Parker family

Oct. 4, Erick-Copper Breaks State Park, 96 miles, variable breeze, 88/65—On the way out of Erick I ride past the yard photographed in a new book Clyde showed me yesterday: America's 100th Meridian: A Plains Journey. (The two reader reviews are interesting. The guy from Oregon loves it, but a woman from Dodge City, which is on the 100th meridian, doesn't care for it at all.)

Today is a day on the go—I want to get to Texas. Beyond Hollis I pass cotton fields, my first of the trip. I've heard black-eyed peas are also grown around here but I don't see any. In mid-afternoon I cross the Red River, a thin stream in a wide and sandy riverbed where three ATVers are riding all out. I'm now in Texas (trip miles: 1727), happy to be in the last state of my trip. I've been telling myself for the past week not to rush, but I'm excited to be in the same state as the Rio Grande.

I'm also thrilled to be back on the good roads of Texas, and happy to devote another paragraph to slamming Oklahoma roads, which are hazardous enough that cross-country riders should be warned at state borders. Not only can shoulders be measured in inches, but the surfaces feel like hardened gravel under my wheels. When a Texas Farm Road (an official designation) is far superior to an Oklahoma state highway, you've got problems.

Shortly I pass through Quanah, named after (and with a courthouse square monument honoring) Quanah Parker, chief of the Quahadi band of Comanches and a founder of the Native American Church. Which is all very interesting, because Quanah Parker was one of the most important people in the Southwest for 50 years. But add this amazing fact to his bio: his mother, Cynthia Ann Parker, was captured by a Comanche raiding party, married a chief, had three children including Quanah, and was later recaptured and returned to the white world against her will.

Into early evening I ride through mesquite trees and juniper to Copper Breaks State Park. I appear to be the only camper in the park, except for the ringtail raiding my bike bags in the middle of the night.