Verdigris River

N36.1648 W95.6187
I throw my shoulder against the door again, again. Each time, the hollow tonk of the door is overwhelmed by the screach of the metal against the concrete floor. I can't get the handle to latch again. Taking a step back, sighing, I give up. No wind is going to blow that open, anyway. The hammock is already packed, I've already eaten breakfast. I'm staying because I just don't want to leave the rodeo any worse than when I showed up. Locust Grove is a nothing town, but I'm trying to be responsible with my campsites. I nearly tore the handle off the door when I got here, trying to check if the bathroom was still working. Despite the dead bugs in the sink and the cigarette butts on the floor everywhere, my joy was preeminent. Running water for a toilet? Electricity to charge my phone overnight? Sign me up. But now, trying to close everything down, I have to leave the door no better than I found it. Maybe if I find a piece of wood to wedge against it, it won't blow open?
Then, I reach back to touch the back of my neck; it's wet with rain. I look up at the sky to find it dark, cloudy, and racing north. At least the south wind may bring warmer weather. I jog back to the bike where I stashed it by the concession stand, my shoes clicking on the gravel and concrete, when my heart flips in my chest.
I freeze, turn slowly, and see what made the strange explosive sound, as if air escaped from a tire, or a tool, or a pneumatic weapon (my true fear). A deer bounces away into the woods ringing the rodeo. I'm captivated by it, and I wait for my heartbeat to return while I stare in the early sprinkles of the storm.
Leaving Locust Grove, I head west along the old Cherokee Turnpike until the road ahead disappears into the new Turnpike, a four-lane divided highway, home of shipping containers full of food and teddy bears being whisked by from Bentonville to Tulsa and points West. This is my first forced moment on a four-lane highway, and I hate it. The rain is coming down at an angle, and every hole a truck rips in the wind, I fall into, feeling sucked along and toward the road. My little orange flag flaps crazily behind me. I'm wet through.
The ground is mostly flat. There's not much to see here, and I roll past tiny towns just off the highway scattered with signs for local elections without stopping. The rain has really begun in earnest, and I have half-cold water running down my glasses and down from my helmet constantly. My chain has amplified its constant squeak into a squealy scream.
Five hundred yards ahead, an SUV pulls off the road, and the driver gets out. I slow as I approach, and he walks back to see me.
"Hey."
"Hello; you alright, kid?" He's heavyset, powerful-looking despite it. White. Forty.
"Oh! Yeah, I'm fine. Just very wet."
"How far you going?" He sounds genuinely concerned for me.
"Tulsa. Got family there; I'll get to them in a few hours."
"You're good to keep riding in this?"
"Oh, for sure."
"I just saw you, and I got worried. This is crappy weather to be on a bike."
"It's the third time I've gotten rain in two and a half thousand miles, though, so maybe I deserve it."
"Woah! Well. If that's so, then just keep safe, okay?"
"Will do. Thanks."
He turns to get back in his car, and just as he opens his door, it occurs to me.
"Oh!" I yell. "What's your name? I'm Robby."
"Ronnie! Nice to meet you."
"Thanks, Ronnie."
His taillights disappear long before I've gotten back up to speed. I try to run through everything a few times before it disappears, and I distract myself from the miles slipping past by thinking about the kindness of strangers.
I look up, finally, and see signs for construction. Good. It'll slow down the traffic passing me to only double my speed, if I'm lucky (and they follow the laws). But as I whip past cones in the right lane, feeling comfortable for the first time, the road tips up, and I can see the line of cars a half mile away going one-lane over a bridge. And no matter how slowly, they're still going thirty, and uphill. I'll never match it. But the construction machines blocking the right-hand lane leave hope, since I don't know, and there's the chance that I might be able to ride through whatever they've done. As I dismount on the shoulder, even I can see it's hopeless. The dozen workmen standing just beyond the biggest of the machines are working on ripping out the old road surface, and a few of them turn to eye me cautiously. I wave.
"Is there any way past?"
One man cranes his neck to look past his friends, and waves me on.
"I can get through?" He nods. I push my bike over some rebar and step in the wrong place a few times, guided by construction workers. The men quickly vanish into the rain as I crest the bridge, dropping into holes where the exposed rebar of the roadbed soaks in puddles, where my bicycle bounces over every bar. I pause at the crest of the bridge and look out over the Verdigris. Everything fades away into the rain. All colors tend toward grey.
I finally get off the bridge and pull off the road on the near side of Tulsa. My phone tells me that my only option to avoid Interstate 44 will soon be a winding maze of roads, so I want lunch first. Google saves me again, shows me IHOP. The rain lifts a touch by the time I tip my bicycle against the side of the building and struggle through my bags to find some dry shirts. Inside, the waitress gives me a seat and tells me she'll be back for my order. An enormous man to my left complains about his chair and gets moved to a bench at a booth. In front of me, an older gentleman rifles through papers from his bag, his attitude toward his suit disdainful, toward the waitress familiar, toward the restaurant curious. He gets up to examine the chair the other man has vacated, and two other men come out from the kitchen to join him. Oh. From the snatches of their conversation, I get the impression that he's new from corporate and has inherited this region.
When the waitress asks about my bicycle, hears my story, the men listen. The restaurant manager looks at me as if seeing me the first time. His boss, the regional manager, motions to the waitress, gets her attention and asks her for my tab. His boss, the new man from corporate, looks at him with a little curiosity, a little amusement. He probably just wants to look good in front of a new supervisor, surely. But he turns around in his seat to talk to me.
"Where'd you start?"
"Massachusetts. In August."
"Heavens. My son did a trip like this, but on motorcycle. He really loved it."
"I'm having a pretty good time, myself. I keep meeting unexpected friends."
"Good. Stay safe on the road, and if you're ever back through here, just let us know that you made it."
He turns back around to finish talking about the renovation and the staff, the food and the location. I catch snatches of it as I fill up on pancakes and peanut butter. America is a lot nicer than people make it out to be. There's a lot more to it than you see from the back windows of a minivan.