Tuesday July 21st 2020

Today began with heavy cloud cover and a short rain shower during breakfast. Eventually the clouds broke up and the temperature increased. By late in the day it was in the low nineties, but the humidity made it feel much warmer.

While I was waiting around for the weather to figure out if it was going to be an outside day or something else, more strange things started to happen. The cable TV and the internet went out. I went outside to investigate. My neighbors in the next row were checking their power connections. All of the campground was without cable and internet. Half the campground was without power. A delivery truck resupplying the campground with ice took out one power line and the cable.

The campground staff got busy blocking off the downed live wire. A few minutes later the police arrived followed by the power company a little while later. The power company killed the power to the line so the truck could get out. A bucket truck arrived a half an hour later to reattach the wire from the transformer to the office building. The power came back on to the other half of the campground. They are still waiting for the cable company.

The impact on me is minimal. I was using the cable because my satellite dish is blocked by trees. I’m down to nineteen channels of broadcast TV and I’m using my cellular data connection for internet. The campground passed out ice cream tonight to placate people for what they are missing.

All of the activity at the campground kept me entertained during the day. I stayed home and did more travel research. After Arkansas I don’t have any reservations going further east. Based on COVID outbreaks and restrictions it looks like I’ll be continuing east through Tennessee. The alternative through Mississippi looks a little more risky. Mississippi seems slightly more likely to do something drastic like another “stay at home” order. I fear imposed restrictions more than exposure to the virus. Places where I could catch the virus are avoidable. Government imposed restrictions are more unpredictable and random.

Monday July 20th 2020

It was another humid day. The only difference from the last few days is that the high temperature wasn’t as high in this part of the country. It only topped out in the low 90s. With very little breeze it was very uncomfortable outside. The good thing about my location is that I’m parked under trees. The shade allows the air conditioner to keep the inside comfortable. At my last stop in the open parking lot type campsite, the AC couldn’t really keep up during the hot part of the day.

I took my time with breakfast and my morning coffee. It took a little bit of thinking to realize it was only Monday. I’m used to moving on Mondays rather than Sunday, but it was worth it to get through Oklahoma City without heavy traffic. Once I was finished with breakfast it was time to checkout the area.

The Arkansas River is a few miles south of the campground. The highway crosses the river just downstream from the Robert S Kerr Lock and Dam #15 which holds back the river in the Robert S Kerr reservoir. I expected to find a recreation area at the dam, but all I found was lots of green grass. I didn’t see any boat traffic in the river or the reservoir. Everything was very quiet. Checking online maps later showed that I needed to wind my way through the farm land to find the recreation areas on the side of the reservoir. Maybe another day.

I also explored the community of Sallisaw to the north of the campground while I was out. It seems to be a thriving medium size town. Most of the businesses were open and busy. I returned to camp without stopping at any of them.

Like many of the campgrounds I’ve been staying at lately there are many overnight campers at this park. They all departed by the 11AM checkout time and new residents start arriving during the afternoon and into the evening. As I’ve been writing this blog entry I’ve heard a lot of new arrivals pulling in. The large turnover is proof that there are many people traveling in RVs this summer.

Sunday July 19th 2020

Tonight I’m in eastern Oklahoma after a two hundred mile drive from the west side of Oklahoma City. It was an uneventful trip along Interstate 40 with one stop for gas about midway. The three and a half hours on the road went by quickly.

The terrain surprised me. Not to far east of Oklahoma City the open ground became filled with trees. The ranch lands west of the city were gone. Eventually the trees started to give way to farm land and I started to pass fields planted with corn. While I knew there would be a transition from ranching to farming as I moved east, the forested areas were the big surprise.

I am staying in a campground a few miles from the Arkansas River and the Arkansas state boarder. I’ll be here for four nights. There are a few things in the area that should be interesting to visit. The question is will they be open, open with restrictions or closed.

Saturday July 18th 2020

There was more wind today. It kept the heat and humidity under control a little better than Friday. If you weren’t in the direct sunlight today’s upper nineties temperature was tolerable. On the flip side, driving in the wind was more difficult.

I took my time finishing breakfast this morning. Most of my overnight neighbors were long gone by the time I set out on my tour of the Oklahoma City Area. I had no specific places that I wanted to see. Many of the bigger attractions in the area are closed or have significantly reduced access. My tour turned into a lot of driving primarily on the interstate highways. Overall it wasn’t a leisurely tour or very informative.

