In preparing for this trip, Kevin and Claire Lang generously gave Ted and me a motorcycle ride journal. I started writing in it every night and it has now become a treasured reference item. If we are trying to remember what day something in particular happened, we pull out the journal to check. One of the prompts is "Points of Interest." Today's interesting feature was the unusual number of roadkill armadillos. Oklahoma must have a high population living along I-40.
We left Russellville, AR around 11:00 CST in a light rain and headed south on Rt. 7 to the Honda dealership to do a little shopping (another cargo net, throttle rocker to replace the one I lost in Mississippi, etc). They were closed so we turned around (u-turn) and got on I-40W. The rain soon changed to heavy dark cloud cover. The temperature stayed at 66 degrees most of the day. After Ft. Smith we rode into Oklahoma. The landscape was beautiful and dramatic with the shapes of the sky clouds.
We stopped in Alma, AR which is just east of Ft. Smith. Alma claims to be the spinach capital of the USA, according to the billboards. The town folk have painted their twin water towers. One water tower is now the "World's Largest Spinach Can." Ted and I pulled into the City Park for the photo op! We waved at two Almaians who stood proudly watching us get just the right angle of their spinach can. Salute, Alma, AR!
Traffic was light and Ted and I made good time. We did get held up at two points. Traffic was stopped and backed up because of a traffic accident. We started moving again once we got clear of the area. The other tie up was because we hit Oklahoma City right at rush hour. Again we sat on I-40 or crawled forward slowly. Thank goodness for the GPS. She got us in the correct lanes to continue through the city.
It had been chilly going the whole day. It was still 66 degrees at 2:30. We had stopped at a rest area to put on more clothes early in the ride. We still had on our orange Frogg Togg rain gear from this morning on top of it all to block the wind. On the other side of Oklahoma City the cloud cover left abruptly. The sun came out and it headed up to 72 degrees quickly. Zippers came down, the window air vent was opened, and the helmet visors came up. We decided to stop for the day in Weatherford, OK. After we got our room and our bikes unloaded we changed into street clothes and headed over to Nina's Ice House for one of the best burgers I've ever eaten on Historic Route 66. With our bellies full and interstate traffic for our background music, we walked back to our hotel commenting on all those armadillos we saw today.
U-turns - 1
Miles - 358
Armadillos (dead) - way too many
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