We had such a wonderful night's rest last night. The bed was so comfy that I wanted to just stay there forever. Joey went off to breakfast before I did because I just wanted a little longer in the comfy bed and he was really hungry. The continental breakfast was great- everything from bagels to cereal and cinnamon rolls to biscuits and gravy. I had hot cocoa while Joey had juice. We stuffed ourselves and took a little back to the room for later and/or for the road. We found out that check-out wasn't until noon today because of the holiday! Since we don't go to hotels very often, we planned to stay right up until the last minute, kind of a savor every moment before going back out in the cold thing. So, that's what we did. I worked on the website for a little bit, we watched part of a movie, I took another shower since I could take as many as I wanted while at the hotel, and we ate a little more of our breakfast food. We were dreading going out in the cold again, but were very happy that the rain happened yesterday and not on it's scheduled day (today) because that would have made it even harder to leave the hotel. Before we left, I ate my leftovers from Applebees; boy was that pasta alfredo/steak dish good! I usually end up getting the same thing when we go there, but I'm glad I tried one of their new dishes. When it was finally time to go, we braced ourselves for the cold and headed out the door. We knew we wouldn't make our normal amount of miles today since we were leaving so late, but it didn't matter because we got to enjoy the hotel for as long as possible. After being inside the toasty hotel, it sure made it feel even colder outside. The wind was against us, too, which made it even worse. We rode along, with our frozen toesies and slowly got the miles done. Despite the fact that it is so cold, we can see how close we are getting to Kansas, and that keeps us going. We stopped more frequently than normal at gas stations and fast food restaurants to warm up a little and that helped. It was a very slow going day because of that darn wind, and partly because I don't feel like our muscles work as well in the cold. Ever since we left Leonard, my knees have been hurting and haven't gotten any better, and I think the cold weather is to blame for that. After riding for a while, we made it onto Route 66 again! It's cool that we got to ride on it for a while in California and now again in Oklahoma! A few miles into the ride on 66, we passed one of the old Route 66 roadside attractions; The Blue Whale. It was an old water park that was built back in the 70s that featured a gigantic whale that had slides and a place to jump off the tail into the water below. It was free to go walk around and go see it since it is no longer in use (it closed down in 1988) and was pretty cool. After that, we were on our way again. We rode through the city of Claremore where we decided we would get something to eat. Subway again today!! It was around 2:30 when we got into town. We stopped at the first Subway we saw and asked if there were anymore further into town. Sure enough, there were 3 more! Even though we were hungry, we figured it would be good to get down the road a little further before stopping. Not to mention, there were some snowflakes beginning to fall. So, 3-4 miles later, we stopped at another Subway on the way out of town. We decided that we would each get a full sub so that we wouldn't have to worry about getting hungry later tonight. As we sat there in the warm restaurant, we looked outside. All day we've been seeing the temperature readings on the banks and other business signs. The readings have been between 27 and 32 degrees all day. There was a sign right across the street from the Subway so there was a constant reminder of how cold it was out there. Even after finishing our subs, we sat there inside for an extra half hour or so; it was just so hard to get ourselves to go back outside. When we finally did, we thought about taking a motel for the night because it was so cold, but at the same time didn't really want to do that since we just had one last night. We decided to start riding on and if we happened to see one, we would stop and check, and if not we would just keep riding until we found someplace to set up our tent. I guess it worked out the way it was supposed to because we didn't pass any motels on the way out of town. We were really cold but we knew we would be stopping at the first spot we saw because our sleeping bags were calling us. We made it to the next little town of Sequoya and saw a nice church that had a little nook between the buildings where we would be able to get out of the wind and hopefully be a little bit warmer. Unfortunately there was no one in sight at all anywhere in the town, let alone at the church, so we didn't have a chance to ask anyone if it would be ok to set up there. Either way, we set up as fast as we could and got right into our sleeping bags. We were pretty cold and were in a way wishing that we were in a hotel room, but we knew that we would make it just fine and that these kinds of things were all part of the adventure. But- we're "tough" so we can handle it. Apparently we are "tougher than everyone in Oklahoma," because almost every single person we talk to said the same thing- "You are both way tougher than I am- I could never do that." We thought it was pretty funny that almost everyone said the same thing- we've never noticed so many people saying the same thing like that before and didn't notice people mentioning anything about toughness, but I think it's just because it's cold out here. Soon enough we will be down near the Gulf and be where it's warmer again; being in the cold won't last forever. As I was completely inside my sleeping bag, head and all, typing my journal, I was comfortably warm. I think that is the key for me, to just be completely inside my sleeping bag so that none of the warm air gets out, my face is warm, and the warm air I exhale goes into the sleeping bag and not into the air outside of it. It's going to be another long night and it will be very hard to get up in the morning, but it will all be worth it when we accomplish the goal of riding in Kansas and Missouri. Before bed, we snacked on some potato chips that we had gotten yesterday for while we watched the ball drop on TV. I was thinking about it again today, and it was still weird being in a different time zone for NYE. We watched the usual NYC NYE celebration at 11 and then watched the central time zone "ball" drop coverage- which took place in Nashville where a music note was "dropped" and also in New Orleans where they had some kind of symbol that related to NO that was dropped. It was a spit screen coverage of what was happening live, but it wasn't nearly as exciting as the one in NYC. So we got to watch 3 ball drops yesterday in all reality. It's still crazy that we are already through the first day of 2013. It was a very cold day today and will be a very cold night, probably in the teens or low 20s. Like expected, we didn't get a ton of miles today since we left the hotel so late. Our miles totaled 28.06 today.
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