Raiders of the Lost Ozark
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2006
1
13
17
Trip End
Sep 21, 2006
Muskogee, Oklahoma
Monday, September 18, 2006
Sorry, maybe that was a little too much information. Back to the road trip...
The hotel we stayed at last night was not the cleanest place we've stayed. (And keep in mind that we've been camping!) When I turned on the water to take a shower it came out kind of brownish at first. Gross! But one good thing about that place was their continental breakfast. They had all kinds of stuff, toast, bagels, muffins, cereal, oatmeal, apples, bananas... it was really good.
Our only real plan for today was to drive through Arkansas and into Oklahoma staying on secondary roads as much as possible, and to drive through the Ozark National Forest. As soon as we got off the highway we were both so happy that we had decided to do that. You can just see so much more when you're on those little backroads. We both noticed that pretty much everywhere we stopped, the people were SO friendly! I have to admit that sometimes I didn't catch EVERYTHING that people were saying, but they were saying it with a smile, so I'm assuming they were being friendly...I hope so anyway!
We were in the Ozark National Forest for about 2 hours and it was raining almost the entire time. Not just raining, but POURING! It was still a really nice drive, we got to see lots of little towns along the way and some areas where the leaves were starting to change colors. I was surprised when I noticed that it kind reminded me of the area in southern Oregon where I grew up.
We're in Muskogee, Oklahoma now and it's STILL raining! We decided to stay in a hotel again tonight- we're really hoping that we're not going to have to deal with rain anymore on this trip so we can get back to camping. We're on to Route 66 tomorrow!!
Day #17 Mileage: 445.8
Total Mileage: 4642.1
Allison
Ok, one more hotel night! Tonight we're staying in a much nicer and cheaper place, due mostly to the fact that we don't want to set up the tent in the rain. Actually, the weather report said there was an 80% chance of thunderstorms tonight. NO! We wimped out again and decided to sleep indoors.
But about the day...I too am so sore I can't even believe it. I think I may have killed a couple toes. We didn't get very good sleep. It was HOT, humid, and Allison had discovered mouse (?) droppings in the room right before we went to bed. I thought how much I'd rather be camping, if mice were going to be involved. I mean, I can handle mice outdoors where they're supposed to be. Didn't see any mice, but still.... This did not bode well for Arkansas!
We got on the road, just intending to head west. We both agreed that the Ozark NF was the place to go in Arkansas (not into visiting Bill Clinton's hometown), so we headed that way. It was pretty interesting traveling on backroads thru the state. By interesting, I mean weird. There were churches every mile or so, and not just regular churches. They all had names like New Holiness or some other new age thing. Also, it seemed like there were no actual people walking around in the streets. Lots of cars parked in the church parking lots, but few humans out and about. The ones we did talk to, at the gas station and little country store, were super nice, however. Just a weird state.
We drove a windy road thru the Ozark NF. It was great, really beautiful. The fall colors are just starting to appear here. We got a couple pictures right before it started raining. Then it just poured the rest of the trip, which was nice too. We saw a few live deer, and about 50 roadkilled armadillos.
Since it was pouring rain, and even started to look like tornado weather once we got into Oklahoma, we agreed to do the hotel thing again. I am excited to be in Oklahoma. There's alot of Native American cultural stuff here, which we'll check out tomorrow if we have time. Allison treated me to soup and a salad for dinner!! What a sweetie.
Jenny
