On Wednesday, Mar. 14th
Bill and I were awake at 7 and up at 7:30 to greet the day. The sun was just
skimming the horizon on its way into the blue sky. I opened the window blinds
and made our tea and coffee. Well, I wasn’t quite awake yet, obviously because
I forgot to remove the depleted coffee pod from the Keurig before making my
tea. Bill laughed at the face I made when I tasted my ‘cof-tea’.
Once I made a real cuppa, we sat and
read comments and a couple of blogs. My daughter has written a new one so I had
to read that one for sure! It brought back memories of her early ‘journalism’
days at Two Cents. We wasted no time. We had our grapefruit, made the bed and
washed up. Things were closed up and we were pulling out at 9:10. The
temperature is already 46F and rising to a forecast 65F. That will be really
nice.
We pulled out of the Casino and there were still 6 rv's in the lot |
We followed US-81N instead of going
south back into El Reno and then caught the NW Expressway/OK-3 east for 14
miles. We were on the outskirts of Oklahoma City so passed many Malls. This is
where I’d be shopping if we lived in the area, everything we’d need was there.
Because of being alongside malls, there are a lot of stop and go points. Bill would have preferred to travel I-40 and avoided this. With that decision in the wash
we kept on and followed James’ instructions for the most part.
thought of you Charlotte when I saw this |
This was a different route than we’d
travelled before out of the city which took us onto I-35N, a somewhat bouncy
interstate, off and on for about 25 miles. Taking Exit 157 we were on OK-33E
headed towards Guthrie and Tulsa. The temperature has risen by 10 lovely sunny
degrees and it is 10:30 when we take this exit. Bill can relax now that we are
out of that crazy city traffic.
I'm sure many of you have seen this before It is striking, each time we see it |
OK-33 is a two-lane highway but we
are encountering very little traffic. This is a nice drive on a smooth highway.
With the variety of highways’, we’ll travel today Bill will have fun with his
regular road ratings, keeping you in the know! Diesel prices are getting better
and better the further east we go. Didn’t expect that! We drove through
Cushing, bouncy, bouncy but we were in a school zone so we were doing a slow 25mph
anyway.
We saw quite a few of these, pumping oil in Cushing |
Drumright was the next town and had
some wonderful looking storefronts. The old-town look was prominent. These were
nice little towns to drive through. We turned left onto OK-48 for 8 miles and
then right onto OK-51E. Now, we are following the truck gps. Nice to have a
choice between 2 gps’s and Google maps on my laptop. They are all different. We didn’t go far on OK-51 before taking the
ramp for US-64E/US-412E into Sand Springs.
Drumright has a pretty downtown |
We crossed the huge Arkansas River
but it was too hard to take pictures to do it any justice. In 14 miles we
veered left onto I-244E/US-412E/US-75N oh my! Tulsa was another busy drive
mainly because we were using their highway at the noon hour. Sometimes timing
is everything but we weren’t about to slow down just to miss it. It was pretty
straightforward and soon enough we were on the east side of the city.
It was 12:30 when we pulled off at
the Flying J/Denny’s for lunch. Brunch, really because we were both craving one
of their hearty breakfasts. Bill had ‘Slam’ of some kind and I had the Philly
Cheesesteak Omelette both with has browns. Yum, that hit the spot and will
nurture us for the whole day. It will be a small dinner meal tonight. That
makes life easy. We drove over to the RV lanes and filled with diesel for
$2.57/gal. Great!
Bill pulled back out onto
the road again at 1:30 and we got totally turned around. It was a mess trying
to get back on track but with patience and a few swear words (not at each other), we
got back onto I-44E/US-412E.
Hard Rock Hotel featuring Alana Morrissette |
We passed the exit of 69N to Chouteau
and took the left lane exit onto Alternate 412 East. This is another two-lane
highway and it is very familiar to us with a winding smooth road. This drive
took us through Locust Grove and Rose before we jumped off at US-59N. This is
yet another two-lane highway that seems to be riding pretty good.
A very winding two-lane road |
A field of deer? |
We arrived at Eagle’s Landing in
Grove, Ok at 4 pm. Funny that my post from last March, showed that we arrived
at the park at almost exactly the same time. This wasn’t a bad day at all, even
though long. We made some mis-steps which was frustrating but not damaging to
the actual route. We just kept plugging away until we found the right
direction.
These lights in Locust Grove are cool |
These light standards were in Jay |
This feels good to be in a nice park,
one we are familiar with, for a two week stay. It is one of our membership
parks that we can stay at for Free and we have Free wifi to boot. When we
arrived, our thermometer read 66F and the sun had followed us all the way. With
Broken Wing Weber and the satellite dish set up, we poured ourselves a drink.
Crossing the Sailboat Bridge in Grove, Ok |
Arriving at our park |
A nice improvement to the park, still an ongoing project |
I took a walk around the park checking
things out, as I usually do. The project they were just beginning a year ago is
almost complete. This nice waterfall and rocky pond sits just outside the pool
fence. Don’t catch these fish though!
Daffodils are in full bloom The sun's reflection on the pond makes for a pretty background |
Back at the Suite, I caught up on my
post. It is hard to believe that it is still so light out at 7 pm. We enjoyed the
rest of our evening by catching up on prerecorded episodes on our PVR.
The roadsides were loaded with daffodils |
Good night from Eagle's Landing RV Resort |
Hope your day was a good one too.
Thank you for stopping in. You may leave a comment if you wish.
Enjoy your two week down time!
ReplyDeletethanks!
DeleteGlad to see you made it to your destination. I tried the back roads in Oklahoma once. Got so aggravated with all the little towns I jumped back on the toll road (I-44) and have used it since.
ReplyDeleteGlad the weather is warming up for you. Enjoy your stay.
Thanks Doug. I didn't mind the small towns, just finding the right route out of Tulsa. Bill, was concerned about some of the low tree branches though on those winding roads so might have to find another way around the toll roads.
DeleteThe weather is going to be perfect for a couple of weeks now mid 60's and mid 70's.
You had a good travel day.
ReplyDeleteLove the back roads when we can take them. Enjoy Eagles Landing always a great place to hang out.
Bill was keeping an eye on the low branches, might not do that route next time.
DeleteWe will enjoy the rest here in this nice park.
That is quite a travelogue, you are good! Beautiful place and for two weeks, nice! Enjoy!!
ReplyDeleteah, thank you, it felt boring to me when I read before posting. ha ha
Deletethanks guys, we will put our feet up for a while, we are good at that!
Thanks for the travel notes that will be helpful if we follow your route. I have to admit I am a terrible navigator and most often just trust the GPS. That waterfall pond is a nice feature in an RV park. I bet the park is well looked after.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, hope it helps.
DeleteThis is a really nice park with great staff. They are always cleaning up things here which means constant improvements. :)
Oklahoma City was one of my favorite stops. We stayed at an Elks Lodge there and toured the town. Beautiful ... except for those pesky tornados! Be safe and know where the concrete bathrooms are!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip Nancy. We can see the concrete shelter from our site. :)
DeleteExcellent travelogue, I enjoyed it very much. Thank you!! Getting turned around is always an experience isn't it? In the over all day, the little misplacement was just a fun little side bar, even though it didn't seem fun at the time. You'll now know for next time.
ReplyDeleteI would love to take some of those back roads and will be checking them out on a map to see if they are going my way. Thanks again, and I look forward to reading Bill's post with the ratings.
Enjoy your time there.
Glad you arrived at Eagle's landing in good time. Enjoy your two week stay! That would be my choice at every Park ;-D
ReplyDelete