Wild Winds! East to Missouri

Conway Rest Area Eastbound 

On Tuesday, April 1st if there was any joke played at all, it was the high winds.  As we got about our morning routine for a moving day, we weren't laughing.  31 mph winds with up to 50 mph gusts, it could be a challenging day on the highway. 🥺

Good morning!

One last picture of the stray dogs.
I've come to think they are 'resident' guardians.
I watched them play this morning and here 
'she' sits politely while he checks out the culvert for water.
They were quite friendly, i believe, and just sat and
watched from a distance when I took Gibbs out. 💕

We signed out at the casino and pulled out of the lot at 8:50. It was a mild. 52F/10C under mostly cloudy skies. Due to miscommunication on Google maps we went a few miles out of our way until we got back on track to I-40E. 

Some pictures of our travel day.
The 'Scissortail' Bridge aka Skydance Bridge
inspired by OK's state bird.
The red earth of OK and AR.
Old Glory blowing from South,
directly into our side.

Going through OK City was busy but Bill did just fine. I hate the speeds through the cities, I usually have my hand grasping the hand rest. 🤣 I don't know how that helps but it does. Once through that mess of traffic and construction it was pretty clear sailing. There are always slowdowns but it was pretty smooth. 

A pretty drive.
The Eufala Lake
and another one that didn't have signage
for the name.

We touched in 3 states today.
One sign captured but lots of
scenic views. 

We started looking for fuel stations with 160 miles before empty and at noon pulled into a Sinclair. They are usually priced well but this was higher than we expected, but at the same time, not unusual to see prices rise as we travel eastward. No matter, we fueled up and pulled over to eat our sandwiches. When we were all fueled and filled, we set out again. The day was warm, despite the winds, making it pleasant enough for a travel day. The winds only affected our fuel and only when we were traveling east. The Suite wasn't affected at all. 

The Bobby Hopper Tunnel in Arkansas.
It swallows vehicles, we were no exception.
I love the purple blossoms in the bottom left.
You can zoom through at 75 mph.

Back on I-40E, there were rough, bouncy, patches of highway so things inside will be shook up. With traffic, we can't always switch lanes, instead staying in the right hand 'slower traffic ' lane. The rest of our journey today was quite pretty, especially when we got onto I-49 (AR49) N. Lots of hills, taking us from 400' to 1600' in elevation. Black Beauty handled them like a champ, she was happy to have her power back. 😊 Inside, yes, it looked a bit like the Royal Rumble but actually only a recliner and the coffee table had shifted. 

This time Old Glory is actually blowing from
behind us, thank you!
At the TA station, I saw this stone compass
with various cities and their distance.
The other side had the southern cities where we've spent
the winter. Kinda cool!

Our destination tonight is the Conway Rest Area. It is a duplicate of the westbound one with the same name. We have stopped there before on our route south but we can't remember if we actually stayed overnight. Memories!! It's why I write a blog. We made one more fuel stop for good measure, so we didn't have to do it first thing in the morning. This time at a TA Travel Centre in Mt. Vernon and Bill was able to use his Mudflap fuel app and get .40¢ off the $3.43 sticker price. Yay!

Another Spring picture.

Just 9 miles past Marshfield, we pulled into our rest area and pulled into one of the 9 or 10 rv lanes for the night. We opened our slides, with no worries of a semi hitting them upon their arrival or departure in the truck lanes. It happens! This was great. We arrived at 5:30 and while Gibbs and I walked around, Bill took care of offloading Black Beauty into the Suite. It is windy, but mild. Here it reached 65F/18C with a low of 60F/16C. We'll be praying for a safe night's sleep.

Here we are for the night.
A great spot and if the trucks are noisy,
our heads are on the quiet side of the Suite.
They won't keep us awake after the long day!

This was another long day, one I didn't think we'd repeat but it went smoothly with no worries or concerns. 😁For supper, I had thawed ground beef so made hamburger helper with mixed vegetables. It was tasty, easy and required no appliances = no generator. For dessert, of course, we treated ourselves to the 'long day' reward of a drumstick. 

Supper was quick and good.
Good night!

Thank you for stopping around. I appreciate each of your comments. Have a good night!