Deep in the Hat of Texas

All was quiet in Clayton when I got up. Not only was it the morning after Independence Day, it was also a Sunday, so the town was comatose. The only busy place was the Allsup (a convenience store/gas station chain that is ubiquitous in New Mexico) where I got my breakfast.

A great tailwind took me out of town along US56, to a point where the road literally grazes the top corner of Texas. I hiked into the field past the state line just to say I stepped into a 6th State on this trip so far :)

That's Texas across the road

A few miles later got me into the Oklahoma panhandle, that curious strip of land above Texas.  Before leaving on this trip I brushed up on my American history and geography by watching some documentaries. One of them was "How the States Got Their Shapes". I was surprised to find out that this border was connected to that sad chapter of US history on slavery. Texas used to stretch up all the way to Colorado, but when Congress forbid slavery above the 36˚30' parallel, Texas surrendered its territory north of this line to enter the union as a slave state. The strip became a stateless territory, referred to as "No Man's Land", and was later given over to Oklahoma.

I got into Boise City in good time, but after having lunch, the humid heat and the anaemic post-4th of July atmosphere somehow got to me. The next town was a hundred kilometres away and I just did not feel like riding that far for the rest of the afternoon. My bike was needing some maintenance anyway, and time to do some laundry would be nice, so I called it a day and got a motel along the town's wide and windswept main street.

Horses are so curious, they often run up to the fence as I ride past

I got up in the morning to find the wind had shifted around 180˚ and was now a brutal head wind from the northeast. It made for a slow pace and the 100 kms to Guymon took the good part of the day. With no stores or restaurants along the way it was a monotonous grind, and when I finally got into town I was hungry and tired. I went in search of a bike shop to get my chain checked to see if it had stretched and in need of replacement, but the only bicycle dealer in town was oddly closed an hour before it was supposed to. On my way to find food, I talked to a policeman who told me of a free place to camp, thematically and coincidentally called "No Man's Land Regional Park". It was a great place with showers and shelters next to a tourist information centre that had free WiFi. Better than some of the campsites I had to pay for!

I had to pitch my tent strategically behind a screen, for as the song goes, the wind came "sweeping down the plain" all night.