February 22nd Ride

The idea for the ride we took on Saturday was birthed on Wednesday. We were at church and our friends that live down the street wanted to know where we were riding on Saturday, the weather is supposed to be good. We were thinking about riding to "Smokin Joe's" in Davis.
We actually got to go to the FNDR  this Friday. We were talking about riding to "Smokin Joes" on Saturday and invited the group to ride along. It was short notice and the only people that could come were Diane and Chuck. Keith and Chuck came up with a plan to meet at Interstate 35 and Highway 7 at noon.
Karen and Shane get to go with us from Duncan, Karen is on call but she brought her call phone and lap top just in case she needs it. We called my brother, he and Lynn can meet us for lunch.
We head out about 10:45 to make our 12:00 date.

I have the InstaWeather App but sometimes I can't get it to work (it  can't be operator error). So the picture is not showing the time or temperature. The wind is blowing harder than the weather man said it was going to, in Oklahoma it is always windy. We did drive past some smoldering places it looked like a grass fire had just been put out. It is so dry here we are having wild fires just about every day. We arrive at the meeting place and have time to take off a layer of clothes. The temperature is wonderful. Diane and Chuck arrive and we get a message from my brother "He is at Smokin Joes". I am so glad my brother is meeting us, he has been doing chemo and I wasn't sure if  he would feel like getting out for lunch. We get on our bikes and head that way.  Keith and I are the only ones who have eaten there before. I love the ribs and Keith always gets the sliced brisket.

If you leave hungry it is your own fault. The portions are huge.

Before we leave we decide to make a pit stop. The restroom was quite interesting. A one holer???

You could go with a friend but they would need to be a real good friend.

My brother told us about a fun road to ride, about a 30 mile round trip. We head to Sulphur and ride through the edge of the Chickasaw Nation Recreation Area aka Platt National Park. The road was curvy and had trees on the side, the sun was reflecting and making really cool shadows.

Take Highway 177 out of Sulphur to the Goddard Youth Camp Rd. We wind around to the huge town of Doughtery (population at the 2000 census was 224). We went past a fort looking building. I found it on Google Earth. It says it is Doughtery OK Unknown Ruins. We may never know what is was.  After we left Doughtery we hit a gravel road, not a good thing when you are riding motorcycles. Luckily it was very small gravel more like big dust. More windy roads taking us  past the edge of the Washita river, Falls Creek Youth Camp, the old Arbuckle Wilderness , the Canyon Breeze Hotel (we have actually stayed there), then back to Interstate 35 and the fried pie shop. The fried pie shop has the most amazing selection of pies. They have fruit, cream, even savory. Keith and I got a coconut cream pie to share.
We went to the gas station where we had met earlier in the day. We noticed they had 100% gas and Bella (the bike) really likes that kind best. The station had Chocolate Soda's in a refrigerated case right by the front door, I had to try one. Oh My it was tasty.
All too soon it was time to say good bye, see ya later to our friends. Chuck and Diane headed north to Yukon and Shane, Karen, Keith and I went west to Duncan.
We had a wonderful day, wonderful friends, wonderful weather, wonderful roads and wonderful food. A wonderful day.

View from the Back

Last Minute Ride January 25th

Today was wonderful, no plans, we got to sleep in. The weather was warm so we decided to take a walk. There is a 5k (3.1 mile) loop that starts 1/2 a block from our house, so we took the new puppy with us and headed out. She didn't like the cars going by, so Keith got to carry her about half of the way. 
We got back to the house, had lunch and then decided to take the bike out for a ride.
Where do we ride to???? That is the question???
We decided to take a ride to Moore to Fort Thunder. We grabbed some extra clothes since it was already mid afternoon, and we won't be home before dark. The temperature drops quickly when the sun goes down.

I love the InstaWeather APP

 You know we go to the Harley shop entirely too much when they know us by name. Keith wanted to show the parts guys the mount we had purchased for his new GoPro camera and tell them they might want to stock them if they can, because it swivels around to compensate for the handlebars. I saw they had more cute face masks so I had to have one. One of these days I am going to buy the one that looks like a skull, but today I decided on the one that has pink flames.

