Today I pushed the envelope again. The planned route was 35 miles and took me out around the Firelake Grand Casino.
I started from Henney, down to SE 44th, where I once again crossed that rare wooden bridge still standing. Then it was straight out to Dobbs Road (a mile short of Harrah Road) so I could drop down to SE 59th and see if there was any way to shoot a picture of Newalla. Turns out to be the wrong time of year, because the foliage hides everything. Maybe later in the fall, but for now it was down another mile south on Harrah Road to SE 74th and back east again.
The difficult part was that the outbound leg was against the blinding early morning sun. I could see well enough to navigate safely, but the scenery was hard to catch in its fullness. Thus far the route is little different from that long ride out east a few weeks back. I was able to cross McCloud Road and navigate WesTech Road without too much difficulty. It looks as if someone did some work on it, because the worst of the loose gravel was off on the edges, and the main surface was fairly well packed caliche. If you’ve never seen that, it’s rather like a very low grade of concrete with way too much loose material, but still manages to pack hard. Around here it’s usually crushed granite mixed with sandy lime. This part is only a mile long before the asphalt reappears for the last mile to Dale.
It’s funny how they call it that, because the English word “dale” is supposed to represent something not so large as a valley (or vale) but wider and flatter than a draw. This is the south bank of the very wide, flat North Canadian River Valley. At any rate, the actual townsite is another mile east and I turned south toward the casino.
Here’s a view from the northeast.
I can recall back in the 1980s when the first stage of the plan was a massive rebuild of the interstate overpass. It went from a tiny 2-lane to 4-lane, plus turn-lane and wide shoulders. While the state and federal regulators supervised, the Pottawatomie tribal government provided virtually all the funding. Once that was done, there was little to stop them building the casino on their own land right there just north of I-40. So far as I can tell, they’ve been continually adding to the facility ever since. Aside from the truck stop, the massive steak house, the grand casino, hotel and convention center, they have their own water tower and complete water treatment facility. Way out back is a large tribal clinic and more stuff on the way. This second shot is from the overpass.
A lot of stuff that doesn’t make the major venues in the big cities is hosted out in these casino convention centers. For example, the next big fight in women’s UFC will be out there soon, and the marquee advertised a big rap music show, a couple of not-quite-washed-up country singers, etc.
The exploration part of today’s ride was seeing this far end of SE 89th. As noted in previous posts, get away from any lakes and the hills out this way aren’t that tough. It was just rolling land for several miles. Aside from a few older houses (mostly small), there is plenty of those expensive new developments going up out here. What was notable was the character of SE 89th itself. The foliage is very heavy, with trees and underbrush often growing right up to the edge of the road and leaning out into the traffic lane. Lots of greenery had the telltale signs of whipping from passing vehicles. For a considerable portion of this stretch, I was forced by the greenery to ride out near the center of the right lane.
But eventually I got back in the hills, starting around Harrah Road.
In this image, the distant crest is just above Peebly road where SE 89th deadends. There’s a fairly large new-generation Baptist church there on the corner and Peebly drops quickly along the west side of that to pass under the interestate. As I rolled down into the bottom, I spotted a collection of police vehicles clustered along the lower end of the off-ramp on the south side of the highway. Seems they found some human remains in an unlikely place. They had the crime scene tape up and were milling around out there off the side of the pavement. Having been a Military Policeman myself, I saw no point in stopping to gawk and provide yet another distraction.
From there I rode up Peebly to SE 59th. By the way, Peebly Road southbound from there is a major through route to old Highway 9. It’s also the route to the dam side of Thunderbird Lake. It’s usually quite busy south of I-40, but considerably less so north of it. Turning west on SE 59th, I rode over the increasingly difficult hills until I hit the monster just before Henney Road and upper Hog Creek Valley. It was a decent climb out of the valley and a couple more miles home.
