It's my birthday!!!!! I got a call at midnight Eastern time from my Mom last night, but apparently was too sleepy to know. Joey said that I "woke up" looked at the phone and then went back to sleep. It's a bit crazy since I don't remember doing that at all. Guess I was really getting some great sleep! So, I am now 24 and spent 295 days of my 23rd year of life away from home and on this fun adventure. Although that seems like a lot, it won't compare at all to Joey's 24th year, since we started this trip 5 days after his birthday and will end the trip over a year later! He will have spent almost the entire 24th year on the trip. It was a little easier getting out of our sleeping bags today since we had the hand warmers, which are still going strong since we opened them around 7 pm last night. The fact that we were going to the convenience store to get milk and knew we would be eating indoors helped quite a bit too! When we opened the tent, we could see that it had most definitely frosted last night. The grass was covered and so were the bikes and panniers. Breakfast was very enjoyable since we were nice and toasty. We had some Honey Bunches of oats with strawberries- our new favorite kind. It was hard, however, to go back outside knowing we would soon be cold again. As it was getting closer to 9:30, we knew we should get on the road before it got to be too late. The wind was finally going the right way!! It wasn't very strong, but it wasn't against us, so that made us very happy. My birthday wish had come true- all I asked for was a tailwind! We made much better time this morning and before we knew it we were back to the I-40. Although it's not our favorite place to ride, we had about 10 miles to do on it to get to Henryetta where we would turn to go north to Tulsa. As we were climbing the entrance ramp, we could see that there was a whole bunch of construction going on. Traffic was reduced to one lane in each direction as they were working on re-doing the east bound side. We got a little nervous about that, but not 2 seconds after reaching the top of the entrance ramp, one of the construction workers came right over to us and brought us through the construction area to the closed down east bound side of the road. He said there would be a few construction vehicles and trucks every once in awhile, but that we would be MUCH safer riding there. We thanked him numerous times and were on our way again. We couldn't believe it- we had the ENTIRE east bound side of the interstate to ourselves while the traffic was stuck on one lane roads on the west bound side. It was incredible. The road surface was brand new, so it was just a joy to ride on in general. We were so thankful that the construction worker was looking out for us and took us over there. I can't imagine how scary it would have been to try to ride along the other side with the one way traffic. There was a cement barrier down the middle of the west bound road and there were cones and hardly any room on the side where we would have been. It would have been a nightmare. Instead, the ride on the I-40 there turned into a dream ride. That is something that we will never be able to do again I'm sure. It almost felt like they had "shut down" this side just for us because as we were riding along on this massive stretch of open road, we were watching the cars all jammed together on the tiny narrow section of road on the other side. Sometimes it really does pay to be the one on the bicycle! Around the 23rd mile mark of the day, we stopped at a restaurant called "Chair Crushers Buffet and Grill" on the outskirts of Henryetta. It was originally called the Pig Out Palace, or at least that is what all the signs near the interstate called it. It was the perfect spot for a birthday buffet of homestyle food. Mashed potatoes, corn, fried chicken, ham, salad, baked beans, sweet potatoes, and so much more! There was even soft serve ice cream for dessert- not that ice cream was on the top of the list for desserts for today with the cold, but you know us, we can NEVER turn down ice cream! It was so nice. I got a few calls from home with some more birthday wishes! This was definitely a special birthday since it's the first one that I've ever cycled on-and froze my tooshie off on, for that matter! After stuffing ourselves to the brim, we continued on. After that, we rolled through the main part of Henryetta and then turned to head North to Tulsa. At that point, the wind was perfect!! We were moving right along, FINALLY! Joey and I were just SO happy! We stopped for a very quick internet check in Okmulgee before continuing on to Glenpool. The last 15 miles had quite a bit of climbing which made us sweat quite a bit since we were so bundled up. The only bad part is that on the way down you just get so incredibly cold then. It's a vicious cycle. The low 40s are probably one of the worst temperatures to ride at just for that reason. If it was colder, we wouldn't be sweating like that, and if it was warmer, we wouldn't need to be bundled up so much. It's such a tricky temperature to ride at. Upon arriving in Glenpool, we stopped at McDonald's for a little warm up break. Those little breaks seem to help so much because it gives our toes and faces a chance to warm up enough to get a few more miles done before we are feeling really cold again. Once warm enough, we headed down the road. There was a very nice little church that had a whole bunch of open grassy land around it, so we figured that would be a good place to check if we could set up our tent. We were very happy to see that there were cars there in the parking lot so we would have an opportunity to ask if we could set up our tent. We got their just before their bible study started, so I was very happy to not be interrupting anything. Pastor Todd said it wouldn't be any problem at all for us to set up our tent there and that if the police came by to tell them that "Pastor Todd said it was ok." Happy that we had permission, we headed to find a spot out of the way to set up.We had the tent up in no time and got in our sleeping bags right away. Poor Joey wasn't feeling good as his stuffy nose was still lingering and he had a really bad headache. I gave him a couple asperin, and that seemed to help a little. An hour or so later, we heard a couple people walking towards our tent. Then we heard something amazing. Pastor Todd said "we would like to welcome you to sleep inside our fellowship hall if you would like. It only has wooden floors, but it would be nice and warm!" We were just so surprised and excited!! What a wonderful birthday this has turned out to be. First we get a tailwind and then we get to sleep indoors tonight! Since it was so cold, we just did a quick move of all our stuff right into the fellowship hall. They told us we could put our bikes right inside with us so we wouldn't have to worry about them and so that is what we did. We didn't even take the tent down outside. Instead, we carried it right inside so we could take it down where it was nice and toasty. It was amazing, there were tables and chairs, lights, a bathroom, a microwave, and most importantly, it was so incredibly toasty!! We couldn't thank Pastor Todd enough! After Pastor Todd and the other fellow that was there departed, we noticed a little brown bag sitting on each of our sleeping bags. When we looked inside it was full of chocolates, peppermints, gummies, and peanuts! They had left each of us a little Christmas goodie bag!! It was so sweet of them and such a great surprise! Once we were all settled, we had a glass of soda each (they said to help ourselves to ANYTHING that was in the kitchen, and made a point to tell us they had a lot of soda- which they did!). To go along with that, we cooked up a bag of popcorn for a little birthday treat. We went from going to bed around 6 or 7 to not having to go to bed until 10 or later if we wanted. We were warm and there was electricity! It was a cold day to ride, but I couldn't have asked for a better birthday between the ride down the I-40, the tailwind, getting to sleep indoors, and the surprise goodie bag of candy. It was wonderful. We got very close to the hotel we have reservations at for tomorrow, so we have a nice short day to look forward to. We can even sleep in!!! Our miles totaled 64.61today.
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