Blogs from Elk City, Oklahoma, United States, North America

New Mexico has reintroduced us to the heat as we continue our eastern drive into the northwestern part of Texas and note an absence of reservoir water. The NPS staff at their Fritch HQ are helpful and we make a short visit to the Albetes Flint Quarries National Monument for an explanatory video of how natives used this valuable rock to fashion arrowheads and other tools. We also learned about the Meredith National Recreation Area and had a chance to drive through Wheeler, TX, the county seat of Wheeler County, named for early Texas jurist Royal T. Wheeler. More cattle were in feeding pens along the roadside as were sorghum fields depending on constant irrigation. This country is obviously farm and cattle land and the economy also depends on the pumping oil wells. We did notice ... read more

We are continuously trying to advance after taking note that more than 1700 miles are still left. Avoided stopping in New Mexico for a stay to heat index and fire. Arrived in Amarillo, TX with our sights on eating a large piece of steak but gave it up after noticing that local city streets are hard to maneuver around and that our expected seating time was nearly into the following day after having arrived at 10 a.m. Crossed into Oklahoma and also better weather. At least until we arrived in Elk City. We were quite some distance away from our destination in OKC so the locals suggested plugging into the free power outlets found throughout the I-40 in overflow casino or city parking lots. Plugged in and spent the night there trying to cool off and ... read more

Grace and I woke up in Tulsa this morning (I think that is the same place we went to bed last night. I was too tired to care.) It was kind of a "dive" of a motel down in the industrial area of Southern Tulsa but it was close to Route 66 and it had a keyboard, even though the spacebar didn't work very well. You wouldbegintotypeanditwouldlooklikethis. Then you would have to go back and pound on the spacebar to make sure it created a space. Needless to say, it was frustrating trying to write our blog. I had mentioned that my high school friend Denny Larson from Stanley in lives in Tulsa. He married a girl a couple years behind us in school, Cheryl Maki. DEnny and I were on the wrestling team together and ... read more

We left Memphis yesterday after visiting Graceland. On one side of Elvis Presley Boulevard is some hideous complex that holds various exhibits including his jets and cars. The war memorabilia of Elvis was worth seeing as it had many little ration and equipment cards, his uniforms and the story of meeting Priscilla. Mostly I thought this side of the street was poorly setup with the main goal of getting visitors to visit all the exhibits seperatly so that you then have to enter one of 13 gift shops. Also, park some where else other than the complex as it appeared they were charging $10! We walked from our hotel as it was next door. When you are ready to see the mansion they hand you an audio set and you hop on to the shuttle which ... read more

Our team members! (L-R) Beth Milner, Debra Risley, Pam Hagerman, Janet Covalt, Brad Whinery, Lauren Givens, Hallie Milner and Rod Minor. Last night the Elk City Church of Christ gave our team a 'send off'. We are getting so excited!! Tomorrow we leave to spend the night at Yukon and we will fly out of Oklahoma City at 5:50 AM Saturday. We welcome your prayers! Pray for any hearts we may reach while we are in Tanzania! ... read more

Obfuscator writes: When we left our motel in the morning, we had a few Amarillo stops in mind for the day. First we headed a bit west of the city, to what is known as the Cadillac Ranch. Here, in the middle of a big empty field, sit 10 old Cadillacs. Well, perhaps sit isn't the right term. They're all buried nose first in a row in the big empty field. That's not necessarily the most impressive thing about the Cadillac Ranch. Each of these Cadillacs is covered from top to bottom with graffiti. The owner of the ranch invites any and all to come with spray-paint and cameras to decorate his Cadillacs, and sure enough, the same morning we visited, there were others doing the same. We picked up a couple of cans on the ... read more

Welcome to Day Two! We woke up this morning around 8am, showered, ate some cereal and headed out on the road. We got a bit turned around in the beginning, just finding our way back to Route 66, but after we found it it was smooth sailing....we kind of. We finished up Missouri and continued on to Kansas, a whopping 13.2 miles!!! In Kansas we passed over the Marsh Arch Bridge (the last of its kind), it was very cool (sorry that it is a bit crooked). After passing over the bridge and driving a couple more miles of Kansas we crossed the state line into Quapaw, Oklahoma. In Quapaw we passed the Spanish Revival-style Coleman Theater. Many more miles down the road we entered the town of Miami, Oklahoma only to find out that ... read more