Today was supposed to be one of my shorter days. I purposely did this to break things up and so that I wouldn’t always be getting in late.

“Getting in late” means after 7pm. I just don’t want to do that.

After a shower and packing up my things, I was on the road before 8am. Of course, getting through Oklahoma City at rush hour, I thought, would be a hassle. But no. Even that was no problem at all. There was hardly any traffic. And this was prime rush hour time. Nothing. Do people not work here?

In very little time I was in the north west corner of OKC riding down 39th Street, Old Route 66. It was nice to be back on The Mother Road. Even if it’s just newer hotels and car dealerships. There were a few old motels, like the Western, but mostly everything was modern, like Old 66 was never here.

Getting out of OKC and into the next town, now nearly merged with it’s larger neighbor to the east, is Bethany. Bethany seems to celebrate Route 66 a bit. The town was started by a Nazarene church for for the longest time didn’t allow the sale of cigarettes, booze or tobacco. Movie theaters were also disallowed. While this is no longer the case, the two schools in Bethany are both Christian (one is a Nazarene and the other is a Holiness Pentecostal). Such is the south.

Bethany wasn’t much of a feel for Old Route 66 either. For that, you’d have to exit off of the 39th Street Expressway and do a quick trip around Lake Overholser, a man-made lake which Route 66 skirted until 1958 when it was moved to present-day 39th Street Expressway.

This is definitely the better way to go.

After crossing a 1924 bridge, you’re taken around the lake, which today was choppy as the winds were really tossing me around. The short route, much of it on the original concrete, used to take you “out in the country.” But now it’s housing developments and gated communities.

When we were through here in 2004, there was a whole community (I use that word VERY loosely here) surrounded by a moat. I didn’t see it this time, so perhaps the moat didn’t work and they were invaded by ruffians. I certainly hope so.

Not too much later and it’s back to the 4 lane into Yukon. Yokon is the home town of Garth Brooks. He may still even live here. Who knows. It’s also a town that seems to like that it’s on Route 66. They even hold in their possession a Route 66 icon: The Yukon’s Best Flour grain elevator. You take what you can get, I guess. It’s pretty impressive at any rate.

And I’m sure El Reno is a great town. But it didn’t impress me. Sure, it’s where the motel scenes from Rainmain were filmed, but that’s not enough to make me stop and even take a picture.

El Reno is named after Fort Reno, two miles west. Fort Reno was named after the Civil War general who was killed at the Battle of South Mountain (though the historical marker says it was the Battle of Antietam). I visited the spot where he died a couple of months ago. See it here.

About this time, 9:30ish, maybe 10, the winds picked up considerably. Weirdly, the wind was coming out of the south and as I was traveling in a westerly direction, it was tossing me about something terrible. They were 20 - 30mph. Not as bad as I’ve had before, but definitely something that makes you take notice.

It was a challenge keeping the scooter on the narrow stretches of concrete Old 66. Thankfully it wasn’t also raining.

Though, the sky looked very threatening and the weather folks said that possibly tornado-spawning thunderstorms would be lurking here and there.

But through the wind and the threat of rain, the road stretched on and on to the horizon, showing me that my day would extend farther than I could see. Of course, that’s any given day. It’s just nice to have a reminder now and again.

West of El Reno I had two choices. The first was to take the “El Reno Cut Off,” the second was to take the longer, older alignment. I almost always choose the latter. For most Route 66 is connected with the 50’s. They connect it to cars with big chrome bumpers, to doo-wop and poodle skirts, to that increasingly annoying Bobby Troup song. But I connect it to the 20’s and 30’s. So, when available, I like to take the old way.

And today, the old way meant once again departing the sometimes well-placed “Historic Route 66″ tourist signs and heading to parts unknown.

This time, parts unknown were sort of known to me. In 2006, we tried and failed to find where an old bridge to the town of Bridgeport was. We looked, got really hopelessly confused and epically failed.

In 2008, all that was changed. I got a good map, knew exactly where to find it and set about through the towns of Calumet and Geary. The skies were growing darker and I knew that if it rained, I couldn’t take these roads.

These roads were dirt. Not just any dirt, but, when wet, thick, sticky, pancake batter mud. Even when dry, this stuff was nasty. When wet, it was simply no longer a road.

The paved roads to Geary, now US 270, were, more or less, Route 66 from 1926 to 1933. The road went up through Geary and then turned south, heading through Bridgeport.

It created a large northerly bump that the El Reno Cut Off essentially cut off, saving westward travelers quite a bit of time.

