Route 66 is an American icon, and many people come to travel its path across the state of Oklahoma. It's known by names like "The Mother Road" and "Main Street America," and this section was first paved in 1929. Part of the Lake Arcadia campground where we are parked now is on Route 66, so we have to include a few of this area's tourist stops. Oklahoma is in the first phases of opening up from the coronavirus shut downs. From the looks of the parking lot, business is good at Pop's 66 Soda Ranch. In keeping with the Route 66 theme, that pop bottle with a straw out the top is 66 feet tall. At night, the glass rings light up in a changing color display. During the day, Pop's serves up burgers and sandwiches and has 700 different types of pop from all over the world for tourists to buy.
A few miles down the road is the Arcadia Round Barn. Built in 1898, it looks like it is in great shape for its age. It's free to go in and look around, but because of Covid-19, the doors were closed when we were visiting.
We had beautiful weather during our six-day stay. We took advantage of that blue-sky weather to get some exercise. We did some hiking, biking, and kayaking in areas close to Route 66.
We biked Edmond's Spring Creek trail, and loved the wide asphalt surface with lanes for bikers and walkers.
The trail system includes mountain biking options. Mark took one of those side roads, but Denisa is smart enough to stay on the smooth wide surface.
Crews were busy working on the cement section of a new trail that will connect to Spring Creek. It runs right beside Route 66 for miles.
The main entrance to Lake Arcadia Park is on Route 66. Even though we camped for 9 nights on this lake last year, we never put the kayak on the lake. But we got a reprieve from the Oklahoma wind, and it was a nice way to spend a morning.
The water level in the lake is up, and we dodged sticks and stumps and full-size trees in the west end of the lake closest to our camp site. This big dead tree is a favorite roost for the cormorants.
They kept an eye on us as we stealthily approached in our kayak.
We also spent some time watching the pelicans that were congregating on the lake. The picture below shows the different postures of this flock. The guy on the left just caught the joke that Mark whispered from the kayak.
While standing on this sand bar, these white pelicans look quite white. But when they open their wings, we can see the black tips that make them easy to spot when they are flying. With one wing tucked in and the other wing stretched out, this guy was modeling his black wing tips for us.
Again, we like our stealthy kayak that allows us to get quite close before they decide to relocate.
On several different days, we explored different sections of Lake Arcadia park, hiking a couple trails and many of the paved roads. We noticed this foamy substance on some of the plants in the park. A google search educated us that this sticky frothy substance comes from a spittlebug. The immature bugs are hiding in all that spittle, eating the plant that hosts it.
We made another road trip along Route 66. We lived for many years in Weatherford, Oklahoma, whose Main Street is part of historic Route 66. Denisa was very excited to get her hair cut at her favorite salon right on Route 66. It's been months since her last haircut!
We retired from the college in town--Southwestern Oklahoma State University. We always enjoy going back to campus to see many of our younger co-workers. But this trip we didn't go into any of the offices because of the Covid-19 closures. We saw that even the bulldog mascot is wearing a mask on campus.
We did some urban hiking while we were in the Oklahoma City area. One morning we went walking with Denisa's sister and brother-in-law, and another evening we were walking with our son and daughter-in-law and their dog.
After a three-mile walk in the neighborhood, we were back at their house for more exercise. Claire teaches dance and fitness classes at OU and UCO, and she is working on her credentials to be a personal trainer. She finished teaching her college classes this spring using electronic media when both universities sent all their students home because of the coronavirus. She also teaches adult fitness classes, including those using this piece of equipment called a reformer.
We can tell that she is good at what she does, and she has great patience even with a couple of old wanderers. We have never exercised on a device like this that uses springs and pulleys to give every part of your body a workout.
Sometimes when changing to different exercises, those springs and pulleys can put you into some rather awkward positions. But it was obviously fun!
We enjoyed sharing time with relatives here close to Route 66. It's good to spend a week in the heartland of Route 66. We made a stop at the big cross that a local church erected close to the highway. This landmark is so tall that you can barely see Denisa standing at the base. It's a good reminder that even on Route 66 we are still wandering His wonders.
We left Greenleaf State Park and headed straight west down I-40 to our next stop in Edmond, Oklahoma. We stayed at Lake Arcadia last spring, and are happy to return again. This city-owned campground has the most unusual camping procedures we have ever seen in all of our travels. This is going to be an unusually long explanation of this unusual check-in procedure, so we're going to sprinkle in a few pictures taken around our campground here at Lake Arcadia.
Just because a camp site is empty, doesn't mean that it's available. If it has a green slip in the box pictured below, that site has been paid for and you can't camp there. You might notice that the sign already says that no sites are available because all the camp site numbers have a green slip of paper inside.
