Boy hidy it be dang gum hot down a heaaah in da south!
Last night I got to Tulsa, Oklahoma, at around 9:30pm. Spencer and Ian arrived an hour and a half later and we were picked up by Tim, the race promoter and our host for the weekend. So by 11:30 or so I stepped out into the dark outside the airport terminal and was blasted in the face with a gust of hot wind. It was over 80 and almost midnight! It’s summer here and has been summer for the last month and a half. Oregon and Washington, not so much.
I woke up at the crack of noon and Ian, Spencer and I built our bikes and ate some bananas before heading out into the sun. Immediately upon opening the back door I was blasted in the face again, this time with some 97 degree wind. We rode around Tulsa for an hour and a half, checking out the Cry Baby Hill crit course and then some roads and bike paths out of town. We were treated to some genuine southern hospitality as several cars honked and flipped us off. They probably didn’t appreciate Spencer’s crude Canadian behavior in public, after this is the bible belt and there are standards to uphold.
We were riding along a bike path at one point and Spencer thought he saw a snake in a pond so we went back to check but it was just a stick….umm what else happened. That was pretty much the highlight.
We got back home and ate some cereal out of the pantry. Then we laid around for an hour recovering from the heat until we mustered up some energy to go ride to the grocery store. I got a watermelon, some apples, some peaches which were on sale for $1/pound, keifer, bananas, apples, mushrooms, eggs, pineapple juice, and clams. Upon checkout, the bagging guy asked about the bikes and what we were here for. We told him we were in town for some bike races. He himmed and hawed about how far we’d come just to race a one mile bike race. I was confused by how confused he was. Then we went to Whole Foods to go to the sample aisle. Then we rode home.
Now we’re getting ready to go ride again downtown to El Guapo’s Mexican restaurant, which serves endless chips and salsa in huge bowls. It’s the best Mexican restaurant in Oklahoma. Quite possibly the entire world.
We just got back. It was fantastic. Soooo much chips and salsa. We all got the rice bowl, which was really good because it meant we got to eat more chips with it. As we left the restaurant there were three hot girls standing outside on the corner deciding where to go or something. We pretended to talk about amongst ourselves while we gawked for five minutes behind them. Neither Spencer nor Ian had showered for two days, so we left without saying anything. I myself was looking pretty good in my super short running shorts and home-made V neck Mt. Hood Cycling Classic T shirt. Then we rode home and Spencer ate seven bowls of cereal.
KENNETT PETERSON 