This time I wasn’t going to accept failure. After using Google Street View as a sort of recon, I decided to take a different approach in case the washouts weren’t all fixed. Today’s ride began like the Brutal Loop, heading south on Hiwasee toward Stella, just a mile east to Norman’s 108th Avenue NE (AKA Henney Road) and south the six miles to Alameda Drive. Alameda is the east-west route that runs along the north side of the main body of Lake Thunderbird. From there, it was just two miles to the drive that drops down to Fisherman’s Point. The return route would be taking 120th Avenue NE (AKA Choctaw Road) if the washouts were fixed.
They were fixed. In fact, lots of washouts are finally seeing repairs, though some are less thorough than others. For example, here we see that the Hog Creek washout on Hiwasee is now complete and resurfaced nicely. 
The rest of the way south to Stella saw some half-assed efforts to resurface some of the roads. Maybe you’ve seen it before: A layer of asphalt is dropped but it’s the cheap stuff with lots of big rocks. This stuff is poured sparingly on the surface, scraped and rolled quickly. It leaves lots of linear striations where the bigger rocks squeegee the thin asphalt as the scraper drags them. The whole thing gets a final coat of tack sprayed on top and whatever lines they might decide to place is painted on top of that.
It would be easy to miss the entrance to the 108th Avenue corridor from Stella Road. It looks like all the other side roads. Unlike the more widely used 120th Avenue route to the lake, this one doesn’t feel so oddly alien. While I still had the sense something natural was missing, as if eradicated, it lacked whatever invasive species were added on 120th. I passed a young woman walking with two toddler boys. They stopped and stared. As I approached, I queried whether it was so uncommon to see bicycles out there, but the woman replied it was simply the matter that her sons loved bicycles. A short time later I spotted another cyclist ahead on the road quickly leaving me behind.
While it doesn’t stink, I could smell the lake before I saw it, despite contrary winds. Today we had the highly unusual northeasterly breezes. Alameda Drive approaching the lake facilities is very heavily forested and entirely natural. It was two miles to the visitor’s center and a short lane south to Fisherman’s Point. 
The image shows the boarding dock, while the boat ramp is out of view to the left. The actual fishing wharf is a couple hundred yards farther left, but this dock was deserted. I went out and looked it over, then sat on the gently rocking platform just off the walkway. By facing to the right in the picture, I had the breeze at my back and it was very peaceful. Then I went to find some shade and sat on the edge of the parking area for lunch.
One of the things visible from the dock was the monitoring facility run by an odd agency. 
Up on Alameda you pass this massive double iron fence, automatic gates and a cryptic sign. The largest letters say simply, “Headquarters.” In smaller print ringing a peculiar logo you discover that this is the Central Oklahoma Master Conservancy District. Basically it’s a multi-city thing — Moore, Norman, OKC, Del City and Midwest City along with Tinker AFB. It is parallel to the better known conservation districts in the state, and amounts to a political lobby that cooperates with federal and state water agencies. At any rate, I am told the signs off of that massive structure on the lake warn you to stay back some distance, but it’s about the only part that you can actually see from public areas.
There is a dumpster next to the small public restrooms, so the facilities are at least decent. After lunch I headed home. It was just a mile back to 120th Avenue and I had noticed on my way past earlier that there were no barriers or “road closed” signs. 
So I proceeded north. I crossed a rather small patch in the road covering a fresh repair that expanded the previous water passage from a small single and made it two large tinhorns. Farther north I ran into the washout that blocked my previous excursion to the lake. While it was drivable, the county had opted not to pave it just yet. They did put down some extensive rip-rap and concrete buttresses on both sides and did an awful lot of dirt work for quite some distance uphill. What’s left is a raised patch of caliche. 
Cleveland County had almost as many washouts as Oklahoma County, but nowhere near as much money for repairs.
I rode past a fellow who was putting down that new bagged asphalt by hand on his driveway. In my usual jocular demeanor, I yelled, “Howdy, neighbor!” My Edgewood is a very quiet bike and he was startled by my voice. He looked up and asked how I was doing. My answer to that is always, “Life is good!” He grinned and asked if I was “good on water.” I thanked him and affirmed I was. I think he will end up buying quite a few of those bags of cold asphalt, but he was doing it right, moving loose debris before applying it.
There are quite a number of private roads that the county can’t even afford to deliver dirt and gravel. Most of the time you can get the county to take care of the aprons to private drives, but they must have been really swamped (pun intended) by the massive number of washouts this past spring. 
This is Lago Vista Road, part of a loop that runs up the hill and back out on another road. At the edge of 120th was a massive sandbar where all that loose soil had washed down. It stopped only because there had been a very large pool already standing, as was obvious by the evidence of water marks and debris. So I was standing in deep, soft sand to take this picture, and it stretched along both sides of the main road about a hundred yards. That’s an awful lot of lost sand, but sand is about all there is in this area. Where the vegetation holds it in place, everything’s fine, but it seems in retrospect a silly place to build without a lot more work to prevent sand drift.
Parts of Choctaw Road north of Stella had seen the same cheap layer of asphalt, so while it was fresh and black, it was still a tad rough. After crossing under Interstate 40, I could see evidence of serious preparations for widening. I have heard, but cannot seem to find official confirmation, that much of Choctaw Road is being widened from 1-40 all the way to NE 23rd. The stretch between SE 44th and SE 59th got it first, and now they are working on the stretch south of there to I-40. That should be a glorious fine mess and traffic boondoggle once the surface work gets started.
It took 3.5 hours for a distance of 35 miles plus stopping for lunch and pictures.