Knowing that many local people come for the weekend and leave on Sunday, we arrived on Sunday afternoon. But another unusual feature of this park is the check-out time--an unusually late 5:00 p.m. The other crazy unusual policy is that campers have until 5:00 p.m. to decide if they would like to renew their camp site rental for another night. So when we arrived at 4:00, we weren't allowed to park our rig in a camp site until after 5:00.
Another unusual aspect of this rule is that the narrow road into the park doesn't allow for a turn around--especially a 35-foot motor home towing a car. So we were granted permission to roll into the park to sit and wait. Denisa doesn't sit and wait well, so she toured the campground on foot, finding our favorite spot from last year was empty. She even visited with the neighbors to verify that their friends had definitely left that site, and they knew for sure they wouldn't be renewing the rental. Armed with this valuable information, she approached the gate keeper with an unusual amount of charm so we could go ahead and move into that space.
But no, following their unusual policy to the letter of the law, we still had to wait until 5:00 p.m. when the gatekeeper would drive around the park to verify which spots had been vacated. How unusual! So we finally got permission to settle into our site after 5:00 so we could take a walk and see some of the views we've already posted on this blog.
This trip we learned another unusual part of this campground registration process. In order to make sure they have a spot for the weekend, locals can start paying for their favorite site days (and even weeks) in advance. It's not unusual for the best sites to sit empty for two weeks before a holiday weekend. The city doesn't mind, because they are getting the income for the site. But it seems very unusual to us to see a good site wasted and so many RVs turned away. By the end of the week heading into the Memorial Day weekend, almost half of the sites were empty--but paid for. How unusual!
We are staying at Scissortail campground, but we drove to the other three sections of the park, and the other campgrounds, as well. That gave us opportunities to get some exercise at this unusual park. We found another unusual aspect of Lake Arcadia. If you look at this area on google maps, the lake shows up red on the satellite view. Kayaking in the middle, we were surrounded by that unusually red water.
That red water is a direct result of the unusual red clay bluffs that surround Lake Arcadia.
From our vantage point on the water, we found that this lake also has an unusually large amount of trash lining the banks. In fact, we decided that it was the trashiest lake we have ever been on. We noticed the out-dated flyers at the park advertising the volunteer day to clean the park. We're guessing the free tshirt and hot dogs bring out quite a crowd to clean this area. We're also guessing that the April clean-up day was cancelled, just like everything else during this season of pandemic.
We finished our unusual check-in day with a nice evening walk around the campground. Denisa only had her cell phone, so the low-light picture isn't great. But we found several deer and a possum as we walked. That's an unusual--in a nice kind of way--ending to our unusual move-in day at Lake Arcadia.
When you read the title to today's blog, could you finish the phrase, "I'm proud to be an Okie from . . ." with the name of the Oklahoma town? Merle Haggard was proud to sing about this little Oklahoma town in 1970, when it became the Country Music Association's song of the year. So we had to go visit to see how things look in Muskogee, Oklahoma in 2020.
The first line in the song is, "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee." Well we hate to say that is no longer true in 2020. Because of the recent change in Oklahoma law, we have seen marijuana "dispensary" signs spring up all over this state. We drove around town for a bit, and found 5 different marijuana stores and numerous big billboards advertising that they do use marijuana in Muskogee now.
The chorus repeats, "I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee, a place where even squares can have a ball. We still wave Old Glory down at the court house." We can tell you that is still true. A large United States court house resides in downtown Muskogee and the U.S. flag is still flying proud in 2020.
We like to think that most of the second verse is still true, "We don't make a party out of lovin', we like holding hands and pitching woo, We don't let our hair grow long and shaggy, like the hippies out in San Francisco do." We didn't take any pictures, but with hair salons across the state closed because of the Covid-19 closures, there seems to be plenty of people with long and shaggy hair. In fact, Denisa was one of the shaggy people in Muskogee today.
Besides verifying song lyrics, our drive to Muskogee was actually a shopping trip. We are on a mission. We look fondly back at the picture of our last campsite with its tall pine trees and bed of pine needles.
That was taken at Cherokee Landing State Park. We have since decided that it should be renamed Mouse Landing State Park. It's here that we picked up an unwanted mouse guest in the motor home. He kept us up at night as he ran in the ceiling space over our bed and left "calling cards" in our living space as well. We found that the mice at Mouse Landing State Park were also enjoying the freedom of our basement storage, where this brand new drying cloth must have been tasty.
We hate mice! Mark immediately began the war to get rid of them. Before our shopping trip, we had only two old sticky traps that he put out around the driver's chair last night. Because they were old, he even baited them with a dab of peanut butter.
