Oklahoma City

The reason we chose to do the Southern states towards the end of our tour was in the hope that the temperatures would have cooled a few degrees during August from the heatwave conditions (especially in the desert country) during July. While temperatures may have dropped a little, it is still very warm and combined with the high humidity, riding conditions have been uncomfortable the last few days. We have also been unfortunate enough to time our tour through the states of Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma during a weather pattern of lingering thunder storms. It is not as though we could just wait a day until the weather changes - the forecast for the next week is for storms and flash flooding warnings in this part of the country.That is all part of motorcycling - you have to take the good with the bad, it is all part of the adventure!

We left Nashville early yesterday morning and managed to get a good 3 hours riding under our belt before the rain drenched us just past Memphis and as we crossed the state line into Arkansas. It got to the stage where we didn't even bother to put our wet weather gear on - it was just too humid to wear it. Because the showers were intermittent, you soon dried off in the heat. It was actually quite refreshing.
We made Little Rock later that afternoon and stopped for the day. Later that night there were 'severe' thunder storm and flooding warnings on TV for the Little Rock area. When the storm passed through the thunder and lightening was setting off car alarms in the motel car park!

This morning we left Little Rock and continued pushing west. The weather was still overcast and threatening to rain - but the cooler conditions were great to ride in and not so humid as previous days. After Fort Smith we crossed the state line into Oklahoma. The further west we rode, the more the clouds disappeared and we were soon riding in hot, sunny (but still humid conditions) of 91 Fahrenheit (33 Celsius). We reached our stop for the day, Oklahoma City (the state capital of Oklahoma). We managed to have our first ride in 5 days without getting rained on!

Our motel is in Bethany (West Oklahoma City). This was chosen as it is located on the 'Mother Road' - Route 66. Oklahoma City is at the junction of where the historic Route 66 changes from it's south/west direction (originating from Chicago) and heads due west towards California. Our intention for the remainder of our tour is to follow the famous route (it has now been disestablished as an official highway) back to California.