When we first started riding, I would worry if I looked stupid; but you realize really quickly it doesn't matter what you look like if it keeps you warm. After we left Moore we were hungry. It was now around 5, and we hadn't had any lunch. (we had slept late and I had fixed us a late breakfast).

We need to get gas and Harley's are sort of picky and only want 100% gas, so we headed to Newcastle - Tri City to the station we know has all gas.









  Right next door is a Carlitos's, a Mexican food restaurant we like. Keith, of course, got the chicken enchiladas and I got the avocado rellenos. They are so good and this is the only place I have ever seen them.

They are really rich, so I could only eat half. The rest went home with us as leftovers.















After we got our stomach's full, it was time to head home. It was now 6:30, so we put on all the extra clothes we brought. It was getting cooler by the minute. We head down the turnpike towards home. As we were pulling off the turnpike at Chickasha, Keith speeds up, The light at the end off the off ramp is green and he was trying to make the light. Yeah, we made it. Now the game is on...Can we make it all the way to our house without having to stop at any lights?
As we are leaving Chickasha he has to slow down, the light turns green. We make it past the light at Ninnekah. Marlow has 2 lights, and as we were coming into town we saw the one at the main street was green, we would never make it. It turned red and he slowed down, real slow, just as he was about to put his foot down it turned green. We made it through another town. The light at the north end of Duncan was green and the one at Plato and 81 was green. Now if it would of been me, I would have turned west and missed the lights through town, but no...He had to try to beat all of the lights. We make it to Elk and 81, turned west, only 3 more lights. He had to slow a little at Elk and Whisenant, but he make it. Only 2 more to go. The light at Elk and 29th (Chisholm Trail Parkway) is crazy, if it is red it takes for ever for it to turn green so that you can turn south. We were getting close and it turned red; OH NO!!! He slowed down but this light is one of those you have to trigger. He slowed down more, he almost put down his foot, and it turned green. There was only 1 more light and it is never red unless school is in session. We make it!!!! As he pulled in the driveway he was afraid he might drop the bike because his feet have not been off the pegs in almost 2 hours.
As you can tell we have lots of fun when we ride. I can't wait for the weather to get a bit warmer so we can ride more.

View from the Back

January 19th ride

Well I guess we didn't scare them off. Since it was going to be another warmish day we decided to ride. We met at the usual place. We say Tractor Supply but we mean the gas station by Tractor Supply.

Once again the wind is out of the south (but not nearly as strong as last week) so we decided to drive north again to Rush Springs go west to Sterling, Elgin, Porter Hill, Meers, Cache then to Lawton. So off we go it is warm but not quite as warm as last Sunday afternoon.
The closer we got to Porter Hill  you could see Mount Scott in the distance. I know if you have been to or live in Colorado, Mount Scott isn't big at all, but here in Oklahoma it is a Mountain.

We drove past Meers and through the Wildlife Refuge to Cache. As we were driving through the tiny town of Cache we saw a Chisholm Corner, I thought they were only on every corner in Duncan.  We finally made it to our destination Texas Road House. We had talked earlier in the day and decided a steak sounded good, they have good steaks, peanuts to snack on and rolls with cinnamon butter. Yum Yum

The steaks, chicken and fish were wonderful, the waitress was a good sport when our guys were giving her a hard time. All too soon it was time to head home, we were not going to make it home by dark. Sunset was at 5:49 and it was 5:49. I had thought it might get dark before we got home so I brought a sweatshirt and my chaps. The others with us won't make the mistake of not packing theirs again. It was cool riding home but we only had about 45 minutes to get home. As we were driving home on Hwy 7 I asked my driver how many miles from home and I got a count down as we passed each mile getting closer to home. That really made the time pass fast and I forgot I was getting cold.
I'm just wondering if we will be as lucky next weekend with the weather, time will tell.

View from the Back. The sunset was beautiful in the mirror.

January 12th Ride

One of the reason's I love Oklahoma so much is we can ride almost all year long. Monday of this week it was 11 degrees, today it was 73. Since it was a beautiful day we decided to take a short ride. I had the brilliant idea of going east to Velma by the back roads and back. Of course I didn't think about the fact that the winds were blowing straight out of the south. My driver Keith said he was thinking of going North or South so maybe the wind wouldn't toss us around so much.
This picture shows the temperature and maybe also the wind speed.

