TONIGHT'S EPISODE - I Went Back to My Fourth Wife for the Third Time and Gave Her a Second Chance to Make a First Class Fool Out of Me.
OMAK, WA
What I have liked about my journey is that it has brought me to and threw towns that I've never knew or heard of and probably would never would have visited. It's this back roads routing that has so much appeal to me. It is what attracts me to cycle touring in the first place. What I see on a bike I would never have noticed in a comfortable, stereo equipped, climate controlled, vehicle.
Many places, like Omak, give me a small sense of what this country, or this part of the United States is about. You see the good and bad. I get the sense of striving and struggling. A slow pedal gives me a look at how people live or in many cases, try to live.
I have seen and meet people that have left me registered with both scales of AH! My loaded bike has drawn out of people a conversation that I know I would never have had. Even from my side. Where are you going, coming from, you must see this, don't go there, are you stupid? do you know it's hot out? are you homeless?......
In a place like this I get the feeling of no falsehoods. Some sad truths. These towns don't just fold up when the vacationer is gone. Real life goes on. Some I'm sure not all good. Many of these towns are not weekenders for the quick tourist. Even the people I have meet at my motels stays seem more like "travellers". Some perhaps wandering, maybe not sure where the end of the road will be.
It's also the randomness of events that one happens upon during a trip that makes some so special. As I rode closer and closer to Omak, I started to pick up on it's rodeo weekend. So glad I had booked a room . Once in town I was told quite clearly, it's not only rodeo weekend, BUT IT'S ALSO STAMPEDE WEEKEND. People in line at the grocery check out spoke of bronc riders like we hockey stars. Most anybody I met placed it on Biblical Proportions. Pick ups and horse trailers lined the streets. For over seventy years, no other plans are made for the second weekend in August in Omak.
I wasn't able to get a picture of the Stampede grounds, but stadium was huge.
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| Cycle up window. I love these shacks. |
Roadside eats. The best.
Stampede weekend. Better do laundry.
Is this the real life . Is this just fantasy. Caught in a landslide .
No escape from reality . Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy. Because I'm easy come, easy go; little high, little low anyway the wind blows doesn't really matter to me To me.
COMING SOON: GOING LOUPY
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