Days 42-43 - Visiting With Relatives In Enid Oklahoma

 These posts are from the last two weeks of our vacation. We are now home, but I am continuing our day by day vacation posts to catch up --- after I dropped the ball. Sorry!

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This post is from Thursday, March 14th.

Wheeewwwwwwwiiiiiieeeeeee!!! 

We made a past all of those storms by the skin of our teeth. We felt really bad for the people left behind. Those storms slammed all the way through the central part of the United States from as far south as the Gulf all the way up even to Ohio. The RV park near my friend's home was completely obliterated! 

We drove our way further north and west through Oklahoma. 

We fueled up in Henrietta, Oklahoma for the cheapest price so far the entire trip. We only paid $3.25 a gallon for diesel and we were pulling in an average of 14.25 MPG.  They also had DEF at the pumps, for only $3.50 a gallon. So we topped off our DEF tank with an extra 1 and 1/2 gallons.

As I've said before, the interstates really aren't our thing but we did it anyhow. We got some miles underneath our wheels and found some beautiful blue sky. No more smoke. No more storms. No more hail.

There was some wind .... and the windmills were turning. Some faster and some slower. Many miles and miles of the windmills dotted the landscape. Our nephew works for a windmill company and travels all over working with installing, servicing, and other technical stuff I guess. Very fascinating.

We finally got off the interstates, as they had turned into tollways. We prefer to not pay tolls, so we wound our way on State highways up around Perry and worked our way towards Enid, Oklahoma. Now we are getting into the grain belt country. There were a lot of these huge mills and grain elevators. As we came in on the north side of Enid, we saw quite a few of them throughout the industrial parks.  A tad bit bigger than the corn silos we see here in Wisconsin.

So why were we going to Enid? Well, our daughter Erin is married to an Oklahoma guy named Waylen. But she convinced him to live up in Wisconsin by us. 

His parents Gaylen and Linda still live in Enid Oklahoma. We keep trying to convince them to move up to Wisconsin too. 

Since we were in the area, we put them down as a "have to" for a visit. We really enjoy them when they come up to Wisconsin, and we have so much in common. (Besides a pile of grandkids).

They were eagerly awaiting our arrival, and have been tracking us through the storms since the middle of the night. They were relieved to know we had leapfrogged our way through and we're unaffected by any of the horrible things they were seeing on the local TV stations. 

They were literally waiting in their lawn chairs at the edge of their driveway by the garage for us to pull up!!

We got lots of hugs and tears and laughter and joy. 

They are very welcoming and had invited us to "moochdock" in their driveway.  Moochdocking is when you hang out in someone's driveway or yard, instead of going to a campground. Sometimes it includes hookups, sometimes it's just a safe spot to park.  Their driveway had a little bit of slope to it so we used our leveler blocks on the back tires.  And yes, they are Boomer Sooner fans ... 

The only little snafu was there wasn't any room to leave our cargo trailer attached behind the motorhome while parked in their driveway. So we did have to unhook it and leave it on the street. Of course there is a hitch lock and a latch pin lock on it. We also have a security alarm on the back of the trailer that has flashing lights and an alarm if somebody messes with it. But you still worry about things getting rolled away and being stolen. 

Never fear, Gaylen and Linda's neighbor took extra special care to park his squad car all night right across from our cargo trailer!!!

Not too many thieves 

are going to try to mess with that, 

 are they?

We enjoyed their hospitality and beautiful fenced in backyard. We could unhook the dogs and let them roam around a little bit. We had so much to catch up on and it was a lot of fun to sit and visit for the afternoon. Especially after our crazy stressful ride from the wee hours of the morning.

Gaylen and Steve are like two peas in a pod. When they were up visiting one time, Gaylen even helped with doing some of the work on my She Shed. Especially helping with the big heavy beam that needed to get lifted up and pounded hard with big hammers go in.lto place.  I did not have the strength for doing that.  We appreciated Gaylen's help.  

We sat on their patio and shared a lot of laughs, and a few beers too. The weather was great and there were no more storms in sight. 

They insisted on taking us out to dinner, and one of their favorite places is Texas Roadhouse. So off we went...  Of course we had to have the obligatory photos before we went in the door to keep the memory.