 Can you believe 73 in January??
We decided to travel north to Rush Springs, home of the Watermelon Festival. then turn east and drive to Cox City. At one time Cox City was a bustling oil town. It was established in 1927 and had a school up to 8th grade until the 70's at least. A lady we ride motorcycles with  actually lived there and went to school to 8th grade. We chose this road because it is hilly and curvy.

We hadn't been on this road in quite a few years and it was pretty rough, lots of pot holes , and the wind was making it real fun to stay on the road.  My driver is excellent and he kept us upright.
When we got to Cox City we first passed the Cox City Bar then made our way down the street and saw this sign.

The only two things in Cox City besides oil field sites are a bar and a church.

Today we road with a couple that have just been riding again for a few weeks. The road when they were younger and just got this bike running a few weeks ago.They really got broken in today, riding in the wind

Meet Shane and Karen. I hope we haven't scared them off.
We didn't get to ride for a long time, but we were thankful we got to ride on a January day and didn't have to wear layers upon layers of clothes to stay warm.

Can you see Keith's new play toy? Maybe in future blog's I can figure out how to attach a video.

View from the Back!

New Year's Day Ride

I hope to do a better job this year of journaling our rides No! I am going to do a better job. Our friends from OKC have a tradition of riding to the state capital on New Years Day and taking pictures in front of the capital building.. When we were invited to go I said as long as the temperature is above 30 at 9am. The time we would need to leave to make it to the meeting place by 11am. A few days later I get a text: If we moved the meeting time would it be easier for you guys to make it. I replied yes if we could move it back an hour it would be warmer. The decision was made to meet at noon. Yeah we will make it.
We haven't ridden much since it got real cold so we forget how long it takes to put on all the layers. But around 10:30 we are bundled up and hitting the road.

We have a nice ride. It is sunny and I think cool but one of my friends on Facebook commented on my picture "That's a bit Warm!" By the time we get to OKC I'm feeling the cold. It is not real bad I have been lots colder.
We meet up with the group, give lots of hugs because we haven't seen them in a couple of months, and head out for the capital building.

Do we look like a rowdy bunch?? Someone thought so because we had only been there a couple of minutes when a highway patrol office showed up to watch us.
We all had our individual pictures taken.

 Then we headed back to Bricktown to eat lunch. We had a great meal at Abuello's. Then decided to head home before the cold front hits.
                                                                                                                                                                                                        

 

We got home around 4:15 and the cold front blew in around 5. This was a wonderful start to what will be a great year. 

 

 

view from the back

 

 

 

 

1st Annual Freedom Hog Feast!

The biker church in our town had a vision of having a family friendly, Christian based bike rally. After a couple of years of working on their property and of planning, this year was the 1st Annual Freedom Hog Feast.
My brother, Dave, came in to town Friday to camp during the event. He asked if we were camping, and I said "No, I have a perfectly good home just a couple of miles away."  We went out to see them on Friday evening. Baby Girl, his dog, was going to spend the night with them in the tent.  We caught her getting a drink of Dave's sweet iced tea.

Saturday morning we signed up for the poker run. It was a perfect day, sort of cool and the sky was clear.

The poker run went east on Highway 7 to Davis. My brother left before we did. He wanted to ride with some of his friends. As we were nearing Davis, we saw a group of 3 bikes just ahead of us.  I looked and it was Dave, Lynn and his friends.

I couldn't believe we actually caught up with them, because he usually drives faster than us.
Our third stop was on the look out over Turner Falls. This area has had a lot of rain lately, so the falls were really running.

 We had to squish in so we could get the falls in the picture.

