Wrong Way in a Buffalo Herd
I was stationed at Fort Sill, OK in October 1980, near Lawton. On a local Saturday club ride, I was alone out front on a packed dirt road in the Wichita Wildlife Refuge adjoining Fort Sill, which was open back then to cyclists on occasion. Passing by long-horn steer and tall grass filled with rattlers and tarantulas, I thought nothing at first of the cloud of dust ahead on the road -- must be a Park ranger or maintenance vehicle. A minute later I realized it was an oncoming small herd of buffalo trotting on the road!! I turned around, but was now headed into the wind and uphill as I heard and felt the stamping of hooves. The herd of about 12 buffalo split into two lines and pounded past me with about a foot to spare on either side -- big mamas and papas up front glaring at me, and little ones struggling to keep up. They stank to high heaven, but moved on and then off into a field. About three minutes later the cycling group caught up and couldn't understand at first why I was standing in the road by my bike with heart pounding faster than it ever did in a race or parachute jump! The Army had a sense of humor, I guess, about sending me to the only installations in America with free-roaming buffalo -- Fort Greely, Alaska in 1976; Fort Sill/Wichita, Oklahoma in 1980; and then on to Fort Riley, Kansas. Needless to say, I did not ride again anywhere near where the Kansas buffalo grazed. Mike Simone, COL (Ret.) U.S. Army (and still riding, but only near squirrels, birds, small dogs . . .)