Linda snapped this next one of us. I think it really came out nice. 

That happens to be one of my most favorite shirts I am wearing, as well as my most comfy jean capris. After looking at this picture I decided I would see if I could find another shirt like that maybe in another color. Amazingly, I found a silvery gray one on eBay from a seller that it's still new with tags. I had bought this one a long time ago and I know it's no longer available in stores. It's so comfy and soft and comfortable for summer wear but the sleeves are long enough to come down to cover my arms, where I like them. My new gray one arrives in the mail today!

Back to our trip:

We had a really nice evening back at their home, but then turned in early because of our long long driving day. It was nice to be in the care of such good friends, and we could sleep in peace... Free of the storms.

Sadly, the next morning Gaylen had to go to work. He had retired a few years back, but a friend of his has recently hired him as a manager of a large amount of storage units and a very big car wash with both automated and manual bays. It keeps him hopping 5 days a week, but Linda says it also keeps him out of trouble!  We had to drive by and check his facility out.

So this is what retired old farts do in Oklahoma when they don't have anything better to waste their time on. They put on their work overalls and hang out at the carwash?? Lol! 

In the meantime, Linda took us out in the morning to drive us around town and show us the sights of Enid. We also managed to find a couple rummage sales signs! When they were up visiting in our town, they hit the rummage sales by us too! 

Linda found this very interesting old wishing well, that needed a tad bit of work. She offered $5 and Steve helped load it into the car. 

So it became a project for Galen to work on... Perfect for those old retired farts to make their wives happy!!! 

This pic is from afterwards, when Gaylen had done his magic and fixed it all up for her to add to their beautifully landscaped yard.

Quite the bargain, eh?

We drove by the car wash and snatched Gaylen away for a long lunch break. We went out to a Oriental restaurant and ate from their buffet. Linda had shown us these wonderful cinnamon almond caramel coffee cakes that were cut into little slices and put out on the dessert table. She said every time she is there she gets a slice, and it's her favorite.  We teased her about wrapping some up in a napkin and tucking them into her purse. 

So Steve asked the waiter if it was possible to buy them whole and take them home with us? Of course he said we could.... and after a little figuring out he brought them back to us at our table in a big box to bring home. They were only $7 each.

 They are very rich so you only need a small slice at a time. We easily got ten slices out of a single coffee cake. We put one in the freezer of the motorhome, kept one for ourselves, and left the third one with Linda and Gaylen to enjoy after we left.

We dropped Gaylen back off at work, and headed back to their house to get road worthy. Linda sure made us feel welcome, and the dogs as well. Here we were doing our last little bit of visiting out in the driveway before we were ready to hit the road. Notice the unworked on wishing well behind her. We never even told Gaylen that she bought it, Steve just told him he would have a roofing job to do when he got off of work that afternoon. Lol! 

We said our goodbyes and hit the road, and I will write about that in the next blog.

260 MI TRAVELED 

(ONE OF OUR LONGEST DRIVING DAYS)

1,726 MI SO FAR

Days 41-42 Short Mountain Cove COE Oklahoma and WILDFIRES AND TORNADOES!!!

These posts are from the last two weeks of our vacation. We are now home, but I am continuing our day by day vacation posts to catch up --- after I dropped the ball. Sorry!

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Wednesday March 13th 

Sadly we left Carter Cove COE Park near Plainfield, Arkansas 2 days early. Due to the controlled burns in the National Forest throughout that whole section of the state, we had to drive quite a ways to get beyond the smoke.

I was not breathing well, and had to have on the air conditioning with closed dash air circulation was about the only way to circumvent the situation. 

We headed in a northwesterly direction, and soon we were crossing the border into Oklahoma by 11:00 a.m.

The song from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "Oklahoma" kept playing through my head. A couple of times I burst out into the full chorus for a musical tribute. Steve was not amused. I love their welcome sign, it looks like a quilt block!

We zoomed on through the Ozarks and really didn't get to stop to see a lot. We will have to come back again another year and explore the Ozarks. We kept fighting the haze of campfire smoke just off to the south of us. We decided to just keep on going and get as far as we could go beyond where the controlled burns were taking place. We did find a map from the National Forest Service that showed all of their locations.

