The Way Home

At this point in our RV odyssey we were done with a lot of the excitement. Now we were headed back to Oklahoma.

As a covid precaution we don't eat food that other people have cooked. We also don't enter buildings. Despite our holy rules we didn't want to pass up an opportunity to have a snack from the local chain Braum's. I thought it was a perfect move because at Braum's in addition to the fast food stuff they also have packaged food. So I walked up to the window and asked for a pint of ice cream. The drive through worker was mind blown and refused to go get me some damn ice cream from the shelf, and I refused to buy ice cream they prepared, so I walked away empty handed.

Some hilarious signs punctured the monotony of the drive.

Hooker, OK was a fantastic source of amusement.

I bet a lot of girls did pick up their Hooker t shirts here and then wore them proudly over at Hooker High School.

We explored the dusty little down of Buffalo, Oklahoma.

It seems as though the poppers became the poppees when Dollar General came to town.

Happy Fall Ya'll

I took a few pictures of our palace the next morning.

We never could get an actual fully hot shower out of this thing.

RVs, Start Your Engines!

With the world still in the grip of the plague the value of travel has become even more apparent. A bit of escapism is even more important with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and with the news of Covid-19 never seeming to let up with its negativity. A lot of other people must feel the same way because RVs have suddenly become the new hotness. The idea is to avoid the cootie filled planes and hotels while still having the range to stray far from home on an adventure.

In order to find the cheapest RV rental we drove out to Jenks, Oklahoma. Cheapest meaning like $1600 for 8 nights.

Jenks is apparently the rich people suburb of Tulsa.

We rented our 2015 Coachmen Freelander Express through an AirBnb type service called RVShare from a dude named Randy.

Randy was nice enough to give us a pretty thorough tutorial before we left. Good thin too because operating an RV is a lot harder than I had thought.

Some of the challenges of driving an RV became apparent immediately. We went to do a grocery pickup at a local Walmart but the vehicle wouldn't fit into the designated pick up parking spots. So we parked it somewhere else and just hung out in the spot with a shopping cart and waited. I think the staff were confused but it worked pretty elegantly otherwise.

 Having a bed in the car made it pretty convenient to take a quick nap in between driving shifts.

Our first campsite near Weatherford, Oklahoma was so fancy it had a little freakin waterfall installed.

Part of our new night time ritual is to hang a sheet up in front of the windshield at night so that people can't see us.

Am I the only one excited about the new Missouri statehood stamp coming out? The idyllic scene on the stamp is none other than Bollinger Mill State Historic Site.

You can tell things are getting desperate when I've researched bird feeders enough that I start getting Facebook ads for them.

A Full Day in Little Rock

Our time in Neosho, MO is winding down so we thought we'd take one last little road trip before Arkansas becomes prohibitively far away. The Clinton Presidential Library was ostensibly the reason for our visit but other fun places presented themselves along the way.

Little Rock was still 4 hours away from Neosho though, so we just drove down Friday then did both our sightseeing and return trip Saturday.

We sort of randomly stopped for food along the way in Alma, AR and were both very pleasantly surprised. I was impressed enough with Crawpappy's name to give it a try. It was Cajun inspired food and even had live music. The kitchen was very interesting. I'm pretty sure it was a food truck that had been pulled up into a garage type enclosure connected to the building. I thought that was kind of a genius idea. I had the etouffee and did not regret my decision.

There was a double rainbow.

We got our hotel on one of those websites where its cheaper but you don't know what sort of devilish contract you've signed until the magical quill vanishes and terrifying cackling fills your ears. This place was actually a decent brand but was still pretty sketchy. There were several police cars and an ambulance out front when we arrived. At one point two police officers seemed to be loading an old woman's belongings onto a luggage cart. The next time we looked the full cart was just sitting in the lobby and the lady was gone.

An added feature was the bashed-off door chain thing on our room's door. But hey, we saved 10 dollars.

The next morning we checked eachother for bullet holes and stab wounds. Having found none, we continued on our journey.

I liked the State Capitol Building's exterior. It was stately and not too gaudy.

A hundred or so sign wielding pro-marijuana folks were gathered on the front steps.

The building had a nice free audio tour which was much appreciated. 

A really young looking Governor Clinton's portrait. I learned a lot about him that I didn't know. For example at the time he was the youngest governor in the country at age 32.

Next we headed to the Presidential Library for more Clinton.

Inexplicably the museum's traveling exhibit involved animatronic dinosaurs.

Lyida was not amused.

Bill's sax.

The museum was adequate but I have to say that overall I didn't really like it. Half the fun for me at these presidential libraries is learning about America at an interesting time period as well as the president's impact on it. Like our visit to Hoover's library for example. This however all seemed too recent. The news clips that were playing throughout the building felt too much like just watching today's news. It might also be that the economy, terrorism, and gun violence are all issues that Clinton wrestled with that are still huge problems which is a little depressing.

My favorite part of this Oval Office replica was the moon rock on the coffee table. The story was that whenever people were getting too whiny or bickering amongst themselves Clinton would point to it and remind everyone that the rock is a gillion years old and that by comparison none of their own problems were really that important. I need a moon rock.

Our final stop was the epically named Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site. The site told the story of the process of forcibly integrating the high school, which is still in use. This picture is of the preserved gas station across the street from the school. I didn't realize that the National Guard was called first but wasn't up to the job, so the full-on Army was called in to enforce integration, bayonets fixed.

Little Rock Central High School

Well you may have noticed that the highway from Neosho to Little Rock is L-shaped, taking a turn north near Fort Smith. You may have also noticed that Fort Smith is right on the border with Oklahoma. Well Oklahoma has a lot of Native American nations all over it, and those nations love them a casino. Turns out they like to give free money to new customers, and John Milito doesn't turn down free money. No way, no how. So we popped across state lines into Pocola, OK, played some Titanic slot machine until the house's money ran out, said goodbye to ridiculously young Leonardo DiCaprio, and cashed out.