Photolog 11: New Harrah Loop

I’ve decided to permanently change the Harrah Loop I use. This is part of my effort to make my typical rides longer than 30 miles (48km) by default. In theory, the Harrah Loop now starts near my home at SE 29th and Henney Road on the southwest corner, and the northeast corner is Wilshire Boulevard and Harrah Road. However, today’s ride was clockwise and we have several indentations in this huge rectangle, but it still turns out to be 31 miles.

Rolling north on Henney to NE 23rd is quite routine for me. This is the route into Choctaw’s shopping area and I’ve ridden and driven this four mile strip countless times. Today we simply kept going north. As noted in the past, Henney Road dodges some nameless creek bottom that feeds into the North Canadian. The creek bottom is impenetrable native regrowth from way back whenever the roads were laid out, easily a century in the past. This time of year you see more willow than anything else, but I’ve gotten closer at both ends just to see, and I doubt any humans have put foot to the banks in a very long time.

Another mile north brings us to Wilshire, where we turn east. Because Choctaw Road itself takes a jog around the terrain, we pass the north branch first, then the southerly branch a quarter-mile or so farther. It’s dicey when traffic is heavy, but that’s almost never. Instead, it’s just a couple of nice curves along the lip of a faint ridge line above the North Canadian. Dropping down toward the river, I stopped to take a look. This image on the left should help readers get an idea of how a river like this can wander and change its course. Looking south, here we see that by sheer volume and momentum in one direction, it drove against the western bank until it slowed enough to be redirected along its previous course. As the water level dropped, what’s left is a huge sand bank on the inside of the curve. I was unable to capture it with the camera, but a lot of work had been done on the other side of the same bridge where the river came close to cutting out one anchor of the bridge. A huge amount of concrete and stone rubble was dropped over the bank and packed in place to prevent further washout.

Still on Wilshire, we pass the State Center School again and turn right on Triple X. There are barricades on Wilshire beyond that and I haven’t checked, so I don’t know if the washout over the hill from there has been repaired. Some driver pulled up alongside and asked where he could find Luther Road, and I told him just keep going east another couple of miles, but I was distracted and didn’t think about warning him of the barricades. I had no plans to follow it that far because, as noted the last time I was out there, Wilshire doesn’t go through the Harrah Road in the first place.

South on Triple X — this is that huge flat where cyclist so love to ride — and I headed down to NE 63rd. One of these days I need to see if Google Earth is right about it connecting among the farms with Indian Meridian. The road says “Dead End” on it, but all the mapping services show it going through. But then again, the mapping services put the Mission Airfield out in a sloped corn patch. I checked with the folks at the Seventh Day Adventist Oklahoma Academy and they affirmed that the airfield is up on the ridge next to the school, and across the street from the store.

So it was a nice easy climb up NE 63rd. This time I stopped to capture the SDA retirement center there. I pretty much had to park my bike in the driveway because there isn’t much margin on NE 63rd there. Farther up the hill is the Country Store.

If you don’t understand the way SDA folks are about food, you’ll have to read up on it. For the most part, they eat vegetarian and are big fans of what most folks call “health food.” The little store probably began as the school store for the students, most of whom aren’t old enough to drive. This place is way out in the country, so the store’s name isn’t a joke. It’s tiny and offers lots of vegetarian stuff, some basic herbs and organic breads, and a few school supplies. Nice folks but as you might expect, the prices are a little high because they support the academy. I believe they get their produce in bulk from Crest Foods, so it’s an extra mark-up. I paid just over a dollar (US) for a couple of apples (Gala and Fuji).

Farther eastward on NE 63rd is the northern part of Wind Drift Orchard, closed for replanting. They bought out another orchard over on NE 50th that used to offer some really great peaches, a very wide variety of specialty stuff. However, they seem have chosen to replant a lot of both properties. All I know is they were dismissive about my inquiry when I saw they had taken away the best stuff, so I never went back. What they kept was commodity grade crap that commercial pickers wipe out before they open to the public for picking what’s left. Not nice people.

It’s a quiet ride back to Harrah Road. I stopped at my favorite picnic spot down on NE 36th and ate one of the apples with my sardines. (Yes, I love sardines and kippers, but you can keep that canned tuna and salmon.) The Horseshoe Lake electric plant was actually audible, humming and not quite roaring in the low breezes of the day. I then road south across the river and into Harrah. The little town was quiet as usual, and I saw very few folks. Indeed, I ran into more humans on the bike path than anywhere in town. I couldn’t resist stopping again at the blackberry patch growing along Dobbs Road starting near NE 10th there. Some vines are farther along, with more black than red, but farther south they were more red than black. Still, what I found was quite ripe and so very yummy.

I rode on down to SE 15th, then back west to Indian Meridian. Traffic was down on SE 29th, for which I was grateful. Slipping over to my preferred route on SE 29th Place, in just a short time I was home again. With the stop for shopping and for the picnic, it was a total time of 3.5 hours. I am striving to make a habit of pedaling through the downslopes because my old joints seem to stiffen just a bit if I coast too much. Then again, elite riders say you never stop stroking even if there’s no resistance. Still, I was surprised how much water I had left given the temperature. I started with two 24oz bottles and a pair of one-quart military canteens. One of the later was untouched when I got home. We are in a very hot cycle right now, hitting the high 90s F (33+ C) for a week or more.