As we left this stop, 2 bikes pulled out ahead of us and there were about 6 bikes behind us. We were just talking and tooling down the highway. We were just passing a corner when I saw a small sign that said "Poker Run", OOPS, to late to make the turn. The bikes in front of us did not see the sign, so they blew past. The bikes behind were  following along, so they did not make the turn either. We were like a little group of ducks just following along. Keith knew we could go to the next section and take another road to get back on track. So at the next corner we all turned, but when we got to the highway, the 2 front bikes went past it. We turned and all the bikes behind us followed. As we all turned, the 2 front bikes u-turned and became the back bikes. We were now on the road to the next stop.
As we were leaving the poker stop, we told our group that when we get to Comanche we were going to take a south turn, but they all needed to go north back to the church grounds. We pulled out and there were about 6 bikes behind us. We didn't know but 2 of the bikes. Oh well, the more the merrier. We got to Comanche and pointed to the north but we turned south. Like a bunch of ducks, they all followed us. We were headed to the car wash, but they all stopped at the convenience store. We went on to the car wash, since we were going to enter our bike in the bike show. (It had lots of bugs and dust on it.)

We got back just in time to get the bike in line for the bike show. We didn't win, but we got a clean bike out of the deal.  We spent the afternoon listening to bands, watching the bike games, and visiting with friends.

At a break in the bands they drew for door prizes.  I couldn't believe they drew my number. I won a set of clutch and brake levers for a 07 and up sportster (now I need to find someone who needs them). My brother won a carburetor, he was very excited. 
At last the time came for the Free Hog Feast, and it didn't take us long to get in line with the rest of the hungry bikers.

After the Hog Feast, there were more bands and fun people games. Our group of 7 got chosen to participate; but when they said take off your shoes and socks, 4 of our group chickened out. So Carla, Larry and I took off our shoes and went to play the game. We had to move a container of WORMS from one pan to another using only our feet. I couldn't believe it, We won.  We stayed and listened to bands until after 10, then decided to go home.

We were all tucked in bed, about 12:30 our phone went off , it was a severe thunderstorm warning for our area. Then the wind and rain hit, OH NO, my brother and Lynn are in a tent, and his dog Baby Girl is outside at Mom and Dad's.  If it gets bad they will call and come to stay at the house.

Sunday morning it is beautiful, cool, the rain is gone and the sun is out. We get to the church grounds, Dave and Lynn have everything out of the tent and are letting it dry out in the sun. We have a delicious breakfast of biscuits and sausage gravy. Then it is time for church, outside at the camp grounds.

The amazing thing to me about the biker church is the group of people that you see there. You will see ladies in dresses, elderly people in dress clothes, ladies in biker vests, and men with their tattoos and rather big knives on their belts. There are people at that church that had said they would never go back to church, and yet, they are there working the bike rally. Some people in the traditional church world may not like it, but there is definitely a need for a church like this. You can really come like you are.
There were 8 people baptized this morning, and quite a few came forward during the invitation time. The 1st Annual Hog Feast was a great success.

You would think we would be exhausted, but never too tired to ride. Our friends said lets go ride to the mountains, Medicine Park. We ran home, dropped off a few things, and headed out to Medicine Park. We rode past Lake Lawtonka,. The weather is warm and the water looked cool and inviting, Why didn't we bring our swim suits???

We stopped to look over the dam where Keith and I went on our very first date, just a few years ago.  Then on to Medicine Park. We had a great time just watching the people play in the water.

After a bit, it was time to start home. It has been a most amazing weekend of riding, listening to music, good food, great friends, and God was with us during it all.

View from the back!

Until next time.

Clear Gold!!

Today we took a short ride to Lake Waurika. In south central Oklahoma, we have been in a drought for about 3 years. Lake Waurika is where we get our water. We had heard it is getting very low.

.

As we were driving around the lake, the roads were getting smaller and smaller. We ran into a couple of dead ends, but of course, we weren't lost because we never get lost. We also saw some most interesting things..

It is always amazing what you can see and smell from the back of a motorcycle.
On to the lake..
It is very,very low.

Usually the water comes up to the bridge but today you can barley see it in the background.

Normally, you can't see the trees. The best thing we saw was at the marina, notice the sign.

 No Fishing off the Walkway.
Of course no ride is complete with out food, so we traveled down the road just south of Waurika to eat at a wonderful fish place, Bill's Catfish

After a huge basket of fried catfish, french fries and hush puppies, we headed home. It was a wonderful ride, a little worrisome because we really need rain or we may run out of water.

view from the back

Until next time.