Tulsa Time

Segment #2 of the Route 66(ish) ride is now in the books. 7 days, 412 miles, 17,266' of elevation gain. 0 bike problems, but 1 scare with the rear tire. Roughly 5 gallons of unsweetened ice tea.

Wind is cruel. Wind is fickle. At it's best, it is nothing more than a tease. At it's worst, it is unrelenting and unmerciful. When you plan a ride such as this, you know exactly where the hills are, and exactly how high they are. They don't get bigger or smaller. Similarly, you know exactly how far you need to ride each day. Point A and Point B are the same distance apart every single day. If it was 10 miles yesterday, it will be 10 today and tomorrow as well. But the wind. You cannot prepare for it. It comes at you from different directions. It comes at you at different speeds. It changes with the sun, the heat and the rain. Wind is the worst part about riding a bike.

Tulsa is bittersweet for me. Today marks the third (or possibly fourth) time I've ever been here. The first two (or three) were all because of one of my best college friends, Will Burge - aka Wilbur.

The first time I remember visiting was to pick Will up at the start of an epic journey in June 1988. I drove up from Austin with my bike, picked up Will and his bike, and we drove to San Francisco. In San Fran, I dropped my car off with my brother (who used it to deliver pizzas that summer - and spill pizza sauce on my front seat). We met up with other best college buddy, Tom Kuuskvere (pronounced Koosk-veer) - aka Kuusk. Tom and his bike joined Will and I at the Greyhound bus station where we took a ride up to Portland, Oregon and met Neil J Liss (no nickname available). Neil rounded out our 4some of Rice class of '86 guys (Will was originally class of '85 but the combination of an unimpressive accumulation of grades and his affinity for the social life on campus conspired to keep him around an extra year before he finally graduated with his Mechanical Engineering degree and got a job as a bellman at the Astrodome Marriott). We grabbed another bus out to Warrenton, Oregon and Fort Stevens State Park. After reassembling our bikes we went to the park, put our rear tires in the Pacific Ocean and headed east. By the time we got to Folly Beach, South Carolina two months later, we had lost Neil back in South Dakota (and I haven't seen him since). There were many fond memories from that summer and my last epic bike ride until last year.

I think the second time I was here was a year or so later on another epic journey, this one by car. Fellow Rice and UT Business School alum, Roger Estrada and I departed Austin and drove to pick up Will in Tulsa. The ultimate goal of the trip was the wedding of Rice friends Andrea Neighbours and Andy Kopplin somewhere in Connecticut. Along the way we saw the Bowling Hall of Fam (the E was missing from the sign) in St Louis, a ballgame at the old Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati and a random dairy farm in upstate New York called Mickle's Moo Mecca. We made the wedding and on the way back we drove through Nashville and visited my grandmother.

The last time I was here, and as best I recall the last time I saw Will, was in September 1997 at his wedding. I remember it because I was supposed to be a groomsman in the wedding. For anyone that read Monday's post, September 1997 was also when Erin was born and the due date and wedding date were very close to one another. After warning Will of the potential problem, Erin helped out by arriving 2 weeks early and with the help of family visiting in Spokane, I was able to attend at the last minute.

Subsequently, I heard from Will a couple years later announcing the birth of his son, but I don't know that I've heard from him since. On many occasions over the years, I've tried to look him up without luck. Dan and Will were also good friends and Dan has actually located him in Colorado and reached out, but left messages that weren't returned. I have talked to a few other Rice people, trying to get any sort of update, but with no luck. So tonight, in Tulsa, at the end of the road for this segment of our trek, I'll break my self-imposed alcohol ban and raise a glass** to an old, lost but not forgotten, friend. The toast will most likely be "ani rotzeh glida habeishimush". (I'm not sure about the spelling of hebrew, but just sound it out. You'll be saying you want ice cream in the bathroom).

** The glass will NOT contain a Spam daiquiri.

A representative sample of the shoulder we had today for about half our ride.

Rodeo announcers get highways named after them in Oklahoma. This one was also a Democrat in the House of Representatives for two years in the 70's