Wonderful Day

It really has been a wonderful day today. I got up at 6:30 AM, checked the weather and found it was going to be a sunny day today in Durant. I looked at the moving map and saw that there were storm clouds just to the north where I was wanting to ride, but they were moving east quite rapidly.

According to my theory of Oklahoma weather, those storms to the north mark the division between the cool, dry Canadian air from the north, and the warm, moist Cuban air from the south. Every day there is a battle between those two air masses to see which one owns Oklahoma for the day. If Cuba wins, it will be hot and muggy with drizzling rain showers on the warm front. If Canada wins, there will be thunder and lightning, with possible hail and high winds up to and including tornados on the cold front.

Canada was just barely winning this morning as the storms moved on by. I knew that even though the sky above was cloudy, chances were good that the clouds would burn off in an hour or two. So I coated my face and arms with 50+ sunscreen and was on the road by 7:30.

There was a light tailwind as I rode north and west. I rode through Cobb, Brown, and got to Nida, 17 miles, by 9:00. My bottle of Mt. Dew was gone at Kenefic, so I stopped at the little gas station there and got another bottle. I was feeling good, with no muscle pain or tiredness at all. 

I continued east on Hwy 22, where the only trouble was those damn gravel trucks kept running me off the road. There is no shoulder there, but usually there is no traffic either. Today for some reason at least a dozen trucks, large semis hauling gravel, came up from behind me, and every time there was a vehicle approaching from the front, leaving no room on the pavement for a bicycle. So I went mountain biking down the steep shoulder slope. Several times. 

In spite of that, I made it to Caddo by 10:30, so I stopped at the Dairy Queen for lunch. I felt really hungry, so I ordered a foot long chili dog with onions. Boy, was that a mistake! There are no public bathrooms from Caddo to Durant, 12 miles, and I feel really lucky to have made it home on time.

I left Caddo at 11:10, and I was still feeling good, even though the sun was getting hot. I now had a head wind, which felt good, even though it slowed me down some.

Halfway to Armstrong I heard music coming from somewhere, and I was baffled until a guy went whizzing past me on a touring bike with narrow tires and saddle bags. He hollered “Hi!” and I hollered back “Hey!” and then he was moving away. I tried to keep up, but he had the best bike for the road, and he was obviously in shape. 

I burned off a little too much energy in that burst of speed, so I pulled over to the side and stopped, just leaning on the handlebars cooling off for a second or two. 

I was surprised as a female voice asked if I was OK. She had pulled up beside me and stopped. She had a bike to match the one who just passed me, and she was about the same age - somewhere in their twenties - I would guess. 

I told her I was just catching my breath, and she offered me water, if I needed any. I pointed to the Mt. Dew bottle on my bike, but thanked her for the offer. She said, “See ya!” and off she went. I didn’t try to catch her, but I kept her visible in the distance, until I saw her pull off behind the guy who passed me earlier. He had stopped for a rest, too.

I geared down as I approached them, and stopped to see where they were going. We introduced ourselves, and I told them I was training for a tour on Saturday, and was nearly finished on the 42 mile loop. They said they were also headed for Durant, but they had left McAlester, OK that morning and were riding cross country. 

They asked if I was from Oklahoma, and I told them I moved here a couple of years ago to be close to my wife’s family after she started showing symptoms of Alzheimer’s. I explained I was originally from California, and they noticed the Yosemite tee shirt I was wearing. They said they were from San Francisco, and I was the only other bicycle rider they had seen in Oklahoma.

I smiled as they said I represented Oklahoma well, and asked how far it was to Durant. I told them we were about 5 miles out, with two long steep hills on the old Armstrong road, or there was another option of crossing the freeway in Armstrong and riding south on Hwy 48, the way I rode out of town this morning.

They thanked me, wished me luck on the tour, and then they were off to the races again. If I am going to live in this country for much longer, maybe I should trade my mountain bike in for a road bike.

I arrived back at the house at exactly 1:00 PM, and came alive again as I turned up the cold water in the shower. I got to Featherstone to see Carolyn and Darlene just after 2:00 and found that Carolyn was more alert than I had seen her in many weeks. The swelling on her neck disappeared in two days after her lemon juice treatment, and she was feeding herself at lunch and talking and laughing when I came in the room.

They were serving root beer floats out front, so I wheeled her out to the lobby and got a couple for us. I thought I would have to feed her, but she took the cup out of my hand, grabbed the plastic spoon, and ate the ice cream and spooned in the root beer without spilling a drop.

After we threw the empty cups in the trash, we just sat and held hands, and I tried to make sense out of the broken, random words she was using. Then she pulled my hand hard enough to roll the wheelchair up close and leaned over and clearly said, “I - - - -love - - - you!” I looked her in the eye and said, “I love you, too!” I don’t know who started crying first, but we both lost it there for awhile. 

I became obvious that she was having one of her cognitive awareness breakthroughs, and she suddenly knew where she was and what was wrong. All I could do was promise to always be there and never leave her.

She got it under control enough to feed herself dinner at 5:00, and then Darlene and I got her ready for bed, kissed her goodnight, and promised to be back in the morning, as usual.

When I had gotten home and put supper in the oven, I got a call from my brother John, saying he was in Durant, and after he found a room, needed directions to my house. After a bunch of missed turns, wrong way turns, and turns up a one way street, he found the house and we had a good long talk, catching up on a year’s worth of family and friends.

Tomorrow we are having breakfast together at the Choctaw Casino, so I better close this story for now. I need a good night’s sleep and I think I got one coming.

It’s truly been a wonderful day!