Hold On to Your Hats

Well, it's late afternoon here in Elk City, Oklahoma. I had hoped to roll on into the upper panhandle of Texas today but there was no such luck. Finding a place to stay that wasn't over 400 miles away was a bit of a challenge. Looks like it was a good choice since there (currently at typing this) there is a huge storm cell swirling over Shamrock, Texas (with baseball sized hail). Hope those guys are doing alright over there. I'm pretty sure I would've rode right into that and it wouldn't have been pretty.

Today was incredibly windy. Strong strong winds coming straight out of the south. We're talking gusts of up to 40 mph cross winds. That gets your attention.

Lots of changes in scenery today. Started off with low hills and scrubby looking trees then transitioning over to rolling hills with wide open spaces.




Took a stop at Thunderbird lake and took a little siesta near the water. It was good place to stop. Lots of interesting birds milling about there.


Even though I'm not offically "west" just yet, I'm going to go ahead and say: "I'm in the west." The changes that I'm seeing right now, the bright red/orange soil and rocks and the little bluffs around are definite signs of that change.


Amusing observations about the weather on the way here. Most of the day I had been heading due west. As I mentioned, horrible cross wind, but when I turned on a true north direction, everything was quiet. Wind was at my back and there was barely a hint that it was windy out. It was also very warm (90s) and heading in a northernly direction the engine temperature would rise, but as soon as I started heading west, the temp would drop way down again. Amazing what grabs your attention in the middle of nowhere.

Well, I'm going to keep an eye outside. Sky is getting dark. I'm keeping the camera (and camcorder) handy in case anything crazy happens. Hopefully the Tiger survives the night (me too I guess). They're saying a big possibility for large hail now too...sweet.