Day 21: Saturday, July 5, 2003

Now I'm seriously riding west on Interstate 40, trying to make time. In the morning I ride to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and cross into Oklahoma. In Oklahoma, I blaze along the interstate until I reach Shawnee. Shawnee is where the parents of my ex-girlfriend Leslie live, and I would like to pay them a visit if they are in town.

Leslie and I split after she went to work in Eastern Europe in 1994. Before that, we were together for about four years, and our holiday acitivities included several visits to her parents' home in Shawnee and her brother's home in Dallas. Leslie married Ivo, a Croatian man, and now lives in Zagreb, Croatia. Her parents are good people. I visited them on my motorcycle trip in 1996, and I would love to see them again.

I did not know if Leslie's parents, Dick and Jan, would be home. Leslie had emailed me that they would be visiting Croatia in late June, and I did not know when they were coming back to the U.S. I imagined they might have stayed over through the Fourth of July weekend. When I reached Shawnee, I got off I-40 and rode into town. I recognized parts of it, but it looked to me like there were some changes since the last time I was there, in 1996. New businesses, new restaurants. Shawnee appeared to be growing and becoming more modernized. In some ways I suppose this is a good thing, but I always enjoyed the funky old Okie atmosphere in Shawnee back in the early 90s when I went there with Leslie.

After wandering just briefly this time, I found Leslie's parents' house on Market Street. I parked the bike in front and walked up. Her father's pickup truck was in the driveway, but her mom's car was gone. The house was closed up tight. I rang the bell, but nobody answered. There were two dogs in the fenced yard. I recognized Dolly, a Dalmatian (the dog kind, not the Croatian kind), from pictures. Dolly postdates my last visit. There was another little lap dog that I didn't recognize. They were good watchdogs, barking at me incessantly. I stayed around for 10 minutes or so and took some pictures. With nobody home and no recent activity in evidence, I assumed Dick and Jan must still be in Croatia and one of the neighbors must be taking care of the dogs. I got back on the bike and rode on, back to Interstate 40, and blazed again westward.

I made it across Oklahoma into the Texas panhandle and stopped in Amarillo for the night. In Amarillo I rode around looking for a decent but reasonably priced motel. Two or three that looked good had no vacancies. The desk clerks told me there was a Jehovah's Witness convention going on in town that weekend. They had all the cheap hotel rooms. Finally, I found this place, the Camelot Suites, that was comfortable and had rooms available for $90 -- about twice the going rate at the other places. Their marketing strategy appeared to be sound. When all the inexpensive places fill up, they sell their rooms for higher prices. Probably the most profitable motel in town -- and no Jehovah's Witnesses.

After finding dinner, I came back to the motel and dialed up to check emails. There was an email from Leslie in Croatia asking if I was going to stop and visit her "Okies" in Shawnee. I emailed back that I had stopped, but there was nobody home, enclosing pictures of the house and the dogs. It transpired over the next two days that Leslie's parents had returned from Croatia the week before, were at home on the 5th, and had apparently stepped out for only a short while, coincidentally exactly when I had come by the house. Incredible coincidence. I really missed seeing them, but by the time we figure this all out I was hundreds of miles away and under time pressure to get back to California to catch up with some business commitments. I hope I can plan another trip soon that will take me back through Oklahoma so I can visit Dick and Jan. I'll have to deviate from my normal mode of operation and plan ahead next time so they know I'm coming.