Evening, Campers! It's Silver
Cliche' here again with you and tonight for the first time ever from the
Sooner State... O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A... Oklahoma! Specifically, we are
camped on the shores of Fort Supply Lake (another creation of the fine
folks at the US Army Corps of Engineers) in Fort Supply, Oklahoma.
Last night I was unable to share any
pictures. The cell service at Clayton Lake State Park, New Mexico was so
spotty that I was lucky to get the text update loaded for you. By this
morning I couldn't even get email to load... the dispatch I sent to you
was the last message out before the blackout. Phew!
So tonight we have more internet than we
know what to do with. It's fast or famine on the highways of rural
America. Let me share a few photo updates with you from the past couple
of days. First off, here's a shot from the top of Monarch Pass taken
yesterday at 11,300+ feet.
And a couple of street scenes from Salida, Colorado where we stopped yesterday for lunch and shopping.
Now, Mrs. C' hates it when I do this, but I'm thinking it helps tell our story. Here is another in the series I call "the Silver Cliche' Driving Experience" (she calls it the "Silver Cliche' about to get smacked by his wife" experience). This is somewhere in New Mexico or maybe the Oklahoma Panhandle... no, for sure New Mexico, I see bumps on the horizon.
And finally, a panorama from our campsite
at Clayton Lake.
Since the lake was created by humans by impounding a
creek or stream (there can't be any rivers in NE New Mexico, it's too
dry) it sits in what had been a valley cleared by flowing water. Hence
the poor cell signal since we were in a bowl below the floor of
otherwise flat plains. I'm thinking about inventing a cell phone booster
antenna that includes a helium balloon that would lift a wire out of
such depressions to allow contact with fellow humans.
So, overnight it got quite cool in NE
NM... around 50 I'd guess. We buttoned up the Cliche' and ran the
furnace to keep our Florida behinds at their natural temperature. The
morning was high thin overcast and it warmed slowly. We were uninspired
by the place and decided to head east!
Let me ask you to think about US maps
you've seen through your life. Oklahoma has one of the strangest shapes
of any state in the union. The Oklahoma Panhandle is that rectangular
protrusion heading west from the main mass of the state along its
northern boundary with Kansas. On most schoolbook maps it is so skinny
that whatever pastel the rest of Oklahoma is painted on a particular map
doesn't show in the panhandle because the width of the border lines is
sufficient to account for its entire north-south expanse. In reality, it
is 34 miles from north to south and 166 miles long. The Indians who
lived here had lacrosse fields that were taller than that. In the 2010
US census the entire population of the three counties that make up the
panhandle was 28,000. Historically, this piece of land was literally
leftover. As each surrounding state or territory (Kansas, New Mexico,
Texas and Colorado) set their boarders using natural features like
rivers or human conceptions like lines of latitude and longitude there
was a piece left on the cutting table. It sits between 37 and 37.5
degrees north latitude and 100 and 103 degrees west longitude. Evidently
the five states had a game of musical chairs. Oklahoma lost and the
leftover was stitched to its left edge. Now, Oklahoma looks like a torso
facing the world with its right arm extended directly out from the
shoulder. In an unfortunate metaphor, that creates an arm pit and that
is precisely where we are camped tonight, just one county to the east of
the pit itself.
Today's route worked out (with no
planning or intent on my part in picking campsites) to drive us right
down the middle of the Oklahoma panhandle without once touching Texas,
Colorado or Kansas. It felt like we made a trick shot on our route from
Utah to Florida. I had a thought of two boys practicing with their .22
rifle on a farm and one saying to the other "I bet I can shoot through
the two open windows of the tool shed and the tire swing and hit a pop
bottle on top of that fence post over there". That's basically our drive
today... right down the middle.
