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Lunch ride to Sulphur, Oklahoma

RTRandy

New member
As posted by The Veg on the Chartered Clubs . http://forums.bmwmoa.org/showthread.php?t=19683

Club members and friends headed from the Dallas area and beyond yesterday to arrive in Sulphur, Oklahoma for an outdoor hamburger cookout at Chickasaw National Recreation area. Various groups met at certain starting areas early in the morning to arrive at Sulphur around noon. I choose to meet with my dear friend "Doc" Herman and the two of us made our own way. I shot this pointing the camera over my shoulder.

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Roads were generally straight or sweepers with excellent surface the whole way. The population of the entire state of Oklahoma is equal to the Dallas and Fort Worth population so the state is very spread out with light traffic.

Crossing the Red River up ahead into Oklahoma.

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The danger riding these roads is that most are straight and arrive at intersections or crossroads with simply a stop sign. You have to be careful when pulling out or entering a new road to look both ways. Sounds simple, but there can be a temptation to pull out after running at a high speed or misjudging oncoming traffic.

It was suggested that everyone stop at this famous fried pie store in Turner Falls. Not sure if it had a name other than saying "Fried Pies" outside. Basically you could buy Fried pies or gas at this place.

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As we got closer there were tons of groups riding from everywhere including milling around the parking lot.
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Lots of serious GS riders took some rough back roads to get here.
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Other riding cultures showed up for these famous pies.
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These pies were pretty darn great. No wonder this place has been around over twenty years.

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About twenty minutes later we arrived in the park for lunch. We were supposed to pick up the pies and bring them for dessert only most couldn't wait and scoffed them down on sight. Great weather and a huge turnout. What was nice is many types of bikes showed up.
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Admiring someone's new GT all tricked out in the cockpit.

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And the winning bike? ( In my opinion)



This new 2008 Kawasaki Versys. Very cool !!! Covered with the owners clothes, but you get the picture.

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Great cook out!

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Great burgers thanks to The Veg. Look at that concentration!

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And lastly the two finalist for the "Best looking rider contest" only The Veg managed to get first place. Darn you Ben! I'll get you next year!

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Thanks Randy; you are WAY too kind!

Here's my version.

I hit the road by myself, thinking I'd arrive early since I volunteered to help with the food. I took a slightly different route from everybody else. Our club's TourMeister Bo Griffin is a real mad-scientist when it comes to picking out GPS-routes. Yeah, I got a GPS- a Graphical Paper System! And Bo's routes often get onto little-tiny roads that just plain don't show up on MapQuest or Google maps. So I paraphrased the route we used on a scouting-mission a few weeks ago, bypassing the parts that I could not identify with MapQuest. Of course the head-start I got was quickly eaten-up by stopping to explore or take pictures. But I had a blast!
So the ride began with a pleasantly cool, slightly misty morning through the north TexSux countryside:
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A lot of it looked like that, interspersed with clumps of trees or commerce every few miles.
I passed through this town, which established a theme that would recur a bit along the way:
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Home-away-from-home in Tioga:
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Last gas:
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At one point in Oklahoma, just south of Lake Murray State Park, I saw something dark coloured and low-to-the-ground creeping across the road as I sped past. 'Wait a minute,' I thought, 'if I could make out moving legs that moved a certain way, even as I sped past, then that must have been a...'






Warning: arachniphobes should scroll past QUICKLY, maybe close your eyes while you do.





'...it must have been a tarantula!'

So I circled back, and sure enough it was! I've lived in this part of the country for ten years but until that moment I had no idea that tarantulas live east of the Mojave Desert.
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A little while later I passed through Lake Murray State Park. Nice place! I'll definitely have to come back to camp sometime.
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These guys were watching over one of the floodgate-towers:
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El Chupacabra ready to pounce!
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I passed through some small towns along the way...wish I had time to stop for the car-show going on in Ardmore, and passed by this place. The name pretty much sums it up. I would have stopped, but I knew that even better burgers would be at my destination.
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Our friend Gene again...this road led out of Ardmore. Nice road too.
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So Gene Autry was born in Tioga. He must've really gotten around the Texoma region, as lots of stuff on both sides of this part of the TX/OK line are named after him. He even has his own church!
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OK maybe the church isn't really about Autry, but the town it's in is named after him and also has a museum in his honour.

Turner Falls
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US 77 Just south of the entrance to Turner Falls Park:
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I'll second Randy's vote for the fried-pie place! You can see the FRIED PIES sign fro both US 77 and I-35, near the Turner Falls exit. Don't miss it if you pass through! The pies are the real-deal that those awful little Dolly Madison pies try to imitate. These feel heavy in your hand, and are NOT coated with a crust of sugary glaze. I had a couple of the apple-pies, and the filling was breathtakingly delicious! I could taste the cinnamon stepping up and saying HI, and the apples were sweet and tasty and the entire pie was just the way it should be! Unfortunately I ate it before I could get a picture.

But guess who pulled up to the pie-joint while I was there?
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Yep, that was Ardys Kellerman's bike! She did indeed join us for the cookout. I think she said it was "just a ride for lunch," or something like that. When you ride over 100K miles a year, going 400 miles (each way!) for lunch is just another day I guess. We were honoured by her presence.

Machines of many types showed up:
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The kitchen is ready:
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And so are the hungry riders!
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At that point my camera's batteries decided to call it a day. Just as well though, as I took the slab home since I had to make time and get ready for evening-plans.

We cooked 147 hamburgers and 50 hot dogs. Everything but 3 hot dogs got ate, and in all respects the event was a HUGE success and we already want to make it a recurring event, maybe a thing to welcome the autumn riding-season down here in the hot part of the country. Funny though, for a BMW-club event I think I saw more Harleys in the parking-lot than anything. I also know of at least three states that were represented (TX, OK, LA. If you know of others please post!).
The funny thing was that the idea sprang from a comment in some email-conversation among the club officers and ride-committee. Somebody posted a picture of a 28-oz, 3-pattied cheeseburger available at some road-house up in Nebraska and just as we were seriously starting to think about doing a Saddle-Sore raiding-party up to Nebraska, somebody else posted that he'd researched it and found that the place had closed a year earlier. So somebody else said "hell, let's just cook our own!" and it went from there. This is a lesson to clubs that are looking for ways to create events or add vitality to your activity-calendars...just fire off the ideas and see what gets grabbed-onto!
I have to give GIGANTIC credit to our secretary, Jim Wright. Jim did all the shopping, he and his wife spent four hours forming the meat into burgers, and the two of them forewent a ride to truck the grills, tables, food, etc., up to the park. Jim also cooked even faster than I did. Thanks to Bo Griffin too for handling the process of reserving the park-space, which he says wasn't all that simple.
But mostly THANK YOU to all who came out and had a great time! That's the main reason we did it!

More pix here: http://vegomatic.smugmug.com/gallery/3526784#P-1-15
 
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