Wowzers! Did the scenery ever change! We had originally been in the swamplands of Southeast Arkansas and then worked our way up into the Ozarks as we headed north and west. Now we were hitting some of the rolling farmland of Oklahoma. It was absolutely beautiful! Everything is so green, and the blue sky just makes the greens even richer.

These photos are just snapped as we are rolling on by down the highway. Normally we don't even drive on interstates, but we decided this time we would so we could get to where we needed to go. 

We had chosen another Corps of Engineers Park that really wasn't too far off are beaten path. This one is called Short Mountain Cove. The campground basically has two big loops. We took the first one to the left and really didn't see any sites that we wanted to be on. It was getting cold and windy. So we looped on back and took the other road way around to get to the other loop of sites. This was much, much better!

We ended up on site 17,  which is $22, but only $11 with the Federal America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass. Breezy cannot describe the winds that were coming across the lake. But we didn't mind because it was a beautiful site. We planned to go for a little bike ride around the park and see what we could see.

This site was right up against the edge of the water which was really a great location. We walked along the shoreline a little bit with the dogs. It really is a wide part of the river that has been damned up. It feels like a lake though, and even had little tiny seashells along the edges, wedged in the sand.  

We rode around the park to check things out. Definitely the second loop is the much nicer area compared to the first loop. We didn't go into the bathrooms or the shower house side, but it looks the same as the other Corps of Engineer parks that we have been to. They are usually very nice and well maintained. 

After our bike ride, we hauled out our lawn chairs and sat on the leeward side of the motorhome to stay out of the wind. The sunshine felt good but the temps were dropping. While we sat there, we had the dogs on leashes hooked to our chairs with little carbineer clips. This has worked very well for us and we don't have to be holding a leash all the while. 

Nick, who if you know from my previous posts, has a neurotic aversion to ever being tied up with any nylon webbed leash. If you recall, he had been trapped in the woods while he was on the run for probably five or six days with a leash caught up in trees or rocks. He was starving to death and after five or six days he finally chewed himself free. I say he's channeling his inner Scarlett O'Hara when he says to us "As God as my witness, I will never be held back by a nylon woven web leash again!"

So we keep him on a chain leash. Easy. 

But ... we had Binney on a woven web leash--- She is never a problem and she has barely any teeth left to chew anything, much less a leash. 

In the matter of just a few minutes, while we sat there admiring the lake shore, I happened to look down and noticed something:

Yup!!!! That little stinker Nicholas had chewed right through Binney's leash and set her free.  Of course, she didn't go anywhere. But he did it. Just look at that face? How can you be mad at a face like that? 

Speaking of dogs, especially our spoiled rotten ones, a few blogs back I posted about some cute little paw print fleece blankets that we found at Walmart. They were only $3 each. We have these perfect sized baby mattresses from baby diaper changing tables as beds for the dogs. They fit on each side of our bed snugly and each one has their own bed and their own blanket.

They can be removed for washing, and now the dogs do not have to lay on the plastic covered surface of the memory foam mattress pads.

I did get kind of tired of untangling and refolding the blankets each morning while picking them up. Sometimes the dogs would drag the blankets around the camper. They were a tripping hazard for us.  I decided to take the blankets and do a little sewing project...

I cut the correct size around the mattress and made a casing sleeve to run a band of elastic through. Basically they are now a fitted sheet with boxed-end corners to fit the mattresses.

Now they are nice and neat, comfy and padded, and we won't trip over the wadded up blankets as we try to get around the bed the middle of the night!

It meets their approval.

As the evening wore on, the weather started getting rougher.  We tuned into the local TV stations and checked their weather forecasts. We enabled the warning signals on our phones because there were tornadoes and hail and sleet and horrible high winds headed in our direction! We only had a few big trees around us, but it is still scary to be in a camper near any trees at all. We seriously contemplated moving to a wide open site somewhere.  The winds seem to die down around 10:00 p.m. so we stayed put. 

About 4:00 a.m. I woke up to the increased wind sounds again outside. I turned on the TV and I checked also the weather apps on our phone. There is a huge band of thunderstorms moving across Oklahoma heading in our direction!! 

