siga siga

Day 20

Sat 14th July Texas/ New Mexico

We slept in an interesting area where the canyons of the Canadian River form inlets in the new lake which bring bring river plants and wildlife as an oasis in the prairie. Cacti and soft plants. Roadrunners here and ants and light, landscape and scent with a strong feeling of Aegina.

Looking for a Walmart to change the oil but they are few out here. Reluctant to do it ourselves. Drove to Texline on the border of Texas and New Mexico. Long roads with few stopping places except where the occasional farm road crosses the one railroad track.

Unbroken high plains with few cows until we pass a feeding farm where hundreds of cattle stand pressed together in their own dung and eat. Resolve not to eat that meat again.

Into New Mexico plains give way to occasional high mountains and one volcano then we can see the Rockies. Getting high enough now to constrict Lisa’s breathing and give her a headache.

Climb at 20 mph in lowest gear into astonishing vistas at Raton Pass which straddles the New Mexico/ Colorado border and at the very top get marshalled into an RV park with a horde of others, each with an amazing view. Lisa ill with altitude sickness. I walked across the border into Colorado and saw an amazingly large view the other way. Soft hues but highly detailed in close-up. Bear and mountain lion country outside so extra garbage care. Wifi so take four hours to set up this all up on the internet. Pictures take forever to upload.

We travelled from Bumf Texas Lake Meredith to Raton New Mexico. New Mexico gorgeous. Stepfording through 212 miles - can see what Georgia O liked. About 100 miles north of Taos - hard to see and feel very weird. Suppose its the height - over 7500 feet - keep smiling maybe he sees double too.

Day 19

Fri 13th July Oklahoma / Texas

Very wet night but no rain gets in. Woken by intent old guy riding lawnmower around us - clear weather - giant mosquitos -bad toilets. Leave for Lake Meredith - aromatic desert plants - stop for ground coffee in Woodward.

Unbelievably for a small town they had an internet coffee shop with expresso beans. Spoke to a Walmart night manager while awaiting my cheese toastie. Oil boom in town from rising gas prices explains all the donkeys. House prices fluctuate. Now high again but usually followed by a bust. He’s a church youth leader - the town seems seriously Christian.

Buy a hat at a cowboy store. Got lost a little on small roads without George’s help but drive into Texas to developing open plains with sage and cattle and towns marked by cooperative silos in the distance. Buying very expensive fuel saw first real cowboy: boots, spurs, chaps, jeans, waistcoat, check shirt and hat. Probably had a bootlace tie under his bandana. ‘is it common to see people dressed like that?” ” Oh yes - if they’re working cattle.”

Drive got too long again and becomes fractious when we discover the lake campgrounds have no services. We aren’t short on water but its old and may be rank so we sluice and replenish at a basic but free city-provided rv park which has water but no toilets and head to the lake for our first night without electricity or security. After checking out all the campgrounds to find a safe spot away from others, we finally find a good level spot, high on the cliff above the lake and gaze at the sunset while hash browns cook in the oven.

Boiling horrible Springs has no redeeming features and Starbucks Coffee sucks. Grass mowing at 8 am on a lawn tractor - realised we were right at the dumpster too. Found coffee shop in Woodward to replace expresso thank god. Bought Solvi a genuine cowboy hat and Lee a funny PETA shirt. Long straight roads bleeding into the horizon. The sky goes on forever. Enormous fluffy clouds. Wheat silos and oil pumps. There’s a boom. This time chosen park had no hook-ups. Stopped at a park which did to get get water and stay but decided we didn’t like it and went on to original choice. Final straw a request to just hold it together a little longer after 4th change of site that he had chosen and I had said was fine.

Day 18

Thurs 12th July Oklahoma
Dark skies - storm brewing as we left. Watched a mass (funeral?) of raptor type birds hanging out over Tenkiller dam until lightning sent us on past Hughart Cemetery, a bad sign.

Weather improved by Tulsa but we gave up looking for Oral Roberts after Stupid took us into the projects again. We drove hard today and covered nearly 300 miles which is a feat for this old bus. We more or less barreled across Oklahoma from east of Tulsa to Boiling Springs state park near Woodward on the Texas border.

