A Liberal Awakening

Oakley, KS

We rounded a corner in Oakley, Kansas at the end of a 500-mile ride. It was hot and Old Danny Boy was tired. Thankfully, there was no missing the sign at our motel for the evening. Who knew Annie Oakley had a side gig working at Hooters?

Our day began at The Frontier, the bottom rung of the Abilene, TX motel ladder. ODB told about his room as he loaded me for the day's ride. It made me glad I spent the night in the parking lot by the freeway. A couple of cockroaches running around were bad. But who hasn’t seen a cockroach? The absence of a wastebasket was a bit perplexing, but he made do with the ice bucket.

It was what he found on a high closet shelf, one evidently high enough to be out of the view for the housekeepers, that was peculiar. It startled him when he first noticed it. He thought it might be some sort of insect larva. He got a chair and cautiously peered over the edge of the shelf. It was a pound of dry dog food scattered about!

 Now there’s a room upgrade you don’t see every day.

I don’t know if it was the roaches, the dog food, or just plain carelessness, but ODB forgot to strap down one of his bags before we took off from the motel. He didn’t notice it until our first fuel stop, 150 miles away. My rider was a might disgusted with himself, to say the least. He called the motel and asked them to please look for it. They said they were busy but would when they got a chance. We took off and he called again at the next fuel stop.

The bag contained mostly cold weather gear. Nothing was irreplaceable, but the H-D leather pants in that bag cost him big bucks. Our luck (he says blessings) held out. They found the bag in the parking lot and will mail it back to Oregon. The old man’s frown turned upside down.

Riding in Texas – for the fifth day – was not bad at all. The further north we got, the better he liked it. We went through lots of small towns along the way. That’s what he loves about traveling the old state highway system. They usually double as Main Street. Check out the old jail in Wheeler, TX. (left)

The weather today was terrific. It was 78 out of Abilene and in the low 80s most of the day. It only got hot the last few hours. The ride across Oklahoma didn’t take long. It’s 36 miles across the panhandle.

If this guy looks like George Clooney, I’ll voluntarily burn a tank of regular gas!

The first city we came to in Kansas was Liberal (in name only, we guessed.) Still, he couldn’t resist a photo op. Whatever a "liberal" is, he's a flaming one.

The best wildlife sighting of the day: A herd of wild boar running not far from the road. 
                 

The big scare of the day: Following a pilot car through road construction, the roadway turned to gravel. The dust got so bad ODB couldn’t see and drifted off the packed track into a ridge of loose gravel. My wheels got way out of plumb and I thought we were going down for sure. He kept the throttle open steady and we powered out of it, but barely. We are so luck . . . never mind.

The little scare of the day: A yearling Black Angus standing on the road.

The song of the day: Ernest Tubb’s “Waltz Across Texas.”  (I’m sorry, he begged me to include this. Ernest Tubb? For cryin’ out loud Boy, have you no shame?)

(Google Map Update)