We were located right between that band of orange storms and Fort Smith. Our goal was to get up where the blue dot was of Enid, Oklahoma later that day. If we waited at the campground till 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. to take off, we would be going right through the middle of this horrendous storm!!!!

At 4:15 a.m. I could no longer sleep. The winds were increasing and the camper was rocking. I woke Steve up and showed him the warnings. We decided to pull in the slides and perk a pot of coffee. The storms were increasing and if we continued going directly west, we would be in the thick of things. 

Sooooooo at 4:30 a.m. We took off in the dark and headed north and west and did a leapfrog motion to get past the worst of the first band of storms. (We HATE driving in the dark). 

The first red arrow to the right was the first horrendous band that went through. We were able to get right around it before it reached the area where we had just had been in the night before!

Watching the local weather reports, they showed the hail that fell was 5 and 1/2 inches across! Yes, bigger than a baseball, the size of a softball! If we had stayed put, that would have been on top of us!! 

The winds were so damaging that there were power outages everywhere and trees down blocking roads. We were very, very fortunate to make that first leapfrog and land just west of Tulsa.

Now a second band was coming and it looked to be even worse than the first! This is where we literally got on the interstates and drove faster than we normally ever do... We usually stay in the 60 to 65 mph range and take our time. But not this time. It was time to make some tracks!!! 

We got up around the top end of Oklahoma City and worked our way over to Enid, Oklahoma. As we drove along there was the whole edge of the front that we could see on our left side as we drove north and west. 

It was so strange, we could also see the jet trail marks from all of the airlines, also avoiding the storms and running on an angle to the north. 

They were doing the same thing we were doing! 

I am pleased to say that we made it by the skin of our teeth just past the edge of the second storm. We had two different weather apps going as well as a local radio station to track what the storms were doing, and we were very fortunate to avoid any damage. Some white knuckles on the steering wheel, but otherwise, we were safe and sound and beyond the scope of either of those two storms. 

Whew!!!!

112 miles travel today 

1,466 miles so far

I DROPPED THE BALL! Continuing Our Vacation Posts - Carter Cove COE

Oh my gosh, I'm so very very sorry!

I DROPPED THE BALL!

We just got so busy busy busy on the rest of our vacation and then once we got home, things just speeded up. I totally neglected this blog and didn't get around to finishing up the last two weeks of our vacation down in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Please forgive me?

I will now do post by post just as if we were on the road... And pick up right where I left off.

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I ended the last blog on Sunday March 10th leaving Maumelle Corps of Engineers Park near Little Rock Arkansas. 

Was also spring forward for daylight savings. We felt like we were missing an hour, and it really goofs up the dogs feeding schedules.

We headed on further North and West to another Corps of Engineers Park that we found on Campendium. The review sounded pretty good, and it was called Quarry Cove near Plainview, Arkansas. Well, the place was really, really busy! We were kind of surprised to see this many campers in March? Especially on a Sunday late afternoon/evening. 

The campground is kind of on a loop of a peninsula that's very steep. Kind of like a pointy tall island jutting out into a lake. Some of the sites are short and a little difficult to get into. We drove around the loop twice, trying to figure out what might work out for us. The only site that really seemed to work had a gathering next door of about 6 to 8 young fishermen. They looked like they were out for having a good time all week and had quite the spread out of equipment. And plenty of coolers and beer cases and a big looking stereo on a tailgate. We really didn't find any other sites away from there that were level enough to our liking or what we wanted. 

So we decided to drive on down the road a little further west to the next Corps of Engineers Park.  Both are located on Nimrod Lake. 

We hit the jackpot!

It was called Carter's Cove. We had to drive through a little area of about six or eight blocks of little seasonal cottages and homes. Some seemed a little rundown, some seemed okay, but we really had no idea what we were going to find at the end of the road. 

We pulled into a very nice campground comprised of two loops set into a hillside overlooking a gorgeous lake. One side of the loops were a little more seasonal looking with four or five campers that stay longer than 14 days. There is a brand new shower building and a big parking lot for the fisherman and boat trailers. Through that parking lot and up the other side was another loop of terraced campsites. Each one was level with landscaped timbered areas holding back the dirt from erosion down into the site next to it.

