Oklahoma is OK!

Can you believe it, tomorrow we leave Oklahoma and enter Kansas. It seems like we arrived only days ago...oh right, it was only days ago. We are just blowing through states these days, which is doubly impressive because the wind is blowing us in the opposite direction. Honestly, that Oklahoma musical song where they talk about the wind sweeping down the plain? Outrageous understatement. This state has flattened out as promised, however the headwinds we've had to ride into have been pretty powerful. It has also been incredibly hot. And Kansas is supposed to be windier and hotter. This is the life...
So our first stop in Oklahoma was Grove, and that ride is probably my favorite of the trip so far. I was sweep that day with Joe (Air Force Sweep, woo!) and we had such a good time. He is so great to hang out with and talk to. At lunch Sanna played Tim McGraw and we got to jam out country style. We also rode through 3 different states that day, so we got lots of good pictures. The miles went by effortlessly, I absolutely loved it. As we approached town, we could see thunderheads off in the distance, flashing periodically and threatening rain. We made it in to the church just minutes before the skies opened up. It was a beautiful summer thunderstorm. It came on fast and stormed HARD, lasted an hour or two and then the sun came out again. It reminded me of home.
We headed next to Bartlesville, OK. The city was a fantastic surprise. We arrived at the church to find "Welcome Bike & Build" up on their marquis. They were amazing hosts. They fed us full, planned out meals for breakfast and dinner both days we were there, and the Sunday School kids made us little trail mix baggies to take with us to the build site. I worked on painting the exterior of a Habitat home that is almost ready for dedication. We finished 2 coats on almost the entire house (only missed the parts that the scaffolding couldn't reach). We also met the neighbors who were Habitat homeowners, which was really cool because we got to see a family enjoying their home the way someone would one day enjoy the home we were working on. They also had the most adorable puppy in the world named Lulu and I almost stole her. I almost stole a puppy from a small child. She was that cute. (Don't worry Leo, you know I love you the most.) The man from the church who kind of shuttled us around for the 2 days we were in Bartlesville was so nice too, he gave us a short tour whenever we were riding around town. They also stopped for us on the way to the build sites to let us take pictures with the cool stuff in the downtown area. And you know how we Bike & Builders love photo ops...
From Bartlesville we headed on to Ponca City. Laem, Sanna and I rode together and it was really fun. When we reached the top of one of the long sloping hills, we looked at the countryside and realized it looked just like the pride land in Disney's "The Lion King" (my favorite childhood movie). So we took lots of pictures. Once we got to Ponca we walked to Sonic which was just a half mile away AND had indoor seating! Indoor AIR CONDITIONED seating at a Sonic! So clutch in the 100 degree heat. Later that evening we had movie night and watched "Wedding Crashers." It's always a lot of fun to do one big group activity like that.
One of the local cyclists from Ponca City rode with us today as we headed out to Cherokee. Big shout out to Mr. Mudd for getting out there with us! Cherokee is a really small town (though we are going to the even smaller Coldwater, Kansas tomorrow). We are definitely in wheat country now. "Amber waves of grain" is also not an inaccurate song lyric. Today's ride was the most intense wind. It was also an 80 miler, so we were all pretty beat. Most of us showered and took naps before dinner. Now we're all calling it an early night because we have a 4:30am wake up to try to beat the heat to Kansas. P.S. We've now officially ridden more than half of our total mileage. We're more than halfway across the country! And we have just 32 short days left...