Day 42 - 5/8/11 “Can You Hear Me Now??” (We are in Hinton, OK at Red Rock Canyon Oklahoma State Park)

You're reading it correctly - that 100, but the
humidity is about 52% so it's not so unbearable

The Verizon ad comes to mind as we try our cell phones.  We are deep in a canyon and reception is spotty, if at all.  The Internet connection won’t connect but Heather was able to call her mom’s social worker in New Zealand (go figure that one out) and heard that all was well on this Mother’s Day.   By-the-way, Happy Mother’s Day to one and all. 

The day was spent along interstate 40 and it was interesting to see the changes in the lay of the land as we drove west (254 miles).  We started out at about 500 feet elevation in Fort Smith, Arkansas and gradually during the day increased to 1400 feet.  

Still some green trees. That line
of truck and cars was caused by
one pickup not moving out of the
lane when they broke down; it
went on for several miles.

Still some trees but fewer and
fewer as we went along

The incline was barely noticeable but as we ascended the trees thinned out, the prairie   predominated and the wheat fields multiplied.  

Even though our elevation is high, the heat
 is rising.  As you can see there are no trees,
just fields and fields of grasses - beautiful!

The temperature also rose and hit 100 about the time we turned off the Interstate to get to the canyon where the camp ground is.  When we arrived it was still about 92 but the humidity was low, so I think tonight will be nice and cool. This is NOT your Eastern North Carolina 92 degrees! We’ll spend another night here, tomorrow we’ll be mailing some forms for our camping trip to the South Island of New Zealand in February and searching for a wine store.  So far, Oklahoma is DRY!  3.2 beer is the only thing we’ve seen at grocery stores (and neither of us likes beer!).

Oklahoma City.

It is interesting to note (at least to us) that we have driven over 6000 miles and have only just today passed the halfway point across this huge country.  Of course we spent  lot of miles going to Florida and to Boston, but the size of this country is hard to recognize unless you travel it on the ground.  I suspect it will take us another 2500 miles to arrive home in Amity, with side trips and such.  I’m glad you all are along for the ride! (me, too).

Hopefully you can see the red, red rock in the pictures and how beautiful this place is; it’s really amazing what a little stream of water can create - eventually.

This looks like a lion to me.

Amazing walls on both sides of the road .
So very, very red.

  As Davis once said, “All State Parks are not equal” but this is one of the nicest yet.  It is called Red Road Canyon State Park.  It is long and narrow with those high red cliffs on either side.  There are day visitors all over the place having a lot of Mothers' Day family fun and dozens and dozens of folks on motorbikes (a little loud for Precious - she hid under the Bambi).

Home sweet Oklahoma home! Trees - we have trees, hooray!

We finished the 2nd book in the Amelia Peabody series we are reading and will probably start the 3rd.  Davis is also reading a new-to-him series about the American Indians (1st book is called People of the Wolf by Michael and Kathleen Gear) and I’m working on finishing my Robins (when I’m not fighting with the computer to get the pictures back in the earlier Blog entries!). 

We sat outside until we couldn’t see to read or needlepoint and once inside decided to use the air conditioning for the night (this is not like camping used to be, hooray).  I hope I can send this from a hotspot tomorrow.

Shalom,  Heather . . . 

And some more fun sites from the road:

Yep!

Wait, are we near Ashville?

One of the many random wells working away out here.