some stairs  to an elevated park first, and didn't see the real memorial, until I looked over a rail on the opposite side of the park. The two huge walls with "9:03", ( the time of the explosion) engraved on it, the reflection pool, and the chairlike monuments with each victim's name engraved, where down below, on street level. As I walked back down and around the bend, I saw the makeshift memorial wall along a fence where many flowers and keepsakes were still apparent. There were a few tours going on, and a museum, but there was no time for that on this day. It was somber, and very quiet, quite memorable.
The side trip kept me from getting back on US66, which is more north of the city. I had to trust my GPS to get me back on track, and that trust has been broken once too many times, but I went with it. Just as that GPS is capable of getting me into some real messy situations, it is also capable of discovering some trophy rides. Today, for the most part, was a trophy ride. The weather was warm but beautiful ( the humidity is building every day), and the ride back to 66 was great.  It was always in the back of my mind that I was going to end up in a cow path somewhere, but that seed of doubt never came to fruition. The ride out of town was on a calm road, to a nice bicycle trail (Katy Trail) along some train tracks, to a frontage road along I 35, and then out into a rolling, green, country side with beautiful homes and a few golf courses. As I left the suburbs, I went through small towns (Spencer, Jones) that weren't on my map at all. Large enough to have a Sonic and a Dollar General, small enough that there wasn't much else. The final five miles or so was a little sketchier than it could have been, but overall a nice trail back to US66. The final twenty or so miles were on a stretch of 66 that did a pretty nice job of running a ridgeline, so there wasn't any crazy climbs, and just enough side breeze to keep a cooling effect going. I pulled into a Phillips 66 station in the small town of Williston, and filled up a couple of water bottles. I noticed another biker that we had noticed off and on in a couple places over the last week or so. We saw him in Elk City on my day that I got the bike fixed, and Pam saw him another day, a few miles ahead of me. We struck up a conversation as we rode my last twelve miles together, and I brought him to the Rv and gave him, a water refill, a bottle of Gatorade, and a can of Chef Boy R See beef ravioli. He was a 22 year old kid named Ben that started in California and was headed to Wisconsin. It was his first tour, and he was on an old (even by my standards) Schwinn that he bought on eBay. He had no Garmin, just an ACA map and his phone. He was working in film production and wanted to be a writer. He said his lease in LA ran out, and with some encouragement from his family, decided to ride off into the sunrise( he is headed east) for a while. He reminded Pam and I of a friend and former student, Andy Ruether. After a short visit, he was on his way to ride off to the next town, Stroud, or maybe further. Our campground was actually wooded, with many oak trees. Another sign that we are getting more east, is that I found poison ivy for the first time. Big ride to Tulsa and beyond tomorrow, over 80 miles or so.