However, from 1926 to 1933, this was the way to go, even though it was never paved. It connected, on it’s dissent into Bridgeport, with a Postal Road and the Ozark Trail. It also ran along side the Rock Island Railroad Line before they both crossed into Bridgeport.

In 1921, they built this really cool suspension bridge into Bridgeport. The bridge is gone, but it’s foundation is still there. For some wacky reason, I wanted to see that.

To do that, however, I first must navigate these amazingly crappy roads. The sand-like dirt was sometimes a couple of inches thick. And to make matters more interesting, 18 wheelers thought it would be fun to use it. Why? I had no idea. But soon I would find out.

I passed where the road connected to the Ozark Trail and saw the old Rock Island Line turn off to the west and I knew that my road to finally see this bridge thing was coming up.

And it was! And there it is! And there are all the 18 wheelers that passed me! And there are a bunch of other construction things! And there go my hopes of seeing it!

Sort of. I could see it from the other side! Route 66 used to go through Bridgeport till ‘33 and after that, it went about a mile away from it. Bridgeport is still very much accessible. And a few miles of crappy dirt roads later, I was onto the more modernish Route 66.

Before going into Bridgeport, I had to cross the 38 Pony Bridge. It’s called that because there are 38 sections, or Ponies. I’m not sure why they’re called that, but they are and thus: 38 Pony Bridge.

Incidentally, this begins the longest stretch of original Route 66 pavement - a mere 18.2 miles. But still, there’s nothing like riding/driving on concrete.

The state doesn’t seem to want tourists on this road, as they’ve posed “Road Closed” signs with the addendum “Local Traffic Only.” I figured that it wasn’t really true and pressed on.

38 ponies later, I was across the South Canadian River and heading into Bridgeport.

There’s something about Bridgeport that I really like. They say it’s a ghost town, but it’s really not. There’s a community center, a working church (at least I think it’s working), a place to pay your water bill and, most importantly, there are people living there.

The bridge to Bridgeport arrived via Main Street. Main Street is and probably always was a dirt road. So I took Market Street into town. That’s paved. It took me to the town “center.” From there I could hang a right on Broadway and then a block farther, a left on Main and about a half mile later, I’d be at the bridge!

Except that’s not how it would work. I got into Bridgeport just fine. Took some pictures and rather enjoyed my time. Until I turned to go down Broadway and saw several construction vehicles and a few dump trucks blocking my way.

That’s odd. What were they doing on BOTH sides of the same old river crossing. I’m not really sure. I can’t imagine they’re rebuilding a crossing. But why work on both of the roads at the same time? Who knows.

All I know is that I didn’t get to see the old bridge crossing today.

Not that the day was lost, of course. Moving on, past Bridgeport is that long stretch of old pavement. It took me past Hydro, with their wacky parking (I stopped, but didn’t really do anything in town), past a section of road that nearly got washed away. It was really close to taking out the whole road. See my pictures for close ups.

And on into Weatherford. It was around 12:30 and I was getting a bit hungry. Because of this, I stopped at the New Young Chinese Restaurant. It’s not just Young, it’s New! Because they couldn’t tell me if their brown sauce had chicken stock in it, I ordered broccoli with tofu fried in soy sauce. It was pretty ok. I’m glad I got some tofu. The soy sauce was WAY too salty. I need to start carrying low-sodium stuff.

I finished up and headed down the road, now a frontage road, to Clinton. That’s where the Route 66 Museum is. I’ve always wanted to check it out and finally had the opportunity to do so.

And I’m quite glad I did. It’s full of history and artifacts from the early, pre-Route 66 history to the present. And the admission charge was only $3! My kind of joint!

They’ve got full rooms devoted to each decade and music from that decade to accompany you! And thankfully it’s not ALL the Bobby Troup song.

It’s a great place, so if you ever get the chance, check it out. I wish I would have a long time ago. I’ve been by it three times now.

As for the rest of Clinton, not all that interesting.

It was still early in the afternoon. Maybe 3pm. And my day was soon finished. The KOA is in Foss and that’s only a few miles down the road.

So a few miles I went, stopping in Foss to see what’s there (not much) and to check out some really old alignments (which were pretty cool). They were both dirt and have never been paved, so I decided to look but not touch. I have more than enough dirt roads ahead of me.

I pulled into the KOA around 3:30, set up camp and basically took the afternoon off. A very nice, light day. Nothing too challenging on a mental or physical level. Just a pleasant ride.

Oh, and as for the tornadoes, they never came. That bit of cloudiness that I rode through around Geary seems to have developed into some nastiness for southern Oklahoma, but for me, clear blue skies!

Here are my pics from today.

Miles today: 156
Miles total: 2510

You can click on this to see the big version!