This morning we could only find one of the traps! We looked everywhere, wondering how a trap that size could just vanish. It really worried Mark. All day long he would randomly mutter things like, "How could a whole trap be gone?" and "Could a mouse eat the whole thing?" or "What could have happened?" all the way to Muskogee and back. It took one more search that evening with Mark hanging upside down into the small space beside the driver's seat and the wall to find the answer. Our mouse visitor had drug it under the driver's seat, where it was now attached to the carpeted base under the leather flap of the captain's chair.
Besides checking out the courthouse in Muskogee, our main mission there was to stock an arsenal to get rid of our mouse guest. Mark bought everything he could find that said it would rid us of rodents and keep them out.
He immediately put his arsenal to work. He baited two kinds of spring traps, put sticky traps in the basement and the living area, sprayed "repels-all" around the outside of the motor home, plugged in the ultrasonic pest repellers, and put the peppermint-scented rodent repellant in the living area. That evening we heard one of our many traps snap. We celebrated victory, and waited breathlessly for more snaps. But they never came. Either all the destruction and poop came from a single mouse, or the rest of them left in disgust when he sprayed the repellent. Either way, we aren't seeing or hearing any more signs of mice. We're once again happy campers that are proud to be an Okie from Muskogee--at least temporarily.
During our stay here, we withstood one of the worst lightning storms in the motor home since we started traveling over five years ago. We guess the last words of that famous song are still true, "White lightning's still the biggest thrill of all, in Muskogee, Oklahoma, USA."
After three nights at Cherokee Landing state park, we are heading south along the shore of Lake Tenkiller to our next state park stop. This winding road is in an area known as the Cookson Hills. Everything is so green in this northeast quadrant of the state, so it's also called "Green Country." In fact, our destination today is Greenleaf State Park.
We got set up in our site in the Gobbler Loop campground of the state park, where you couldn't even tell we were close to a lake. To get our first look at Greenleaf Lake, we had to walk a half-mile down to the other campground loop.
We had this shore to ourselves on this blue-sky week day. Well, we did have to share it with three different feathery families. First were the youngest goslings with their new down feathers.
Denisa watched as their parents escorted them all the way to the lake edge before the entire family swam away in a perfect line.
Then we watched as this family with goslings a bit older foraged for food beside the water.
These goslings were a bit older. We could see their tiny wings tucked close to their sides. These birds grow quickly, and it won't be long before those two-inch flaps become two-feet wings.
The final family obviously hatched the earliest. Their down is beginning to turn to feathers, and they eat constantly as they move along the grass.
The last two families entered the water at the same time. It was fun to watch as they formed family lines as they swam away.
We are easily entertained by simple scenes from nature--especially in the spring when young families are enjoying the beautiful weather.
We followed the shore line of Greenleaf Lake. We were a bit surprised to find cypress trees here, along with cypress knees that grow in the water. We really thought this phenomenom was limited to states further to our south.
This state park was once a CCC camp, and we saw evidence of their famous rock work in the cabins overlooking the lake. Walking by this row of cabins, we couldn't help but think that these fire places looked like they were melting into the hills around them.
The signs at the entry of the park mentioned this was an award-winning state park. They do offer several activities besides the lake and marina. There is a children's fishing pond, and an 18-hole miniature golf course . . .
and a brand new splash pad that is scheduled to open this summer.
It was a beautiful blue-sky day, and we would have normally been readying for a spin around Greenleaf Lake in our kayak. But we knew that bad weather was coming our way, including rain that evening.
But the biggest storm blossomed up the next morning. All that record-breaking cool weather from the last several days was colliding with the warm weather from the southwest. In Oklahoma we know that is a perfect recipe for severe weather. We watched the local weather to see the band of lightning and wind heading our way.
We also followed the storms on our phone weather apps. It's a bit unsettling to see tornado icons pointing straight toward that blue dot that marked our location in the motor home.
We were in a torrential rain storm with high winds for much of the morning. Looking back on it, we probably should have taken shelter in the cinder block bath house at the bottom of our hill. We appreciated a good phone signal that allowed us to keep track of the storm. We saw that a tornado dropped down out of the clouds about ten miles away, destroying several homes and buildings.
It's times like this that we question why we are traveling in tornado alley in the spring. Our plans have certainly changed in 2020. We're supposed to be approaching Maine about now in our planned trip to the Canadian Maritimes. But the coronavirus has changed our plan. For now, we are finishing another tour of an award-winning state park in the rain. After a week of rainy weather, we can see how this "Green Country" section of Oklahoma stays so green.
