Evening, Campers! It's Silver Cliche' with you again tonight. This time from... wait for it... Barling, Arkansas! Yep, we dumped our plans in Oklahoma to step it up a bit and head east. We are safely parked for the night at Springhill Park (another fine product of the US Army Corps of Engineers!) right on the southern bank of the Arkansas River near Van Buren, Arkansas... no?.... how about "near Forts Smith, Arkansas"... still no?... come on, Fort Smith is the second largest city in the whole freakin' state. How about "Just across the border from Oklahoma and about the middle of the state"? ... Ok, good enough then.
I've been meaning to write about a lesson I've learned on this trip. Now seems the opportune time to share the thought. Here it comes: When water meets anything, water wins. Nope, that's it. I started realizing this as we got deeper into the west on the way out but it hit me hardest at the Grand Canyon. If not for flowing water (lots of it... over a long period of time) the Grand Canyon would have remained the Grand Plain (boring!... we already have the even larger "Great Plains" and they are totally boring... just read the posts for the past few nights... and please try staying awake this time). Then I thought about New Orleans (water!), the Rio Grande basin (water!), Zion (water!), Bryce Canyon (water!), etc.. It's all about water and in each case the land has been transformed and reshaped while the water is unscathed, moves on and gets ready to come back and do it again. Water always wins.
So, last night I told you we were getting road weary and disillusioned by attempting to capture and share interesting pics of the plains (boring!). Today we got reshaped by the same force that turned the erstwhile "Grand Plain" into the spectacle that it is today - water. It has been something between drizzling and pouring here in the nation's abdominal region all day. (If this is the abdomen, you'll have to use your imagination to orient the other parts of the country around the anatomy. Remember, Louisiana is south of us.). Fortunately, modern humans have the National Weather Service and the Internet to access it (except in northeast New Mexico as explained a few nights ago) so we saw this coming. Rather than heading to Quartz Mountain today (in the rain) then to Lake Thunderbird, Oklahoma tomorrow (in the rain) then to Springhill Park on Saturday (in the rain), we elected to cut out the middle men and head right to Springhill Park today (in the rain).
I wrote the other evening that when we were leaving the Rockies we stopped in Salida, Colorado (great fish and chips that day... just typing "S-a-l-I-d-a gave me a flashback) and left town following the Arkansas River. It took the northerly route through Kansas then northeast Oklahoma, but then it veered southeast and we became reacquainted today. You may recall that all of the US Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds we've stayed at on this trip have been on lakes created by Corps-constructed dams. This campground is not one of those. In addition to their dam efforts, they also build waterways projects including canals and locks. This campground sits on the Arkansas at a point where locks and a small hydroelectric station enable the river to contribute to commerce and human progress. Try selling that idea in Washington today! This week's Supreme Court decision had to remind the Corps that they are supposed to tame water to help the American people, not tame the American people to help water. But that's a topic you can research on your own and draw whatever conclusion you want. Here in Barling if it would stop raining long enough for me to walk 150' directly behind the trailer across a spongy lawn I could take a picture of the river with some gargantuan barge full of something being moved along the Arkansas to the Mississippi from deep in the abdomen of America. Maybe tomorrow.
Our route today took us southeast from Fort Supply, Oklahoma back through Woodward (where we learned about greasers at the laundromat yesterday) and 60 miles to a point west of Oklahoma City where we picked up I40 heading east. That carried us nearly 200 miles (yep... It was five and a half hours of driving today at our stepped up pace) just across the state line into Arkansas. Along the way we saw casinos... lots of casinos... remember that Oklahoma was "the Indian Territory" before statehood. The US Army pushed all manner of tribes into that space including the Cherokees whose homeland we visited last year in North Carolina, and the Choctaw (I have no idea where they used to live) and dumped them into land occupied by tribes that were already there (Muskogee, Sioux, Comanche, whatever). In the smallest measure of retribution, these tribes now each have the right to open casinos on the land they were given and they have done so. We stopped for gas, then parked to make lunch in the trailer at a Seminole Casino. The Seminoles! They are a Florida tribe. How the heck did they get their own casino in Oklahoma? I have no idea, but clearly everyone is on on to action in Oklahoma casinos. We crossed the Chisholm Trail, and sang in memory of Merle Haggard when we passed Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA. By the end of he day we were below 500 feet above sea level. The air here is warm and thick with oxygen, humidity and mosquitoes... just like at home! The best part of our day was seeing the "Arkansas Welcomes You!" sign. Oklahoma wasn't that bad (it's not like it was Louisiana or anything). I think their old advertising slogan was quite right. "Oklahoma is OK". I can imagine a discussion between me and our neighbor Brendan when we get home that would properly use that phrase in context: He: "Hey, how was your trip out west?" Me: "It was fantastic... We saw amazing things in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona and Utah." He: "And you came home through Oklahoma, right? How is that?" Me: "Oh, Oklahoma is OK." After what we saw farther to the west, we were not disappointed to move past OK.
So we have set a new target. Instead of rambling and moseying at our standard pace (three hours of driving a day when in transit and two days a week off the road) we are setting our sights for home. We head to northern Mississippi tomorrow (in the rain), southeast Alabama on Saturday (in the rain) and if our rear ends can handle it should arrive home Sunday night hopefully to a beautiful Florida evening.
Stay tuned!
Later...
SC'
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