“OOOOK-lahoma, where the wind comes sweepin” down the plain...”

That may be just a line from the fun, enjoyable musical to most of you, but to us it was a nightmare! All day we dealt with 30-40 mph cross winds, which by itself is a bad riding day. Combine that with riding off-road at high speeds, it become dangerous. Add in a sandy or deep gravel riding surface and it’s downright INSANE to even think about riding in it. From the moment we left Alva Oklahoma to when we pulled into the El Rancho motel in Elkhart Kansas, that’s what we had to deal with.

There were some highlights, like riding through some really beautiful ranch land on the Oklahoma-Kansas border, dodging free range cattle. Eating breakfast at the Wildcat Café in Elkhart and meeting what might possibly be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. We’ll just call her “Maria”, she was the owner and her daughter in-law was the cook. It’s was quite an experience in more ways than one. I may have to come back sometime ;)

The people again have been amazing no matter where we go. The lone exception may have been the pissed off rancher we ran into the next day when trying to find a bypass around a HUGE mud hole. He basically said “you’re on private property and you need to go THAT way (point back the way we came). Rod apologized but the guy didn’t seem too happy with that.

So back to the wind. I rode behind Rod for half the day filming on the GoPro. Lots of footage of him riding at a 45 degree angle, then hitting a sand pit and totally losing the front end. My shoulders hurt so bad from hanging on to the front end, keeping it from sliding sideways probably no less that=n 100 times today. At one point, Rod’s bike was so sideways I could see the Wolfman logo on the side of his pannier case. Never the less, neither of us went down and THAT was a miracle.

‘Till tomorrow! Cheers..

Bradley