Dallas (1) to Elk City (2 - under 4), Oklahoma

I mentioned at the end of yesterday's blog about changing our routing. All done. The above is our first leg with a 2 night stay and I'm not too sure where we'll end up for the following nights, however, our planned stop to park the rig is Denver while we're off to Seattle.

Yesterday we met Rod, in fact that's not quite right. We had a quick encounter the other night when we met at the entrance gate to The Vineyards - the gate is locked from 7pm and entrance is via a code on a keypad, if you can find it! We apparently drove a few metres past it and parked near the gate with Grace and myself walking around in the dark trying to locate this bl**dy pad.

Rod and Kathy (Rod's wife) pulled up about 5 metres behind us and fortunatley ended our frustration quite quickly. Once they established we were legitimately trying to enter, Rod pointed out the missing pad (he was beside it) and keyed in the number.

Anyway, Rod came over yesterday and we learnt he and Kathy are retired and travelling full time. Rod stayed a couple of hours and was full of information. They have their own blog site: http://retiredonwheels.blogspot.com/ and their adventures are certainly worth a read. They're off to New Zealand shortly to travel for 6 months in a motorhome - this follows months of travel in Alaska etc etc. If you happen to read this blog, thanks very much again Rod for your invaluable time spent with us - hope to see you somewhere in the USA on your return from NZ.

We stopped at a roadside rest in Texas and took this
photo just to give you an idea of the size of our rig

Today we've finally hooked the rig up without supervision and have done some mileage, just over 300 miles or around 480 kilometres. The weather was good for driving, plenty of sunshine, a few clouds in the sky and around 26C.

The management are doing improvements in The Vineyards and just before we were to leave the concrete trucks moved in. I thought we'd be limited in the exit out so was a little nervy about the only exit available - a reasonably narrow 90 degree left hand turn with 60 cm culverts each side. I drove the Chev through without the Sierra just to survey the turn and see how much space was left for the Sierra's wheels. Seemed fine so.....got through without a problem - what did you think!

The country side through Texas (North of Dallas) is reasonably flat and surprisingly quite green with the current temperatures. The roads are very good and are 2 or 3 lanes each way, separated by quite a distance North bound to South bound.

We missed a photo opportunity of what I thought was an unusual advetisement for - "Fried Pie". At the time I thought what you're probably thinking, but having arrived at the RV Park and connected to the internet, looks like I was mistaken: http://texasfriedpies.com/  
"Fried pies - just like you remember!" 


Funnily enough, even taking my stroke and memory loss into account, I don't remember them.

Casino in ???

Our planned trip took us through the outskirts of Oklahoma City, virtually due North of Dallas on the I35 and then West on the I40. The flatish plains of Texas gave way to slow, rolling hills in Oklahoma and again, they were quite green. The only really surprising thing we saw were huge casinos, seemingly in the middle of nowhere!

We've arrived safely and despite the sub-heading, we're actually not staying in Elk City, we're in a Kampground Of America (KOA) park outside of town. The only damage to equipment was the clock face (with glass insert) that fell, hitting the air conditioning controls and shattering the glass. Unfortunatley it wasn't tempered glass so hopefully we have picked up all the slivers. The remainder of the clock now sits on the wall, without its cover but still working fine.

Tomorrow we're off to a Route 66 museum in Clinton, about 10 miles away - that's the reason we (I) chose this KOA park, because, well...I just wanted to see the museum.