As you approach the OKC area from the west the land starts to flatten out. The idea of major tornadoes devastating the area became more real. I even started to see big warning sirens about the same time I was thinking about tornadoes. The rolling hills I am in here at the campground and the gradually flattening land near the city are getting used for ranching and farming. I dsaw both cattle ranches and horse ranches. Here at the campground there are even a couple of buffalo (American Bison) in a heavily fenced enclosure.

When I think of Oklahoma I also think of the oil industry. On today’s tour I saw a refinery and a distribution yard with a lot of oil field equipment including a drilling rig. I didn’t see any working wells, but I have a lot of state to drive through tomorrow.

On the way back to my RV home I stopped at a Walmart for a few things. The wearing of masks is not as popular here. I would estimate less than half the customers were wearing masks. Walmart nation wide will require masks starting Monday and the OKC council voted last night to require masks in the city. Other cities in the state have already passed a similar ordinance.

I am moving on the eastern part of Oklahoma tomorrow. I plan to stay there for four nights before moving into Arkansas. I have a little over two hundred miles to travel. It should take about four hours. I planned the Sunday travel day to cross through the congested OKC area at a slow time.

Friday July 17th 2020

I woke up this morning to another humid day. Yesterday was very humid, but cloud cover most of the day kept the temperature in check. Today it was a bright sunny day with lots of humidity. The temperature peaked around 95 degrees. It was very sticky and felt like 105 degrees.

I knew coming east across the south I would encounter humidity, but this is a little further north and west than I expected to encounter it. This level of humidity in the Oklahoma city area during July is not a regular occurrence. The TV weather people are calling it August level humidity.

The last time I encountered this level of heat and humidity was the summer of 2018. In the Pacific northwest last summer there was heat and there was humidity, but never at the same time. I don’t enjoy hot and humid weather, but typically don’t have a problem with the combination. This morning I was really feeling the heat and humidity. I may have made a mistake turning off the AC and opening the bedroom windows around 5AM, but I was annoyed by the loud cycling air conditioner. Whatever the cause, I woke up three hours later with low energy and very much aware of the humidity.

After breakfast I took the bike and towing gear off the car in preparation for touring the area. I was soaked through after the fifteen minute task. By the time I had clean dry cloths on I had decided to stay home for the day. It turned into a laundry and vegetate in front of the TV kind of day. I grilled a steak and baked a couple of potatoes for dinner which seemed to drive the heat and humidity induced lethargy away. Let’s see if I get out and tour tomorrow.

Thursday July 16th 2020

It rained again overnight so I had all the windows closed. That required the AC to run all night. The AC cycling on and off all night resulted in uneven sleep. I was up by seven to get ready for a travel day.

The day started cloudy and remained that way until late afternoon. The clouds prevented the temperature from building, but the very high humidity made the low nineties feel worse than Mondays 110. It was still cool enough this morning that the temperature didn’t impact packing. Setting up camp this afternoon was not fun. My shirt was soaked and sweat was dripping off every exposed piece of skin.

I took my time getting ready to depart this morning. The RVs parked on both sides that were also taking their time. I hoped to have extra space to hook the car to the back of the RV, but as the 11AM checkout time approached the neighboring sites were still occupied. I made do with the space in my site alone despite the down hill slope. As I departed a minute or two after the official checkout time, my neighbors were right behind me.

Today’s journey was short. I moved about sixty miles east to within easy driving distance of Oklahoma City. I actually drove one exit past my destination to a rest area on Interstate 40 to have lunch and kill some time. As it is I arrived before 2PM at my destination. There were plenty of empty sites. No one else arrived until after 4PM. This campground is a little odd. There is one section back in the woods with shaded sites. The section I’m in for bigger RVs is a parking lot with a few grass strips and utility hookups. I’ll be here for the weekend.

Wednesday July 15th 2020

Once again a line of thunderstorms passed during the night. This time it was primarily a wind event. The end result was a cloudy start to a much more humid day. The temperature peaked in the low nineties, but with the humidity it felt much warmer.

This stop was not part of my original travel plan along the Interstate 40 corridor. When New Mexico made it clear that out of state visitors were not welcome, I cut out two additional stops in New Mexico and added a few days to my stay in Amarillo Texas. I still had a few more days to use before I could get back on my scheduled set of reservations. This stop, near Elk City in western Oklahoma for two nights gets me back on schedule.

Today I set out to explore the area. The terrain is gently rolling hills of primarily open land. Occasionally in the valleys between the hills there are ponds and at other random locations there are pockets of trees. The land is used for pasture and farming.

Interstate 40 in this area still follows the historic route 66. Elk City is a good size community along the route. It has a number of museums associated with the historic route. Given the current pandemic, I didn’t even check to see if they were open. I’m only looking for outside things to do. On another trip through this area I might consider visiting the museums, but I haven’t found any outside natural attractions of interest.

