day 7 -- lake sardis to clinton, OK

trickling rain woke me up early early on sardis lake...scrambled for the tent fly but didn't need to transfer gear from the bike. got an early start on a winding ride through southern oklahoma that for a while avoided even secondary roads. passing so much backroad landscape left me with a pile of disjointed images and comments overheard and facts read.

genuine cowboys gathering at a breakfast griddle gas station, their real cowboy (TM) nissan and subaru pickups. skinny old men with outsized hats and miniature trucks, so very different from the fleets of gleaming white F-250s patrolling the texas plain. wanted to join them for breakfast, but if I acted on that idea every time I'd spend all day eating...I'd already stopped at the golden arches. currently alternating between mcdonald's breakfasts and diner lunches...ronald mcD doesn't fit well with the standard image of authentic roadtripping, but there's just as much community there as in more picturesque venues. regular coffee breaks, kid transfers, the next shift. and as many non-locals at the diner as at mcdonald's. so really the conventions of authenticity are irrelevant. and in this stop I talked with a burned-out biker who survived melanoma by...doing nothing, an aging boomer who regretted not getting a bike in his 40s, and a michigander wishing he was on a motorcycle alone than driving the family in an RV.

silos and grain elevators marked the approach of every oklahoma town, but outside of binger a sign announced an extra claim to fame...one johnny bench. hinton, the next town up the road has the thirty-foot deep 'red rock canyon' state park. the rocks matched the distinctive red dirt of oklahoma and were striking enough, though campers and picnic pavilions and a snack stand and a pool blocked most of the canyon walls. no viking runes that I could see, though. better yet was a graveyard for disused carnival rides on the edge of town...I wish I'd stopped for photographs, but that keep-on-moving imperative got in the way.

on the way to norman I passed through some suburb-tinged towns on the old oklahoma city - dallas road. pauls valley is home to a 'toy and action figure museum' and mimi's diner. it too had the blinds drawn against the sun like the pizza joint in anna (illinois), but inside it was straight 1970s. cheap wood paneling floor to ceiling, dim fluorescent lighting, formica. a can by the register for the garvin county news...and no clues of the 21st century. no cell phone conversations, no credit cards, a typewritten menu. and very puffy chocolate custard pie for the oilmen in red and blue coveralls emblazoned with 'halliburton team.' grain elevators and oil rigs, that is, for the oklahoma skyline.

norman was an unsurprising college town with a decent main street district, including a hipster coffee shop like any other hipster coffee shop. 70s furniture, obnoxious barista talking up his 'major rap label' based in, um, norman, carefully selected 'incidental' books lying around like a 1960s kids book entitled 'all about monkeys.'

was hoping to reach the black kettle national grassland at sunset and cross into texas, but the roads were twistier and slower than I figured (not that I'd bothered to tally mileage anyway), and I realized I wasn't going to make it. three nights out in the woods meant I needed a motel night to clean up, do laundry. and in watonga, remarkably, there was a downtown bed and breakfast in a quaint old porched building, complete with bustling restaurant...a couple of things I hadn't seen since illinois. but that the rear room was reserved for some cattlemen association's gathering -- no rooms. not there and not at the cheaper 'proudly american owned' alternatives either. so onward...custer city looked promising when I crossed into custer county. the county seat surely has a motel. when I get there I take a brief detour to snap a shot of the town co-op's grain elevator then turn down broadway to get to downtown. but broadway ends in a cornfield, and doubling back takes me to no town at all. apparently not the county seat. arapaho is (solid irony that), but no motels there either. last choice is clinton by I-40, which happens to have a scrap of US66 and jetsons-style motels before I have to resort to another super8. even has a laundry.