Woods have been giving way to more open cow and bull country with many farms having what appear to be small oil pumping donkeys in the fields. Sounds an ideal solution to the coming energy crisis to be able to pump milk and petrol. Last 50 miles have become more plains country with occasional mesas. We saw our first roadrunner before pulling in here. Seemed a good sign. Tomorrow Texas - Lake Meredith, and after that its up in the New Mexico ranges en route to Bryce and Zion. Should get more interesting from here on.

Beautiful large blue heron(?) in full flight, showing the most gorgeous plumage. Just a little further on large numbers long leggedy and beaked pure white egrets(?). Long, long day since we argued in Tulsa and both sulked in silence for far too long. Gloss mountain turned out to have no camping nor was it very glossy. More tinselly - a red/green mesa-ish thing with bits of quartz all over.

Had to drive another 50 odd miles to boiling Springs. Terrible backache and headache and lots of mossies here. Fed up - I hurt. 9 hours on the road 298 miles.

Day 17

Wed 11th July Eastern Oklahoma

Nobody else here now. Decided we are on to a good thing so stay another day. We leave a spoor and drive up the road to check out Tahlequah where the Cherokee trail of tears ended. Now it is their government centre and not much sets it apart from any other american small town apart from its university.

Speak to some laconic older men sheltering from the noon heat up by the city hall gardens where the history of the modern cherokee is engraved in stone on the path. They say there hasnt been weather like this in their memory. ie its so wet there are floods everywhere and its so dry that the west is on fire and the swamps are burning down in Florida. Well we’re in the middle now so I can say with a little authority that the right hand side is not that apocalyptic.

Back to camp for a meal cooked by Hugh and a beautiful sunset and fire. Tomorrow we head north west. We’ve been 24 hrs from Tulsa for 3 days now so we are going there and hopefully we’ll see Oral Robert’s University on the way through.

This area is where they marched the Cherokee - in Tahlequah, about 25 miles north, the Trail of Tears ended and the new Cherokee nation was established. Sequoyah invented the Cherokee alphabet here. We drove up a pleasant road along the lake to Tahlequah, a strange mix of brokendown poorside malls and hokey oldtown. Further in still and we found jokey eateries and shops - Sam and Ella’s Chicken, Eclectic Chair etc then discovered it was also a university town. Hugh’s tooth still bothering him - needs regular painkillers. 3rd day of this approach. Very large winged bumbling insects doing kamekaze crotch dives into the moving cab. One each so far but I have to admit Hugh’s was much bigger.

Day 16

Tues 10th July Eastern Oklahoma
Speak to snowbird in giant A class RV about 12 feet high with a spare car. Comes from 50 miles away. They dumped their droppings and left, wife driving behind in the car, followed shortly by the only other campers in this area. On our own on a great site far away from everybody so we took our kit off and decided to stay a while and take stock.

Lazed, wrote in this blog, sorted out the insurance, strolled and generally relaxed thoroughly in rain and shine. Did very little today. Lawns, meadows, wild flowers, butterflies, birds. Lovely sunset. May have glimpsed a bald eagle swooping past our camp. Too quick to tell but it was huge.

Some kids joyride a truck round the campsite late so I get a little uneasy about being alone up here and sleep with my aluminium pole handy. I forgot the ninja stick but this can give a very hard but probably not fatal crack.

Decided to stay on as we are now alone. More rain in sheets interspersed with glorious naked sunbathing rays. Hugh played with gong, I read. What luxury. Wonderful. Plenty of hot water. Watched sunset and had a good hardwod fire. Hugh writing his blog by the postprandial light while I make us an expresso. First time in ages i’ve seen Hugh playful and boyish for an entire day. Thought the large bird of prey we saw might have been an eagle but it could have been a red shouldered hawk - we just dont know. Need another bird book.