I’m moving on tomorrow about fifty miles to the western side of Oklahoma City for the weekend. I don’t expect to find many outside things to do in that area either, but a driving tour of Oklahoma City seems like a possibility. Sunday when traffic is light, I’ll drive the RV through Oklahoma City and on toward the eastern part of the state.

Tuesday July 14th 2020

I slept very well last night and woke later than usual. It’s also unusual for me to sleep well the night before a travel day. Unfortunately the result was I woke later than normal. I got a slow start to the final preparations for travel. I pulled out of the campground right around the 11AM checkout time.

It wasn’t a difficult journey. All of the travel was on Interstate 40. The only complication was stopping for gas. The first place I tried to buy gas was very busy and there wasn’t any place for me to wait without blocking traffic. I drove around the pumps and continued on my way. The second place I stopped for gas was almost empty and turned out to be fifteen cents a gallon cheaper.

The weather was very hot. I stopped at the Oklahoma welcome center, but my dashboard said it was 106 degrees outside. The bathroom in my RV was far more convenient than walking out in the hot sun to the public restroom. The information facility didn’t appear to be open in these pandemic times.

I arrived at my home for the next two nights, the Elk City / Clinton KOA, around 2PM. This campground was using a modified check in procedure. All of the check in material was prepared and available at the night check in station. No human interaction was necessary. I found my material then found my site. It was closing on the day’s high temperature of 108 degrees while I was setting up. The AC barely made a dent in the heat until the sunset. The heat dome is moving slowly to the east. My 160 mile move to the east just served to keep me in the center of the dome. The 108 was a high for this date in this area.

This is my first ever visit to the state of Oklahoma. It will likely be the only new state on this years version of the Rambling Road Trip. I’m not sure how much of the state I’ll see on this visit. I’ll be in the state for a total of 9 nights with two nights here, three nights near Oklahoma City and another four on the eastern side of the state.

Monday July 13th 2020

Today was another record or near record heat day. The temperature topped out at 110 degrees. I heard that it was a new record on one TV station and that it wasn’t on another. A little more research indicates it was an all time high for the month of July, but once upon a time there was 111 degree day in June. The weather forecast and reporting leaves a lot to be desired in this television market. The bottom line is it was hot.

Being outside in the sun for more than a few minutes wasn’t advisable. I took a drive on the loop road around the south side of Amarillo this afternoon. The southeast section was a lot of open farm and grazing land. I finally found some of the new housing developments to the southwest of town. I’d been wondering where all of the expanding population was living. The area deserves another visit when we aren’t in the middle of a pandemic and a heat wave.

This is my last full day here. Tomorrow I continue my travels to the east. I’ll be in Oklahoma tomorrow night. I have less than 180 miles to travel, so I don’t have to get an early start. I’ve completed many of the inside packing tasks, but the heat kept me from working on many of the outside tasks, It should be a few degrees cooler in the morning. A line of thunderstorms went through the area this evening. The storms here were mostly wind. The hale, rain and wind were further north.

Sunday July 12th 2020

Last nights thunderstorms continued to drop rain on my RV until well after midnight. This morning there were many big puddles around the campground and the overall weather was subtly different. It was much more humid and the high temperature for the day was ten degrees or so cooler than yesterday. It did not reach 100 today. Tonight’s line of storms are crossing the Texas pan handle north of here.

This morning I made the trip to the grocery store that I put off yesterday. Every trip to Walmart since the pandemic arrived has been different. Today, very few people in the parking lot had masks on. I masked up and followed to groups without masks into the store. The first group was asked to wear masks by the Walmart greeter. They all pulled masks out of their pockets and put them on. Clearly they weren’t going to wear them if not explicitly directed. There is currently a mask required order in this area. The family immediately in front of me was also told they needed to wear masks. They turned around without comment and departed. Most everybody in the store had a mask.

The shelves weren’t particularly well stocked, but I don’t think it was because of shortages. I think it was more likely a staffing problem. They only had four checkouts open with long socially distanced lines when I went to checkout. I jumped into the fifth checkout when it opened after I’d waited only five minutes or so. Overall, with an additional stop for gas, I was out for a little over two hours.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing around my RV home watching TV and watching the evening arrivals at the RV park. I also took some time to grill a couple of newly purchased hamburgers for dinner. Everything else I might have had was still in the freezer. One thing this pandemic has changed is the amount of food in my freezer. I try to keep two weeks or more supply of food on hand to cover any two week quarantines I might get caught in.