Before leaving Talihina we dried and organized all our panniers which were wet from the previous day’s rain. In this process I separated everything I could get rid of or haven’t used in the trip p to that point and made a little bag. We then went out and I shipped that bag to a friend’s house in order to diminish the weight I was carrying in the bicycle. We knew the way would go through close to no population, so we also stopped to get an extra sandwich each so we could eat on the road.
The first 14 miles were of flat road. The temperatures were high and I was sleepy, so I was not enjoying the day as much as I could. We stopped to have lunch at a picnic area just before a zone where we knew that we had to cross over two mountains. There we eat and rested for a few minutes in the shade of a large tree.
Once we left the picnic area we started crossing an area of very intense elevation. Long and steep hills extended for more than a mile at times while we climbed up the mountains. We had to stop and walk our bicycles several times.
Once we crossed the first mountain, we made a left turn and started crossing the second one: more hills, more heat and more walking the bicycles. At the top of this mountain we found an old car, probably from the 1940s, sitting on the entrance of a farm. I got close to look at it, but it was almost empty as the windows were broken and people had taken everything they could.
We passed through a small city called Hartshorne. After that the path got flatter and we soon arrived to McAlester with the sun still shinning.
Day 30 – 05/2/2012 – Wewoka, OK
This was a nice day. We prepared our things and started following the GPS. On our way out of McAlester we suddenly realized the GPS was indicating us to go inside a penitentiary. We looked at the gates surrounding the prison area, and the main street that cut it through was guarded by gates, but no one was on its post checking the vehicles. So we decided to go through and try to pass to the other side before anyone would see us to prevent a big detour. We got in, and some people, which I can only assume to be visitors, were attentively looking at us. Everything was going fine until a truck with two cops stopped us and told us to get out of there. We had no other option but to take the detour.
Once we reached the highway we were planning on riding on we progressed without much trouble. The winds were strong so we couldn’t go too fast, but we were moving forward. This day we had a smooth and somewhat uneventful ride, which is rare.
Once we got closer to Wewoka we saw it was getting dark and it was too late to follow 20 more miles to Seminole, our original planned destination. So we decided to stay there. However, finding the hotel was a big problem. There was nothing where the GPS had indicated, so we called the front desk. The girl gave us the directions and we discovered we were still about 6 miles away from it. We made a right turn into a small dark road which was full of bugs flying around. As we moved forward they would hit our faces, get into our noses, etc. Not a very nice feeling.
We then arrived to our hotel. The room was fine, except that it was full of large black crickets. I killed about five of them including the one in my pillow, but in the next day my uncle told me there were others making noises throughout the night.