So, enough analogies. I'm thinking you
want to know what it's like here. I didn't take many pics the past few
days. I'll mostly have to describe what we saw and did. You know that
northeast New Mexico was pretty flat. It turns out we didn't know what
flat was. The rare rises and undulations that disturbed the terrain
yesterday afternoon gave up completely as we entered the panhandle of
Oklahoma. This is range country. There were cattle grazing everywhere on
range land a log the two lane state roads we drove. About every 10
miles there was a 5 degree turn to the left or right. Other than than I
could have let the dog on my lap drive while I napped. The first town we
went through was Boise City (they were reaching when they tacked "City"
onto the town's name). I can only imagine that if they had a radio
station there and if that radio station had a contest that gave away a
dee-lux ski vacation to... oh... Kansas... that the winner might say
upon receiving his prize "Well, Kansas certainly has the terrain for
skiing". It's flat enough in the western panhandle to make anyplace else look like ski country. And sparsely populated, too.
When we went through Boise City I had just shy of a half tank of gas.
Knowing what we had been through to get there I stopped and filled up since I had doubts we'd see another station before I hit "E".
There was a strange occurrence that
happened not once, but twice in this desolate land. Yesterday afternoon
in Mew Mexico and again today in Oklahoma on state roads in flat,
featureless land I saw debris in the road. Generally this means a hunk
of truck tire or an unsuccessful four legged pedestrian... something
like that. On two recent occasions we even saw rattlesnakes in the road. But
yesterday and today we saw two lengths of stout rope. I'm guessing each
was 3/4" or more diameter and 20' or so in length. What the heck? Mrs.
C' put it together. In each case a poor soul finally realized the
futility of living in such a place and made plans to end it all.
Grabbing a suitable rope they headed out to find an equally suitable
tree. They searched. And searched. And searched. Their sense of futility
only increased. Realizing there was no suitable tree in either state they stepped in
front of a passing cattle truck and all that's left is their rope. I
think she might be right. Living in such a place could have that effect
on a person.
Dead center in the panhandle was a town I
had actually heard of. Guymon. It is the gleaming jewel of the panhandle
and is home to over one out of every three "Panhandlers" (I doubt they
actually call themselves that, but I'm too lazy to look it up, so that's
what I'm calling the 28,000 souls who inhabit this scrap of land). We
turned once again to TripAdvisor to see what's cooking in Guymon since
it was lunch time. We had crossed back into Central time, so it was
almost 1:30
PM local when we picked between two restaurants. One was a steak house and
the other was a Spanish/Mexican/Filipino fusion restaurant. I know. I
said the same thing. However, that restaurant, called "The Galleon", had
the only perfect record I have ever seen for restaurant reviews on TripAdvisor... a
perfect "5"... albeit with only 8 reviews. We decided to go for it. We
hit their front door at 1:50 PM
and there was literally nobody in the place which was prepared to seat
about 120. Ouch. I never wear a tee shirt while traveling, but today I
had one on with a line drawing of an AirStream, and cargo shorts, and a
ball cap that said "Yellowstone". Mrs. C' was much better dressed but
still, together we looked unworthy to enter this restaurant which was
decorated to receive the elite of Guymon (whoever they might be and
however they may dress). They treated us warmly and we were seated. We
ordered some things we had heard of (table made guacamole and chips) and
some we had not including Chicken inasal a la brasa and Almondigas. It
was delightful. We got talking with the manager and our server about the
restaurant, it's philosophy, how they've only been open a few months,
etc.. Nice folks, a great find and yet another reminder that you have to
go to places like Guymon, or Salida where we were pleasantly surprised
yesterday to meet the folks and see what it's all about. Here's a link to the Galleon's website. Check out the menu there if you want to see what Spanish/Mexican/Filipino is all about: http://www.1565galleons.com/
After that it was a smooth hour and a half into Fort Supply Lake. I'll tell you more about that tomorrow
since we're here for two nights. Through the day today we had descended
about 3,000 feet and gained the 12 degrees we were entitled to for that
drop. The descent was absolutely unnoticed. While we plunged more than
that in 6 miles from Monarch Pass yesterday, today it was as if a flat
plane 180 mile long had been given the slightest tip from level and we
moved lower with no inkling we were not on level ground.
That's it for tonight, campers!
Later,
SC'
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