RV Fun Trips

A Trip to the Southwest and the Plains
December 2007
Return to California — Page 1

Arkansas to Oklahoma
This day we began our return to California. A more direct route would be used instead of the wondering path we took from California to Wichita. The day began bright and sunny which made for a nice drive back through the southern Ozarks.

For a while the scene looked familiar as our return route retraced the path through western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma that we took on our way to Little Rock. As the scenery passed by I thought that I want to return to the Ozarks in the spring sometime so we can see the trees with new green foliage.

It didn't take long for the waters of Lake Dardanelle to show up on the right side of the highway, and then on both sides for a short time before the water was only on the left side of our motorhome. Then the column of steam from the nuclear power plant began to rise over the horizon and slip by us on the left.

Once again we see the steam from a nuclear power plant cooling tower

I'm guessing that the design of roadside billboards is the result of some kind of law that limits the spacing between such advertising objects. Again, I'm guessing that to get the maximum use of a billboard space, two billboards are stacked one over the other — each advertising a different product — throughout the part of Arkansas that we visited. Some advertisers chose to take up the space of both billboards to get a larger ad space.

We saw a lot of double high billboards

It wasn't very long until we saw a Welcome to Oklahoma sign and directions to a rest area that doubles as a tourist information center. I felt a lunch stop coming on so I pulled into a spot at the rest area. I found the picnic-table shelters to be interesting — they were a stylized tee-pee design.

While Kay fixed lunch for us I went to check out the information center. It turned out to be well stocked with ... well ... information. There are several racks of pamphlets and brochures that appear to be arranged by subject. For example: one rack contained information on accommodations — hotels, B and B's, — while another rack was full of restaurant info.

An interesting rest area where we stopped for lunch

After lunch we were back on the road where we were seeing familiar sights. Soon the highway was passing Lake Eufaula as water appeared on both sides of our motorhome. We also passed more cotton fields with travel-trailer sized bails of cotton sitting on the sides of the fields.

Lake Eufaula appears on both sides of the highway

The sun was getting low in the western sky as we could see Oklahoma City in the distance. Kay was trying to read, but the sun visor didn't come down low enough to block the sunshine from her eyes. She came up with a solution by putting on one of my hats which allowed her to pull the brim down to block sun while she could still see her book.

Kay wearing my hat to shade her eyes while reading

Ahead of us I saw a large aircraft descending from the north on a path to the south. With the sun so low, what we saw was a silhouette of the airplane, however, it was clear that the plane was an early warning type. The plane kept getting lower and lower as it approached the Interstate ahead of us. As the aircraft went over the highway it looked as if it might land on a vehicle. That must have been interesting to people in vehicles under the landing path. It was only a few minutes until we were passing by Tinker Air Force Base where there was a runway that was oriented north and south which is a right angle to the east-west path of the Interstate next to the base.

Type of plane seen descending low over the highway just before landing
— Photo from U.S. Air Force website —

Aerial view of Tinker Air Force Base — Photo from Mapquest.com

This was about where we hit a particularly bad section of highway. The roadway was very bumpy and it lasted long enough that I was beginning to wonder just how much longer it would last. The roads around Oklahoma City have been very bad on previous visits. So bad that several times I've found routes that would take me around the city. There were some improvements in the highway once we were on the west side of the city.

Our planned destination for the night was an El Reno campground which turned out to be closed for the season. Upon learning that the RV park was closed I continued on to the Elk City/Clinton KOA where we've stayed in the past. This meant that we would get to see a very nice sunset on the way to the RV park.

We usually see nice sunsets like this when traveling in this part of the country

On previous visits I liked the family who ran this particular KOA. However, I would learn that the family has moved on after nine years of running the campground. The good news is that the couple that now own and operate the KOA are every bit as nice as the previous owners. The new owners were attentive and very helpful.

It was good to get off the road and it was nice to be in a familiar location. Being Monday night, we watched the football game and I surfed the Web using the campgrounds Wi-Fi internet connection which was included as part of the nightly camping fee.