The Weather Channel trip update

[Depmodeche]

Sunday 9/3/2006

Well, I had no choice but to go back to the crazy guy’s house in Perry, Oklahoma, this morning and get a better look at those signs. It’s not really a house, it’s more of a compound, and one most definitely gets the impression that the guy who lives there should be avoided. I snapped a few pics of those crazy signs with my cell phone and hit the road. I stopped for gas when I got back in town, but I was now determined to talk to a local or two and get the story on this guy.

One thing I learned about getting the inside scoop on the town’s secrets from the locals, whatever town I’m in, is that I just can’t start asking questions about things that are none of my damn business. So while filling up my tank I asked the good ole boy at the pump next to mine if he knew a good restaurant in town.

“No. We don’t really have any restaurants, and it’s Sunday, they’d be closed anyway. We do have a Mexican place out by the highway. Don’t know if they are open for breakfast, but it’s a pretty good place,” he said slowly. Very slowly.

“Ok, thanks,” I said. “Maybe I’ll just head west and see where I end up. This is a nice town, ya got here.”

“It is,” he agreed, and proceeded to tell me all about the people in the town, and the plant he works at (it’s the company that makes the Ditch Witch) and how good they are to work for and how the owner is a real regular guy, “even though he flies all over the country and is a millionaire, you’ll sometimes see him over at the Dollar General just like you and me” (yea, well maybe the guy who owns the Ditch Witch company shops at the Dollar General, but you won’t see me there!) and how the people in this town really stick together and how “Millard owns this gas station and the convenience store across the street but that he’s a real regular guy, too.”

After five minutes of his extolling the virtues of Perry, Oklahoma, and it’s inhabitants (every word of which I believe to be true) I asked him nonchalantly about the signs I’d passed on the way into town. He told me that the guy is in fact a nice guy, he just went over the edge a little (that’s putting it mildly) and that he’s harmless. Years ago people had killed his cattle and he felt the sheriff was in on it and he wrote that on his big signs. The sheriff sued him for slander and won, and the guy had to sell off a chunk of his farm to pay off the sheriff, who has since left town.

Now I felt bad for the guy. Clearly he really was disturbed, not just some white supremacist or conspiracy theorist who was looking for trouble. The most amazing thing, however, was when I asked the local if he ever sees the guy around town and he replied, “Heck, yes, he works at the Subway out by the highway.”

The subway? Perry, Oklahoma, has an underground train? Oh, he meant the fast food joint. Wait! Subway? HOLY COW! THE CRAZY GUY WHO HAD HIS CATTLE KILLED AND NOW LINES HIS COMPOUND-LIKE RANCH WITH ENORMOUS SCARY SIGNS AND HAD TO SELL OFF A HUGE CHUNK OF HIS LAND TO PAY THE SHERIFF WHEN HE WAS SUED BY HIM FOR LIBEL AND LOST IN COURT IS THE SAME GUY WHO HELPED JARED LOSE TWO HUNDRED POUNDS?

Anyway, I thanked the local, who was a genuine nice guy and a shining example of the type of people in our country’s heartland: direct, honest, unsophisticated, and evidently a fan of NASCAR (if the seventy-two NASCAR stickers on the back window of his pickup truck is any indication).

I stayed on back roads out of Perry and eventually rode through Oklahoma’s “Painted Desert”, a spectacular area filled with those huge red thrusting chunks of earth, the remnants of mountains long-since eroded. It was very cool! (Good job, Oklahoma, but let me suggest that if you’re ever at a party with Colorado and Wyoming and the subject of red rocks comes up, let Wyoming do the talking.)

Sometime later I crossed into The Great State Of Texas and the weather was perfect. There’s no place like Texas, as Texans will remind you repeatedly, and I love being in Texas. There is great scenery in this part of Texas, huge crevices, deep gorges and ruts, some lakes, rivers… this part of Texas has a similar landscape to that of South Dakota and Wyoming (in the same way that I often think Tennessee has the same look as those parts of Kentucky that look like the parts of West Virginia that remind of Pennsylvania, which is similar to Kentucky except for where it reminds me of the Carolinas, but only the parts of North Carolina that are indistinguishable from South Carolina, and of course those same parts of South Carolina. Same goes for Virginia. Ya know what I mean?).

I had planned on riding a ways through Texas (a “ways” out here could mean anything from five miles to two hundred miles, like when you ask someone where the next gas station is and he says “it just a ways down the road” and eighty five miles later you coast into it!) and then I would head back up through Oklahoma into Colorado and spend the night in Colorado. But the weather was perfect so I figured I’d just keep riding through Texas! I stopped at a little town and called ahead to book a room for the night in Lubbock, Texas, , which is about a hundred miles below Amarillo.

Somehow, I had forgotten the REASON I had planned on headed back up out of Texas and into Colorado today: It was because the Weather Channel was predicting heavy rain as far up as Amarillo, but everything above Amarillo (uh, like, say, Colorado!) would be clear and beautiful. So thanks to my failure to recall the weather report, I ended up riding the last one hundred miles of the day in heavy rain. I’m happy to report that the Harley Davidson rain pants performed flawlessly, and I was thinking of calling Harley to let them know. (Harley riders don’t actually ride that often, and certainly never in the rain, so I thought that the Harley Davidson Motor Company might like to know how the pants worked.) (Just kidding, Harley guys. I know you guys ride every Sunday… to the local bar and then home again, provided the temperature is above seventy degrees!)

