Cycling Across America #36
Part 36 of the Cycle-Across-America series relayed day by day, exactly ten years after it happened. (Read from the start in Boston)
Ten years ago today I was in Oklahoma, about halfway across the country, and having my first rest day since Atlanta. It being a rest day, I went for a cycle:
I would stay today to see Oklahoma. It’s what I’d always planned. Indian Territory. Muskogee was one direction and Tahlequah the other but I wanted to see them both. So I did. Have wheels, albeit two - will travel.Woke at seven this morning and heard everyone else up. Within minutes they’d all gone to work and school. I was left a plate of delicious pancakes and some sausage patties.
An official rest day I cycled a total of sixty one miles today. The Five Civilized Tribes museum in Muskogee. Small but wonderful. Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek(Muskogee), and Seminole. I read every word. All so sad.
Each tribe with their own Trail of Tears from the South East to Oklahoma. While the museum did not wallow in its sorrows of its histories it was very far from a feel good place. Upstairs was an art exhibition mostly by Native Americans. I wanted to paint.
Changed into cycling clothes in the rest room of the museum and rolled down the hill to the strip. I needed a little bit of food to get me the thirty miles back past Fort Gibson and on to Tahlequah where the Cherokee stuff was. A cheap and tasty Whopper with plenty of Coke did the trick.
Then I pedalled hard in the hazy heat on the very wide shoulder of US 62. Stopped once for some more Tangerine Twist Ice Tea. Very little to look at in between and I wondered how I’d cope tomorrow after cycling back and then doing the same twenty mile stretch for a third time.
Shoulder ran out five miles short of Tahlequah but shortly afterwards was the gift shop. I spent over an hour there. Bought more postcards, a tacky T-shirt, a purse, a flute tape, and a beaded necklace that doubles over as a bracelet. I looked at everything for along time.On to Tsa-La-Gi where the Heritage Centre is. Most things had finished their summer run on Labour Day. I was four days late and I blame that pick-up in Virginia Beach. A couple of miles in off 62 in the woods was where the Centre was located. I had the museum to myself. The girl on the desk said she’d watch my bike.
This was mostly an exhibition and I loved it. Some things were affordable even. If I could carry them. Not the paintings but there were decorated goods for twenty dollars. Bought nothing this time. Very tempted by the flutes - only ten dollars and they looked quite functional. I was thinking of getting one for a musician friend back in Dublin, but they were a bit too big even if I only needed to get them to Kansas City.
I don’t fully understand why but I had looked forward to this day for months, and walking alone in both museums as flute and other Native American music softly played while I looked at images of the Trail of Tears and contemporary images - made me deeply happy. To have cycled the two-thousand three-hundred plus miles for this was so satisfying.
Without the baggage of the regular days, the twenty miles back I flew, between fifteen and twenty five mph, stopping once for a pint of milk - a treat, and a scrumptious Corn Dog - why can’t we get those in Ireland? Didn’t do much singing in the shoulder.
It was hot again and I was thinking a lot. Planning e-mails from Kansas City. To friends in England and Ireland. I tried hard to look for things to photograph but at five in the evening it was even more hazy than earlier.
Back around six and a great dinner. Spaghetti and cheese breads. Tons of it. Lovely. Went to see the fort with my host. Fort Gibson really does have a fort, and it’s great. A real old west fort. In fact THAT real old west fort. Just like I used to make out of ice pop sticks.
Strolled through some of the outside mess houses before driving on up to the dam to look at Fort Gibson Lake in the dark. That much water and that much space - great. Back along Highway 80 with my best view yet of the Arkansas River. Then we drove around the National Cemetery. Thousands and thousands of little white headstones. Moving. Simplicity does that.
Chatting later, her husband realizes I am not a direct friend of his wife. I explain how his wife’s sister is going out with a man in Connecticut who earlier in the year visited Dublin and on the streets there met a friend of mine when he asked directions to the Abbey Theatre, and ultimately ended up staying the weekend in the house I lived in - though we never met because I was away in England that weekend.
-You mean…?
-Yes, you have a complete stranger in your house.Once he got over that her husband showed me his coin collection - almost every issue of every coin from each mint for each year. Such is my appetite for tedium, I was drawn in. Then before bed he gave me the US 1996 Mint Uncirculatd Coin Set to commemorate my visit. So generous.
Tomorrow? Miami is one hundred miles away but it’s very late now and I’m promised biscuits and gravy for breakfast. We’ll see
Read the Next Entry in my Bicycle Trip Across America
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