Unfortunately I didn’t have an ugly sweater with me, so I couldn’t stick around and take part in the Christmas parade.
The Shattuck public library was pretty cozy! It was also nice to see they were encouraging proper COVID protection measures. Not the norm here in the middle of the country.
This is how you can tell the library building used to be a bank.
I didn’t have much luck browsing around, until a clerk offered to help and led me over to a very small section containing books related to local history and lore. There I found a self-published paperback, of only a couple dozen pages, that was almost exactly what I’d been hoping for: “The Other Germans: Settlements Of Germans From Russia In Oklahoma And Texas,” created last year by Philip C. Bryan, M.D.
I sat and read the book, making a bunch of notes, and photographing a few pages as well. One of the most exciting discoveries was an explanation for why my grandfather has changed his last name from “Birkle” to “Birkel” upon arriving on the west coast. He was trying to avoid mistreatment from other Americans who were suspicious of his Russian and/or German heritage during World War I.
I decided to take what I’d learned and combine it with the narrative my father wrote several years ago, to come up with as clear a picture of our Russian German past as we could manage. (That narrative follows in the next post.)
As I made my way back to the house, the sky looked ominous again. It would be another stormy night.
The sheer variety on display was astonishing. And these were not whimsical pieces or art either, they were all designs that some inventor had settled on for a particular purpose — and then probably patented as well.
In the center of the windmill forest was a house, constructed in the prairie style. It was not new construction, but an actual homesteader’s house, built in 1901 and then transported to the outdoor museum and reconditioned, with the interior furnished to match the original time period.
Best to stay outside and admire the place from a nice distance. If you want something else to do, you can read the bit of poetry posted at the corner of the park:
Each brick was stamped with the name of an early pioneer, and the date they arrived in the area. I wondered if I might find some relatives mentioned here.
A photo of the same grave marker that my father Ben took in 1981.
After locating the grave I rode out to find some food, and got caught in a little storm as I returned to the hotel. Just a tiny reminder of the elements my ancestors had to deal with.
That was enough sightseeing for the first day. Nick and I both had work to do, and with the bad weather closing in, we hunkered down at the hotel.
We rode due east all day, ranging away from each other for most of the afternoon, then bunching together as evening approached. We reached the edge of the Texas panhandle and entered Oklahoma around 6pm, stopping for snacks in a tiny town right on the border.
“Why did I put a cookie in this pouch? That was stupid.”
Me:
“What happened?”
Nick:
“I put a cookie in and it got all mashed up. What did you think happened?”
Me:
“I think … you need to clean that pouch really thoroughly.”
Night fell, and the clouds thickened into a blanket and erased the stars. The wind began to push at us from the right side of the road. To keep our legs moving we paired our headphones and listened to a selection of Braindead Monkeys tracks, finishing up with Pavel Zmiewsky’s interview.
We were treated to a little chunk of midwestern spookyness as the mist thickened below the clouds and the moon came out.
Finally we reached Highway 283 and turned south for the final 10 mile stretch to Shattuck. We knew it would be tough because the wind had been blowing from the south with increasing intensity all night, and now we had to pedal straight into it, up and down a series of big rolling hills.
Since I had all my gear packed low on the bike – and a lot more practice with this sort of thing – I slowed down to about 3 miles per hour and chugged along in a straight line. Nick charged ahead, motivated by what he called “loud music and anger.” With teenage-adjacent angst powering his legs he kicked his way back and forth across the road and over the hills and arrived in Shattuck fully an hour ahead of me. While I was listening to Act I of Hamlet (performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company) and gazing out across the misty hills, Nick was unpacking his bags in our motel room.
When I finally arrived in town, I paused to take a short video showing just how nasty the wind was.
I went straight past the motel to the one food source that was still open – a Sonic burger stand – and bought several hotdogs and hamburgers. Nick joined me a few minutes later and we obliterated the meal, stuffing things into our faces as fast as we could chew them.
And finally, we were in Shattuck! Having covered so much ground on bikes, it really did feel like a remote place. Combining it with “The Worst Hard Time” audiobook also made it feel a bit like a journey into the past. Time to look around…
Packing went quickly, and we were out and pedaling long before checkout time, like a couple of seasoned pros. On the way out of town we stopped for snacks and Nick got into a conversation with a local resident. When she learned that we were traveling to Shattuck to explore our Russian German ancestry, she declared that she too had Russian German roots, and we were probably all related in some way.
Nick reported: “Apparently there is a parts shop on Main Street in Shattuck, where a guy who is from a family that has been there forever lives and he might be able to tell us if he knows any Birkels.”
That’s pretty cool. We start a conversation with exactly one person in the area, and she turns out to be a semi-distant relative.
Today would be a day of riding through flatness, and checking out the growing things on both sides of the long, straight highway.
When I say the roads were straight, I am not kidding.
Did I mention that these roads are long and straight?
Did I mention that these roads are long and straight?
They also provided no cover. Which makes it a bit weird when you have to pee. But we were effectively in a private space — not because there were walls around us, but because we were just so far from anyone else that even if they were looking straight at us, they wouldn’t be able to tell what we were doing. Unless they had a telescope. But then they would be the weirdos, not us.
Every now and then we’d pass through a cluster of buildings, usually next to a massive grain elevator. Out here there’s a strange mixture of structures in constant industrial use with other things that are clearly abandoned.
Yes, that’s a boxcar integrated into the structure of a building.
Nick figured it out after just a few seconds of looking. It’s a pumping station, for a pipeline used by a nearby refinery, and it’s well protected because it can potentially spew hydrogen sulfide gas in lethal amounts. Don’t mess with it!!
First and only order of business: Procure lots of food. We threaded through town and located a sushi restaurant, the “Ninja Sushi Steakhouse.” Perfect! We hadn’t seen sushi in quite a while.
This is a coffee shop. It even has a drive-by window. Wouldn’t be out of place on a San Francisco street. Awesome.
On the far side of town we found a restaurant and got a meal while sitting outside. Four of the restaurant staff came outside to gaze at our bikes and ask questions, which we gamely answered. The other patrons were friendly but none of them were wearing masks.
On the way back to the hotel I stopped at a market for miscellaneous snacks while Nick rode ahead. Then I briefly explored the big Spearman tourist draw alongside the highway: The outdoor windmill museum. Pretty neat, actually.
Nick worked on college stuff for a while and did his own exploratory ride, then disappeared into Star Trek and memes for the evening.
At the hotel I ran a load of laundry, checked in at work again, and made travel plans for the next week. Hotel rooms, truck rentals, train tickets. Once we got to Shattuck we would be able to stay there for at least three days, recuperating and looking around, and then we’d ride one town over and grab a U-Haul the day after.