Along the way to Lubbock the road was cut into a mountain and I slowed for a sharp curve that had a wall of rock on either side of it , each wall probably one hundred feet high. There was a sign that read CAUTION FALLING ROCK, but then again there are ten million signs in our country that read CAUTION FALLING ROCK and since I’ve never actually seen any falling rock and only occasionally have I seen a few rocks on the road I wasn’t concerned. Rounding the curve I became somewhat concerned as there were some huge boulders blocking the right lane! I had time to get into the left lane so it wasn’t a big deal, but around the next curve I met a State Trooper coming at me and he hit his lights and came into my lane to stop me. “I didn’t do it,” I said, when I pulled along side of him. “Rock slide ahead of you,” he replied, reminding me that my attempt at wit was a complete waste of time since all state troopers have their sense of humor surgically removed upon graduating from the academy (as well as their sweat glands).

“Rock slide ahead of you, too,” I said and then thanked him and took off… slowly. Around the next curve I found the road littered with rocks from one side to the other! I carefully navigated a path through them and silently thanked that Trooper again for the warning.

An hour later, still raining heavily, I was running about 85 in a 70 zone when I slowed to look at a dead armadillo on the shoulder (hey, I’m a city guy, we appreciate ALL wildlife) and just as I do a trooper rounds the curve coming at me. I’m doing about 74 or 75 now and he slows as we pass but he doesn’t come after me. (So now I thank the dead armadillo for saving me from getting a speeding ticket.) About five minutes later I roll into a town and stop for gas. An old-timer filling up his car at the pump asks me if I like to ride fast. “I do,” I reply. “How fast were you going when you met that trooper?” he asked with a grin.

The gas station was closed but I could use my credit card at the pump. Interestingly, though, the bathroom was unlocked. I got a kick out of that because back in Philly if you close your gas station for the night but leave the bathroom unlocked for your customers to use you will find that about five minutes after you left your toilet and sink and possibly even the tile floor will be missing.

I finally arrived in Lubbock and entered the office at the Super Eight. No one was there, but I was greeted by the overwhelming stench of curry! Gee, I thought, I wonder if perchance Indians or Pakistanis own this establishment. Now I know some folks will say that was a racist thought or at the very least prejudice. After all, plenty of other types of people eat curry, such as British people, or people from New Jersey. And to those people who think I was being prejudiced I say YOU ARE RIGHT! I was PREJUDGING the situation, and furthermore, I could be wrong about my conclusion. Perhaps a British person DOES own the Super Eight in Lubbock, Texas, and perhaps this British person consumes curry in such massive quantities that it emanates from his pores and the stench imbeds itself in the carpets and walls of his motel office… and then a Pakistani woman came out to sign me in and I wondered how she would react if I held my nose while she ran my credit card. I don’t know about anyone else, but I find that particular smell repulsive. And the worst part is, I can assure you that if the motel office stinks to high heaven from curry the rooms in the motel are going be dirty. If there’s one thing in life I know, it’s that. True to form, the room was dirty. However, she and her husband were very nice people and I don’t want to sound like I’m disparaging them just because I think they reek and are filthy.

[Tod]

I'm truly enjoying reading these, keep it up.

BTW, I think I've been on that same stretch of highway at least a half dozen times myself, and I've never seen a rock larger than my fist on the side of the road. You were lucky several times over.

[Depmodeche]

Originally Posted by Tod

I'm truly enjoying reading these, keep it up.

BTW, I think I've been on that same stretch of highway at least a half dozen times myself, and I've never seen a rock larger than my fist on the side of the road. You were lucky several times over.

It was either highway 60 or 207... I forget which one. It was right by a huge, really cool-looking lake surrounded by rocks, and I seem to recall something called either praire dog town or prairie dog park or something to do with prarie dogs... the road was great, windy, hilly, really scenic.

Thanks!

Dep

[Dozer]

You are really getting me hankering for a road trip! Cool posts, keep them coming!

[Depmodeche]

Originally Posted by Dozer

You are really getting me hankering for a road trip! Cool posts, keep them coming!

Wait till I get back so I can read YOUR posts and be jealous!!!

Dep

[Commuter]

Dep, You are a gifted writer! Keep up the GREAT work! Oh, and enjoy the ride...

Neal

[Depmodeche]

Thanks for the compliments! I hope nobody thinks I'm being mean or hurtful with my commentary on the Indians and Pakistanis. I may have to edit that blog to be clearer: I really do dislike that smell and I really have found THOSE hotels to be dirty. I think this is a genuine issue, not a racist or bigoted reaction.

Dep

[Commuter]

Its too bad people can't state an opinion without having to worry about being politically correct. I have heard that not everyone likes people who are perfect in most every way but do we get offended? Jeez, we can take it...

BTW, you are riding thru Texas, therefore you have every right to state your opinions!

Cmon folks - I am just kidding!

Neal

[smurfsdad]

Great trip report, smiled all the way through it. Thanks

[art708]

Man, you are such an interesting and amusing writer. Please tell me when your book comes out so I can buy it.

[art708]

I spit on political correctness. My opinion is MY opinion. If it offends someone then too bad... suck it up and go on to something important...something that really matters.

[Depmodeche]

Thanks y'all, I'm glad people find my trip stories amusing. And thanks to Beartooth for providing this forum. Maybe I'll stop by there and get a tire in a few weeks.

Dep