Day 15

Mon 9th July Wetern Arkansa / Eastern Oklahoma
Decided to truck on and try for a long haul to one of the State parks on the OK/AR border. Hit out for Tenkiller lake in Oklahoma but stopped immediately at the Petit Jean waterfall where Lisa hunted down the cheque/check book I’d hidden in my bag, cancelling then uncancelling all the checks/cheques while I took pictures of the falls and the beautiful stonework walkways constructed by depression workers.

Toothache niggling. On the road again in high winds and Cornish landscapes. Oddly spelt signs (Common’ In, Kuntry Market) and rustic charm. Multi-car gardens mown around treasured wrecks. More armadillo roadkill - rain continues. Finally locate chav caps in 2nd Walmart of the day (this is where Sam started up - its the only shop around with real food) so now I have 3 spares.

Cross the border at Fort Smith, a city with many ugly faces and drive into Oklahoma which quickly settles into rural pursuits and cow/horse farms. It seems people are very poor or very rich.  Got to the park by evening, picked out a pleasingly secluded but open spot high on a hill overlooking the lake and settled down for a splendid thunderstorm.  Strike close by had Lisa scolding God. Brilliant skywide horizontal forks throughout the night. Suprisingly good signal. Caught up with the internet stuff. Take painkillers for tooth.

Dumped and sightseeing by 9.30 til i discovered lost checkbook. long involved search and 3 phonecalls to bank. Checkbook fiasco somewhat delayed day but it was probably the nicest weather and Hugh got great pics of falls while i found my self respect where hugh had dropped it in his bag and forgotten it. Rain and storms off and on all day with lightning ever closer. I feel more like God’s finger puppet every day. Tenkiller Lake state Park looks dull at the offset but we climbed up to the top RV site and found a wonderful spot. We are the highest and only overlooked on one side. Panoramic lightning bolts for a nightlight lulled us both to sleep with little problem. The Petit Jean flyswat works well. We decided that she must have had meningitis when she died and doesnt want anyone else to get it. Can text and internet at will, albeit at slower than snails pace, but voice contact comes and goes with the rain.

Must be major storms all round. Hugh had a nice chat with a computer called Jordan regarding the camera focus but nothing seems to have been resolved. He she it wanted it taken to Texas. We are both agreed that state parks rule and dont see the need to go to Rv parks apart from laundry facilities which have never been free so its just as easy to find a laundrette, and who needs to shit on board when the bathhouses are usually clean with hot running water.

Day 14

Sun 8th July Arkansas
Lisa meets some Californians who give us new hope - living alternately on a small boat and a Steinbeck truck without killing eachother. Stupid takes us past the great glass Ramesses (??) pyramid over the Mississippi into Arkansas and straight into a very dour trailer park where we think the truck lost a chav hub bouncing over a tourist trap.

Trucked on through Arkansas to eat some miles up on route 64, pretty much the only through route aside from the highways. Miles of veg - genetically modified soya in numbered swathes and lush green rice paddies. Big granaries by the rail lines. Truck salesparks give way to arrays of farm equipment and John Deere showrooms.

Try to stop at Bald Knob for a sandwich but found a pleasant swamp instead. Made headway and pointed to Petit Jean state park.  Halfway up it we realised it was a mountain. Back to grinding the gears and pulling over for the traffic queue behind. We really are the slowest thing on the road.

At the top lovely views of the Arkansas river and weird insect life. A good site at the state park. Made a nice little fire with the wood we had carted for days and watched it smoke in the rain from inside the truck as the sun went down. We turn in early these days. Lisa rises before dawn - me a little later.

Quite a long drive today, about 200 miles, but we got on ok. Lost one of the wheel hubs, probably in the trailer park Stupid took us to. Saw lots of wildlife roadkill. All along the Arkansas plains we saw rice paddies irrigated into small strips and very green. Seems the farms along the way do soy or rice and many working on Sunday in an obviously religious area. Billboards exhort one to worship and more God graffitti - “You and me need to Talk, God”. Petit Jean’s grave a sad and magical spot with a great feeling. They say she’s still there after more than 300 years. Very hot during the day and monsoons every afternoon for the last 4 days.

