Day 40: Rest Day - Steel City to Cow Town 2014 - CycleBlaze

October 18, 2014

Day 40: Rest Day

Rest day in Atoka, Oklahoma. My main objective was to rest as much as possible. But I also planned the remainder of the tour. I'm committing to a 1-day detour to see Turner Falls, so it will take 4 days and 3 nights to get to my parents house in Fort Worth.

I didn't have many chores to do. At Wal-Mart I bought a touch screen stylus to compare to my Bluetooth keyboard. Using the on-screen keyboard the stylus allows me to type faster and with fewer errors, compared to my fingers. I think in the future I will carry the 1/2 ounce stylus/pen instead of the 4 ounce keyboard.

I pedaled about a mile away to see downtown. It's quite depressing to see miles of traffic and sprawl on US 69, but find that downtown is dead.

Sleepy downtown Atoka, Oklahoma.
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Atoka (pop. 3100) is a typical sprawling sun belt town with several miles of strip development along US 69, a 5-lane highway with nonstop traffic including many big gravel trucks. Most of the land is devoted to roads and parking lots.

The bypass highway certainly achieved its goal of getting thru-traffic out of downtown. A few blocks away, downtown has no traffic and many buildings are boarded up. It could take a pedestrian 5 minutes to cross US 69. No problem crossing the street downtown!

I tightened spokes, cleaned the chain, and took a long nap. It was nice to have nothing urgent to do.

High of 73F, sunny all day. Perfect touring weather, but I need the rest.

The weather forecast looks good and the terrain will be easy for the last 4 days of the tour.

Distance: 4.9 mi. (7.8 km)

Today's ride: 5 miles (8 km)
Total: 1,951 miles (3,140 km)

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