Webb City, Missouri to Miami, Oklahoma

I was flying today! Maybe it was the new tires. Or maybe it was my bike was tuned and everything was working flawlessly. Or maybe it was the flat terrain. Or the calm winds. Or the wide shoulders on the highway. Or the four big slices of pizza I had for dinner last night.

Whatever it was, today I rode almost 40 miles before noon, averaging over 10.7 miles per hour when I wasn’t stopped! And I wasn’t really tired when I called it a day and pulled up under the awning of the Woodridge Inn in Miami, Oklahoma. In fact, it was still early afternoon, and I gave some thought to pushing on. But the next place to stop for the night was a State Park campground 20 miles further and 6 miles off route. The ’20 miles further’ part wasn’t what deterred me from continuing on. It was that 6 miles off route part. I really don’t like to travel that far off route. First, I don’t know what kind of terrain or road conditions I’ll encounter, and second, 6 miles off route is 12 miles of pedaling out and back. Ugh. Add in the 50% chance of afternoon thunderstorms and I saw no reason to go any further today. So, I checked-in early into this modest motel, took a shower, walked across the street to the convenience store for a sandwich, a bag of chips, and a cold Coke, had lunch watching a little TV, then took a nap. I almost felt guilty it was such an easy day. Almost.

So what was today’s ride, anyway? Well. The first four or five miles was on a tree-lined crushed limestone bike path through Joplin. A very pleasant early morning ride through the cool air of a narrow forest greenway. Then it was on the wide shoulder of a highway for a mile or so before turning off onto a quiet stretch of Historic Route 66 that led to the Missouri-Kansas state line.

Route 66 runs for 13 miles through the southeast corner of Kansas and the towns of Galena, Riverton, and Baxter Springs. There’s a lot of old Route 66 buildings and stuff in all three towns. I stopped at a nice roadside kiosk outside Riverton to read about the history of the area, including about the minor Civil War battle known as the Massacre of Baxter Springs, which involved the Union garrison at Fort Baxter and Quantrill’s Raiders. Then it was a short stop for second breakfast at McDonalds before leaving Kansas and entering Oklahoma and Indian Territory! Or more specifically, Quapaw, Oklahoma, the capital city for the Quapaw (pronounces O-Gah-Pah) Nation. This was the first time I’ve ridden on Indian land this trip. From what I’ve learned, there’s a lot more of that in the days and weeks ahead.

Then it was a quick ride on the wide shoulder of Route 66 to Commerce, OK (the childhood home of Mickey Mantle) and beyond that to Miami, OK (the capital of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, for which it is named.) Traffic was pretty heavy in Miami; riding conditions on the potholed and deteriorated paved shoulder made for slow going. Anyway, Miami was about as far as I wanted to go today. So headed over to the Woodridge Inn and Suites not far from the I-44 exit.

What to say about the Woodridge Inn? Hmmm? Let’s just say the photos of the accommodations on the internet are much more appealing than the actual room. But for $60/night, I’m not going to complain. The sheets on the bed are clean, there’s hot water for a shower, and the TV works just fine (the WIFI, not so much though.)

There’s more late morning and afternoon thunderstorms in the forecast for tomorrow so I’m going to try and get another early start. Hope to get 45 miles of so down the road before the thunderstorms fire up. The thing is, pretty sure if I want to do that many miles that fast, I’m going need to crank up the carb intake. So am heading out now to find some more pizza for dinner. Yum!