From: John Freeman [johnfree@pacbell.net]

Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 11:06 PM

Subject: The Prairie

 

 

Monday Oct 30� Clayton AK - Sulphur - Altus OK

 

It rained like crazy off and on all last night, and it's still raining as I load the truck in the morning.� There were a couple of truckers at the Country K talking about snow and rain in Albuquerque, which was not encouraging.� I kind of resign myself to an un-fun, damp day, but it turned out OK.

 

Once I'm driving, the rain starts slacking off almost immediately -- wahoo!� I'm taking these little roads across the southern part of the state.� I'm having the same navigation problem I had back in Tennessee, namely that most of the mountains in the US run north-south, so most north-south roads are pretty straight, but most east-west roads seem to never go straight for very long before they have to zig up or down to find the next pass.� So my road, SR 7, is good but not fast, and has a right angle turn every 30 miles or so.� It's mighty pretty country, though...

 

After the clouds moved out, it got really hot and humid.

 

Late morning I came to Sulphur OK which is the gateway to the Chickasaw National Recreation Area.� This place is loaded with springs.� There are clear water springs and stinky mineral springs both in abundance.� They are all cold water springs -- I associate the heavy sulphur smell with hot springs, but these weren't hot!� This place was also built by the WPA back in the 30's, so it has an aura of faded elegance about it.�

 

Oklahoma appears to be the road kill capital of the country on this day.� Every couple of minutes would be a squished coon, possum, or armadillo on the road.� The countryside is mostly forest, and maybe the rain somehow dulls the poor critters' sense of the danger, but whatever the cause, it is a smorgasbord of delight for the local crows - yeech.

 

More driving brings me to Lawton OK, one of those Sooner land rush towns -- its population went from 0 to 10,000 over one night they say...� My only business with Lawton is to go to the local AAA and pick up an Arizona-New Mexico tour book to round out my collection, and after that I head for the hills till dark.�

 

These particular hills are the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, which turns out to be yet another rockingly cool place!�� Its claim to fame is as the place where your federal government brought the bison back for the brink of extinction.� It's a gorgeous place, big round reddish beige rocks, bison all over the place, including standing right in the road looking at you!� They also maintain herds of Roosevelt elks and gen-u-ine Texas longhorns.� I had a grand time watching this big bull elk munching grass for a while through the binocs.� His big rack of antlers appeared to kind of wave and undulate as his head bobbed up and down.� Longhorns are pretty impressive beasts also.� Even though they are just cows, they are really studly looking cows.

 

I drove to the next cheap motel in Altus OK in the last remnants of sunset.

 

 

Tuesday Oct 31� Altus OK - Amarillo TX - Albuquerque NM

 

The forecast on the Weather Channel this morning is kind of scary.� It is very cold and snowing in New Mexico (my next destination), and there's a severe storm watch for the area I'm in now (western Okla. and the Texas panhandle, home of the sudden tornado) for the afternoon.� Outside it's windy and threatening as I load the truck.� uh oh....

 

On the way through the middle of Altus I see a friendly looking Mexican restaurant, so I have my first chorizo con huevos of the trip (a long time between chorizos for me :)� It was cheap and good and there was a cool mural on the wall.� It was a standard Mexican restaurant landscape, except it was done with spray cans by some kid with tagger sensibilities.� I took a couple of pix that I hope show it well.

 

drive, rain, change to warm clothes 'cuz it's cloudy and cold, pee, drive, pee, drive, sun comes out - change to summer clothes 'cuz it's hella humid, pee, drive, get gas, freeze and change back to warm clothes, drive, get New Mexico tourist info, pee, drive, stop for sunset 'cuz the glare is killing me, pee, drive.�� More than you really wanted to know???

 

No matter where you cross the US, you eventually have to deal with Kansas, which is to say you'll have to put in a day or so of driving through featureless nothing in the middle of the country (aka the Great Prairie), and today is my day.� There were a couple of possibly interesting places along the 450-ish miles, but I'm still kind of freaked about the weather forecast.� It would be hard to relax with a severe storm coming my way.

 

Most of the day I am on I-40.� I've probably been within a hundred miles of I-40 for most of the whole return trip from North Carolina.� I flirted with it in Memphis TN, and now I am joining it again outside Amarillo to get to New Mexico.� According to the map there really are no other good choices for getting from here to there.

 

The bad weather and I rushed past each other going opposite directions pretty quickly and with no major problems.�� The weather made for some fine clouds and a super fine desert sunset that I had to drive right into.� Immediately after the sun went down while the colors were still strong was pretty cool.� I enjoyed the reflection of the lavendar clouds on the molded hood of my white truck as best I could going 70 mph on a crowded interstate.

 

I find out later that the temperature on today's drive dropped from the 70's to the 30's.� I found a place in Albequerque and holed up for the night.

 

In my plans, I was going to be doing a lot of camping in the area I'm heading into, but lows of 15-20 degrees at night??� I am rethinking this concept...