Day 13

Sat 7th July Memphis Tennessee/Arkansas/Mississippi border

Rose early for a 9am pontoon boat ride on the lake. A gentle trip looking at heron and kites. Sunbathing and relaxing swim at the open air olympic size pool where little frogs come to die and butterflies suck your toes.

Off to Memphis to look for Elvis. George took us through the seedy side of town and deposited us at a dodgy intersection by the Elvis Presley Boulevard Laundry.

We drove down past miles of semi dereliction before Graceland suddenly appeared on the right, with Lisa Marie’s Boeing 707 in the yard. and a queue of the faithful. We pulled up by the multiply graffittied wall on the other side of the road to get a better look and realised that the actual house was behind that wall so we added our names and climbed up our ladder to take some pictures of the famous gaff and Elvis driving a bus. Quite a small house from what I could see.

George took us home the same colourful route just in time for the afternoon monsoon thunderstorm. Found a dodgy laundrette next to a dodgy Fillipino/USA restaurant with glum meshbacks blankly watching Emeril on the food channel. Learned that just because your wife is Fillipino doesnt mean she can cook.

Disappointing signal. Huge row and another visit to Walmart. Tooth annoying.

Into Memphis from the wrong end of Elvis Presley Boulevard. So grungy and awful that hugh just had to return the same way. Graceland sad and overblown. The actual house behind graffittied walls and surrounded by trees. Lisa Marie, the jet, sits over the road in the Graceland centre and is defiled by gawpers every minute. We went on a pontoon boat trip in the park, a drowned valley holding only rainwater and then tried out their huge pool. Tiny frogs everywhere. In pool dead. Leaping under tyres all along road - impossible to avoid.

Day 12

Fri 6th July Western Tennessee
Left camp early - good ole boys finally acknowledge us with a wave goodbye. Trucking down route 64, the old route to Memphis through pretty deciduous countryside past frog supper restaurants.

George found his way to the Meeman Sherman camp site despite our hesitant disbelief. We found a host of empty sites and chose a perfect one - dead level for the first time. Set up the virtual tent and a dead branch fell close by - firewood delivery! Then thunder and a thorough downpour. We left the site to put my feet in the big, muddy Mississippi. Long long barges puttering down the river.

Mosquitos cluster and suck on the legs but dont itch like a tiger mossie back in Maryland. Plenty of them about after the rain. Saw our first bayou - or swamp anyway, with trees growing out of the water. Illiterate graffiti artist in the bog “Fukin rednecks - Jamacia” next to a badly drawn flag. Crawfish towers down by the lake.

Moved a big tree out of our path. Saw disc golf - puzzled over it and then saw a great variety of frisbee like discs in a country store and bought a #1 Driver.

Day 11

Thurs 5th July Mid Tennessee
Good fried twinky dump and a shave. Sat in the virtual tent writing up these notes. Somehow had no time to keep a record except in my head. Good to get it down before it gets jumbled together. Some people have asked for a journal so I must get it online and start a routine. Rednecks with hangovers packing up around us, Lisa making curry, the ultimate cooker test.

Trying not to rock the boat too much we are startled by the curry pan thinking its a knock on the door. Fresh watermelon. Idyllic lunch near another primitive park around the lake - no hookups to electricity or water. We will get to that soon enough. Decide private RV parks have nothing to offer we need and that state parks are cheaper and closer to natural.

Keep seeing faces in everything. Went back to the now empty lakeside swimming area and dared a dip keeping an eye on the truck holding all our valuables (minus the electronics I lugged to the waters edge). Lisa drove for the first time. Its a mental block because the truck is so big and clumsy but really its just a slow strong car with a crappy lock. Met Aaron the old guy who missed his chance to work his own cotton field in Texas in the 60’s because his wife wouldnt go.

Here with his cowboy grand and great grand children and boats and trucks. They call him PopPop and her MeeMaw and completely ignore me. Rain falls. Piece of tooth worked its way out of my newly root canalled gum. Pain subsided to a numb ache. Plotting a course for Memphis tomorrow come what may.