June 5, 2023
Day 22 - ending at Tishomingo, OK
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Up at 5:00am. Tried to catch the attention of a park official driving by, but he didn't see me. It's 1.5 miles to the park office, uphill in the wrong direction. Looks like another payment I'll mail in. Left my campsite at 9:25am, after eating a sweet and salty bar. Rode back to the "Comfort Station" where the RV campground is to get water.
Today's goal is to get to Pennington Creek Park in Tishomingo, Oklahoma. I couldn't remember the details of my pre-trip routing for this day, but I was hoping it included a restaurant for breakfast or lunch along the way.
I started across McGee Creek Dike at 10:02am, and was at the park's north sign at 10:13am. The road west got interesting. At one spot there were several police cars from different jurisdictions and a power company pickup truck all parked on the south side of the road. As I continued west past that, a bucket utility truck passed, then a few more police cars and finally a car from "News 10".
Half following Google Maps (I had a cell signal again), and half following my GPS plan, I missed arriving in Lane, Oklahoma - a place with a Dollar General Store and a convenience store! I was a mile too far west. It was 11:35am now. I stopped there next to OK-3 to upload yesterday's report. That brought me to noon; time to record the noon mileage: 10.5 miles. I used Google Maps to find a place the on my route ahead to eat, which would now be, lunch. Looks like Tushka had a place and so did Caney. Later in the afternoon I would discover my confusion that the place in Tushka isn't open on Mondays. Anyways, I thought I was headed toward lunch.
I crossed OK-3 and took the next gravel road west. Not too far along on this road, at 12:24pm, I had a flat tire - on the rear. I walked the bike just a little ways to get into some shade. I found a piece of glass embedded in the middle of the tire, but that wasn't the cause of the flat, it was a tire tread wire. I could have repaired the tube, but I like doing that with a sink of water on hand, which makes it so much easier to see the punctures. So I replaced the tube, ate a Clif Bar, and was back on my way at 1:33pm.
About a half an hour later I was hearing thunder to the east. I checked the radar. Storms were developing to the east, but moving to the west and slightly northwest. So the rain was chasing me. I arrived in Tushka at 3:10pm. If there hadn't been a stoplight for US-75/US-69, I never would have got across. So many semi-trucks! Anyway I was across, so stopped at a pull-off to get rigged up for rain. It sprinkled on me then but stopped by the time I was done covering everything in plastic.
OK, time for a new goal: get to Ma and Pa's General Store in Coleman for supper. More country gravel roads following this route. It was slow, but peaceful. My chances of getting rained on seemed to have diminished. I'm still in an up-and-down road area, but the hills are getting easier.
At 6:05pm, I pulled up to Ma and Pa's General Store. The cafe section closed at 2:00pm - Google Maps has that wrong. But that didn't matter because inside the store I was able to buy a pulled pork sandwich, which they warmed up for me and added barbecue sauce. I rounded up other items for eating with my sandwich, and for carrying along.
Tishomingo was 18 miles away, but my map showed paved highways to get there. I left Coleman at 6:53pm, heading west on OK-48A. I made a right turn onto OK-78 in Millburn at 8:10pm. Time to turn on my flashing lights and engage my right side bottle generator. I noticed a few days ago that the left generator, spaced the little farther away from the tire, is grinding a groove into the tire. So I haven't been using that generator lately. Easy enough to fix, I think, if I just take time to do it.
The charge state of the bike's lighting/accessories battery was pretty sad, not having seen AC charging for a couple of days. But there was enough juice left to get me to Tishomingo safely.
After coasting through downtown, I arrived at Pennington Creek Park at 9:08pm. Decided to set up underneath a pavilion, since that was the only location I found that had an outlet. All set up by 10:15pm. The police stopped by after that and ran a check on me using my driver's license number. They were interested in my trip plans. I asked about paying for the site. They said I'd need to go to city hall (on east side of town) in the morning for that.
Sent out my "I've arrived" email, sorted through pictures, brushed my teeth (I'm doing that almost every night), then to bed at 12:10am.
Jeff
Spent: $24.34 (supper items) + $20 (camping fee) = $44.34
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https://www.inaturalist.org/guide_taxa/383976#:~:text=The%20Chicken%20turtle%20(Deirochelys%20reticularia,in%20the%20monotypic%20genus%20Deirochelys.
10 months ago
Today's ride: 55 miles (89 km)
Total: 938 miles (1,510 km)
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