Each site has electric and water, and there are two very nice bathrooms and shower buildings. The price is $20 a night but with our Federal America the Beautiful Senior Access Pass we get it for only $10 a night.

We were extremely happy to see there were only a few campers in this loop and most of them were getting ready to leave after the weekend.

We picked out a really nice site, number 18, and decided to pay for the entire week online. It really looked peaceful and the tall pines around us gave such a feeling of serenity and rustic appeal. 

We laud back in our lawn chairs and looked up at the bright blue sky. For some reason all the sounds seemed to be muffled because of the pine trees. Even the fisherman coming in with their boats down below in the parking lot made very little sound. For some reason the woods just absorbed it all and things were totally peaceful and quiet. 

We kicked back with the dogs in our lawn chairs and really made the best of the remaining part of our day. There was something serene and quiet about this place, I just can't really put my finger on it. The sites weren't any further apart or any closer than any of the other Corps of engineer parks. So it wasn't that. There was nobody camped right next to us so it was nice and open. Two sites over there was a fifth wheel but the people were not there. If the fifth wheel was moved, our view down to the Lake would be even better. 

In the far corner there was one other camper with a couple of older fisherman and a boat. They had come off the water and were very quiet. They headed to bed early. We were pleased to see that they weren't going to crank up some music or make a bunch of noise. It was just us and them and the empty fifth wheel by the end of the evening. No complaints! 

The next day, the people in the fifth wheel came and hooked up and took it away. Yay! Now we were really almost the only ones in this side of the campground. We only saw the host drive through twice to check on the site that was vacated to make sure that it was clean and ready for whomever was going to come next. But nobody did. 

The days started blending one into another. We relaxed and enjoyed ourselves and really didn't do much of anything. At each campsite there was a very nice sturdy metal fish cleaning table. It was the perfect height to stack up our Blackstone griddle and our Camp Chef oven. It was our own wonderful outdoor kitchen!

One evening we decided to cook up a delicious meal with some baked potatoes in the oven and I was going to try roasting brussel sprouts. Usually I just make them in a fry pan and caramelize them along with onions and garlic. But I thought I would try a new recipe about roasting them on a sheet of parchment in the oven. 

Steve threw this big slab of Alaskan wild salmon that we had brought in the freezer from home. The picture doesn't look like it's very big, but believe me it was huge. We split a slab like this in half between the two of us. 

When the potatoes were done, I pulled them out to just keep them warm on the side. Then I put in the brussel sprouts according to the recipe. I'm not much for recipes, but I followed this one anyhow. They came out okay, but I really do like the caramelized ones I do in the fry pan better. 

When I make them MY way, I first steam them a little bit with water till they're slightly tenderized. Then I pour out the water, drizzle them with olive oil and some dabs of butter and seasoning and onion and garlic bits. Then I cook them on medium heat until the bottoms just get caramelized perfectly brown. The top still stay a little firm and the edges of the leaves are even somewhat crunchy the way I do them in the fry pan. But nevertheless, these still got done and they were good. 

So here was our evening meal of a big slab of salmon and all the fixings. Yum yum! 

Three of our evenings in a row were just absolutely perfect weather! We were treated to spectacular sunsets over the lake as the fisherman were slowly coming in. We sat up on our hill in our terraced campsite, overlooking the rest of the quiet campground. Temps were in the 70s, nights in the 50s. Perfect. 

The dogs, of course, were totally relaxed. We took walks around and they had a lot of birds and squirrels to sniff at and look and chase. We are quite cozy in our little motorhome and really have gotten used to making the best use out of all of our space that we have. It was an adjustment moving down from the 38 ft Safari, but we don't regret it at all by going smaller. I like that we kind of have three separate little areas, the front being the living area, the middle being the bathroom and galley kitchen, and then of course in the back is the big queen size bed that we can walk around either side. The dogs seem to think the bed belongs to them! But at night they get down and sleep on their own beds on each side on the floor. 

