Where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain

On Day Five we biked across the Oklahoma state border. Some of the faster riders wanted to have a "border race," where bikers compete to be the first rider who enters new territory. There aren't any physical prizes--only pride.

Our route foiled their plans, because we took IH-35 right in to Oklahoma. The shoulder was wide enough, but the traffic was too fast. Let me tell you: I was terrified and scared the whole time. On the bike, wind and traffic are oftentimes deafening, and rolling hills make you go so fast (my max speed was 41 mph one afternoon) that the only thing you can think about is hanging on tightly.

Luckily, we all made it across safely. I wanted to take a picture of the experience, but stopping on the side of the highway next to 75-miles-an-hour traffic in order to take a snapshot of the sign that read "OKLAHOMA" would have been a horrible idea.

We've been sticking to farm roads and country roads, but there are rare occasions that call for taking interstate highways. In this case it was crossing the Oklahoma state border. Maybe we'll have to do it again once we get into Kansas, but I don't know: our routes are oftentimes determined the night (and sometimes morning) before we leave, because we've been using directions from last year's team and some of the roads and destinations have changed.

There are too many destinations in too many days, so we've been relying on an incremental process where we live from day-to-day. I usually plan ahead when I travel, but this traveling experience is different from anything I've ever done. The directions are singular; when the directions are simple, we only need to find the location of the sun in order to confirm, "Yes. This is North!" In a few days, though, we'll be heading due west in order to get to Colorado...