Cycling: Route 66

I’m really quite happy that the threatened heavy El Niño rains have not materialized in flooding rains. Instead, it has worked with other factors to bring an extended period of cooler temperatures that hit Oklahoma with daytime highs between 50° and 80° (10C – 27C). With a modicum of rain this means a very potent green-up. The fields are verdant and most of the trees are well on the way to full foliage. These two shots were in the vicinity of Hefner Road and Douglas Boulevard.

Yesterday’s ride was aimed at simply getting up to the old Route 66 in Arcadia. That’s only a mile or so north of the NE 164th, and crosses Post Road (the nearest point I can ride to) at what would be NE 180th in OKC. So the ride took me north on Midwest Boulevard to Hefner, east to Douglas, north to NE 122nd, east again to Post and straight north from there to the intersection. The skies were overcast, and there was nothing really new until I got past NE 164th, which put me just below the dam on Arcadia Lake. Upper left is Edmond’s water treatment facility there. Where the original course of the Deep Fork River continues below the dam, this portion of the river’s course cuts through more soil and less rock. This is a broad flat fertile valley and the riverbed looks more like a gully. That’s because the really deep sides are pushed out on either side of the valley.

So the actual old Route 66 is just a short ride north of the river crossing on Post Road. That was 16 miles from home. In this shot we gaze northward across the legendary road to that northern valley ridge. There’s a lovely climb on Post Road just off-camera to the right. It will have to wait for another day. This summer when school is out and Veloyce doesn’t need the car for work, I’ll take off with the bike carrier and park up near this intersection so I can explore the Arcadia backroads and take more pictures. There are some photographic treasures up this way and I can’t simply ride up here, and then ride around and still come back home without tightly restricting the exploration portion of the ride.

But I do have something to report on the heavy work around the North Canadian bridge at Midwest Boulevard. Here are three updated images I captured on my way home. I noted on a previous photojournal that the work had simply stopped a few weeks ago and was left for quite some time unfinished. Suddenly they were back this week and moving countless tons of dirt to finish the landscaping. The first image shows the shape of the new bank on the northerly bend that cuts through that strangely walled field. Just off-camera to the right is an area I can’t get close to right now, down behind that enigmatic wall, but I can tell you they are constructing some kind of access point for high-pressure natural gas lines that run at an angle across the valley floor.

This second shot looks southward along the bank toward the bridge. We can see the workmen have added an awful lot of fill dirt behind the rocks to create a stepped bank that matches what we see in the previous shot. In this third shot I moved to the south end of the bridge and tried to show how it appears they are going to fill in that huge section behind the rocks after all. Moving that much dirt won’t be quick.

The new mountain bike is still scheduled to arrive Tuesday. I’ll take pictures of the process of un-crating and assembling things. Then you’ll start seeing more off-road shots here.