I happened to pick up my phone and Googled businesses in the area because we had seen a little gas station up on the main road before we pulled in. They sold bait and some little grocery items. We were also told that the gal in there cooks up some wonderful food. Especially breakfast for the fishermen. It was just a tiny little place. She had pizzas to grab by the slice, and a variety of items available in a deli case too.

But what to my wondering eyes should appear???? A quilt shop??? In the middle of this little teeny tiny burg of about four blocks wide by six blocks long? Three blocks wide actually... It said there's a shop called Sew N Quilt!! 

I looked up the information and gave her a call. I had to leave a message and she got back to me. She had just started getting her shop going and really wasn't technically open for business yet. She had inventory and was doing trade shows and booths at sales events. But she said sure, come on over and she would let me shop in her inventory totes!!! 

We peddled our bikes on over there at the appointed time and got to meet a really nice couple. ---along with their neighbor and a couple of their dogs. After I was done shopping, we sat around on some lawn chairs and jibber jabbed with them until almost dark. Then it was time to get back because we were on the bicycles and needed to get back into the campground before dark. What nice people and I got some wonderful treasures and quilting tools to add to my array of implements. 

Each morning we woke up to absolute peace and quiet. If you look through all these neighboring campsites on the far right corner you can see the fisherman. They were so quiet they left every morning early and didn't come back until almost dark. Now if there have been other campers all in these sites, it might have been a different story. But in the meantime, while we had the place to ourselves, we were going to make the most of it. 

We took walks each day down around the swimming area that is cordoned off for safety. The park also has a cute little playground setup in the first loop. Both loops have nice flush toilet bathrooms and shower buildings. Each site has electrical and water. 

The afternoons were so warm and sunny. We would sit back in our lawn chairs and admire the view. And yes, the dogs each have their own lawn chairs 

It was so quiet in these woods, and I don't understand really why. Other than the pine trees that muffled the sounds? As we sat there, a straggling fly would buzz on around us and land near the dogs. Little Nicholas is on duty for flies. He is our little canine fly swatter! I posted a video a few blogs back of him snapping at flies as Steve lifts him up to catch them. Of course, he eats them. Ugh! 

Since we were here for a whole week, I hung up some of my little rotating doodads. Normally we hang these on the ends of the awning. But because the Corps of Engineer parks in this area of Arkansas each have these wonderful wooden roofed over pergolas over the picnic tables. I found a hook right in the middle that was perfect to hang one over our table as a centerpiece. I hung a second one on the end of the pergola. One is a gift from our oldest daughter Erin's family, the other is a gift from friends Roz and Gary. 

They rotate on little battery-powered packs, (the black cylinder things), and they make beautiful flashing optical illusions of each piece of metal fins as they rotate. The glass ball underneath in the coiled metal section gives the illusion of crawling up the screw shaped spiral rod and you think the ball will roll up and come out the top. But actually it's just an illusion... 

Here is a video of them in action:

We had a couple mornings that it was actually warm enough outside to grill out breakfast on our Blackstone.  We made toast in the oven and did up bacon and hash browns on the griddle. I finished up with some scrambled eggs in a fry pan on one of the cooktop burners on the top of the Camp Chef oven. 

On the fourth morning, our idyllic setup was going to change. Off to the south we noticed a bit of smoke coming along. At first we thought it would have been those wildfires from Texas and California that were happening? But no, it was getting stronger and stronger.

Bit by bit our beautiful blue sky became hazy! We went online and looked and found out there were some controlled burns happening all along throughout the National Forest just to the west of where we were camping! They would continue on through the rest of the week!! 

The smoke was getting worse and I was having a hard time breathing with my damaged lungs. We could really smell it too. 

We checked online to make sure none of the fires were out of control. We had to pull in the slides and shut all the windows. Now we were running the air conditioning just to have positive pressure going outwards to keep any of the smoke from intruding into the motorhome..

Our idealic week at Carter Cove was coming to an end--- two days early!

We checked with the campground host, and he easily credited us back for our extra days because we had a very good reason to leave the campground. We loaded up and got on our way and headed north up and around any of these fires.

Time to move on.... Goodbye Carter Cove. You were a really great campground. We have fond memories and we will return again someday. Hopefully without any controlled burn fire smoke! 

Only 66 mi traveled 

1,354 mi so far