Saturday, September 12
Out
the door about 11 a.m. First stop, Waffle
House, then it’s on the road to Oklahoma!
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We were near US 40, which would have been the easy, fast (3 ¼ hours) route to the Oklahoma City East KOA. But fast has never been our style, except on Iron Butt rides, so we opted for a less direct route out of Arkansas, which took us to Hwy 9 in Oklahoma. That route was projected to be about 250 miles with an estimated time of 5 ¼ hours. We turned it into about 7 hours on the road. The last ½ hour was killer because of the sun….it was at a level where it makes you painfully aware that your windshield is in need of a good washing. And we were in the land of stop signs…Kim’s brake lights were my only visual that we were coming up on one. When we finally arrived at the campground, everything about me was whining and ready to be off that bike.
We were near US 40, which would have been the easy, fast (3 ¼ hours) route to the Oklahoma City East KOA. But fast has never been our style, except on Iron Butt rides, so we opted for a less direct route out of Arkansas, which took us to Hwy 9 in Oklahoma. That route was projected to be about 250 miles with an estimated time of 5 ¼ hours. We turned it into about 7 hours on the road. The last ½ hour was killer because of the sun….it was at a level where it makes you painfully aware that your windshield is in need of a good washing. And we were in the land of stop signs…Kim’s brake lights were my only visual that we were coming up on one. When we finally arrived at the campground, everything about me was whining and ready to be off that bike.
We crossed the Arkansas River twice today,
once in Arkansas and again in Oklahoma…both crossing points were wide. I got curious about its starting point, how
long it was, etc…then I got to wondering why the big water dividing line is the
Mississippi and not the Arkansas, which is wider. Well, Google tells me that the Arkansas River
is a major tributary of the Mississippi River, that it runs through several
southwestern states and a bunch of other stuff that I really didn’t understand.
Today, most of the towns we rode had
populations under 500….and it probably says something about the health of a
town when the biggest, brightest, newest looking, and most obviously open store
is the Family Dollar.
Subiaco, AR, must be a farming community. There was a field next to the football field,
where cows were resting in the shade of the bleachers.
Our route today skirted us around but close to Fort Smith, AR….in fact, I think we went through its industrial area. But that also sort of slid us through the back door into Oklahoma, meaning we were in Arkansas and suddenly we were seeing Oklahoma highway signs. That’s how we realized we’d crossed the state line. People who live around there probably just know where Arkansas ends and Oklahoma begins….it’s us tourists that want the big ‘Welcome to….’ sign. So I didn’t get a state sign picture, but I have a vest patch…and I colored in a state. One down and 3 to go!
It doesn’t make sense to me that a left lane ends and traffic must merge into the right lane. Seems the inside (left) lane should be the one to just continue on and the outside lane (right lane) should be the one that merges. Right lane merging is a natural tapering down of the road….left lane merging is awkward and unnatural.
At one point this afternoon, Kim said we
should stop and see something. Not far
down the road, there was a ‘Historical
Marker Ahead’ sign at the edge of a little community. We get maybe ¾ mile down the road, there was
another sign coming from the opposite direction…Kim stops and asks if I saw the
marker. No, I hadn’t, but we figured it
had to be between the signs. Do a
U-turn, stop at a gas station and see nothing, then drive as far back as the other
sign. Do another U-turn and slowly make
another pass….and I see it just as we’re passing it. Get Kim stopped, tell him I found the
marker…then do another U-turn and go back to read the markers, which as it
turns out are really of no interest to us, except that we managed to find
them. And yes, two loud bikes, riding
slowly through town, making 3 U-turns in a matter of 5 minutes, attracted
attention. A couple on a bike pulled up
alongside us wanting to know if everything was okay. We explained about wanting to find the
historical markers, then chatted with them for a bit before continuing on our
merry way. J And I wonder why we can’t get anywhere fast….
Kim has Phil talking in his ear for
directions and sometimes he makes a quick turn or lane change according to what
he’s being told. If I’m too close, it’s
hard for me to react quickly. Happened a
couple of times today, so I started hanging back just a bit in order to give
myself time to make the same adjustment.
What that meant instead was that the yellow light that Kim sailed
through was red by the time I went through.
I will pay any and all fines that show up in my mailbox.
The Oklahoma City East KOA has, hands down,
the best bathroom/shower set up I have ever seen in a campground. There are 8 little rooms and each room has a
toilet, sink and shower. They call it a
bath house…I call it a swell idea.
Stopped
for a snack break in Eufaula, OK, at the town's Inspiration Garden....an area where various individuals or businesses have planted flower gardens complete with lawn decorations, etc. It seems that many of these are memorial gardens. It was a stop that turned into a geocaching opportunity. We didn’t find the cache, which makes me want to
try again, but can’t really foresee us being in Eufaula again anytime soon. Just gonna hafta accept defeat on that one. Nice break all the same.
I’m not
sure what Kim notices as we travel along the open road, but I know he didn’t notice
the herd of longhorn cattle laying in a field…because if he did, I know he would
have stopped. J
Seems we brought some Arkansas dirt with us on the bottom tent tarp and some spiders were wrapped up in the tent. I assume they scattered when released. Time to make a new home, all you little Charlottes.
Seems we brought some Arkansas dirt with us on the bottom tent tarp and some spiders were wrapped up in the tent. I assume they scattered when released. Time to make a new home, all you little Charlottes.
Observations from the road:
*Pick-up trucks seem to be the
preferred method of transportation.
*Some country roads can cause
the wobbles.
Today's mileage: 250 Total mileage: 1700 miles
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