The wind is ALWAYS sweeping down the plain

Oklahoma should be called "The Windy State."

We have been blown forward, backward and sideways.  I have a feeling it messes up my hair, but no one has said anything.  I think they are just being polite.

In addition, it is much hotter here than in the desert.  We are having trouble sleeping at night and have been using the air conditioning quite a lot.  Probably because of our advanced age, it is effecting us more than it effects Alana.  More than I remember the heat effecting me.  After all, Peter and I both used to live in Arizona, the hottest place on earth.I have been riding with a bandana covering my face- my delicate skin.  I don't want to wind up like an old rattle snake.  We are on our fourth bottle of SPF 60+ sunscreen with zinc oxide.

The shoulders on the roads are much smaller here.  We have been riding on smaller highways to try to avoid major traffic, but still people are honking and are not too happy with us being on their road.  There are still trucks, but mostly just farming and irrigation support-type trucks, plus local workers.  The road garbage factor is vastly reduced.

However, yesterday was a record for discarded gloves:  56.  It's stunning, really, work gloves, rubber gloves, disposable latex gloves, cotton gardening gloves-  orange, grey, white, blue, green.  BUT no yellow or red.

Also, there are vast, unending seas of rustling wheat fields on all sides of us at times.  It's amazing how it feels like you can't see land as far as you can see.

Since arriving in Oklahoma a few days ago, we started seeing grasshoppers everywhere.  They are green and brown.  The larger ones, which may be a different type, are about 2 inches long and have red lines all along their edges.  They are also splattered all over the road and the camper.  Unfortunately.
But it's not like a plague of locusts or anything.

Peter is getting to be a much stronger rider.  He hasn't missed any riding since New Mexico, and we have found that his steady pace carries him through even when I am flagging after 50 miles.  50 seems to be my drop off point.  After that I make about 8 miles an hour.

It's Spring and there are babies everywhere.  Baby cows, horses, horny toads and birds.

We were riding along and saw a large white horse in a field, then a large brown horse.   Then two awkward little white-and-brown pinto foals tottered up between them.  It was so cute I fell off my bike.  Not really.

We stopped to have lunch in the camper at a parking lot next to a veterinarian's office.  Turns out it was the county vet where all the horses with money go to have their babies.  Alana was in seventh heaven.

We found a motel that has an rv camp in the rear.  So we are raiding it.  We are restocking ice, tp, shampoo, oatmeal, hot chocolate, etc.  Plus, we have eaten our weight at the complementary continental breakfast.  Well worth the $27 camping fee.

Hope to see some sights in Oklahoma City before we take Alana to the airport this afternoon.  Jim and Alana Moylan will be driving the camper for us tomorrow...