Across Oklahoma and Into Reality

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Bobcat Creek RV Park, Sayre, Oklahoma

Seems a little strange to me to be associating the two words 'Oklahoma' and 'Reality'. But the two sort of merged on yesterday's trip. We drove almost 300 miles, which is pretty much the distance across Oklahoma (not counting the panhandle). There are no green dots on this part of the trip so we just stayed on Interstate 40 the entire way, except for gas, potty, and lunch stops.

Ever since we left the Ozarks, we've been gaining altitude, so the car is working a bit. And there is wind to contend with, with unpredictable gusts that jolt the rig in all kinds of directions. I have to watch the road and hang on to the wheel at all times - so it is a little stressful. I can tell, too, that the engine is working a bit harder - gas mileage has dropped to barely 8 mpg. I'm hoping that is just the nature of the uphill climb, not that I have something wrong with the vehicle.

We passed through Oklahoma almost three months ago, heading in the opposite direction, downhill. The grass is a lot greener now and the level of activity seems to have picked up. But it is still Oklahoma with oil rigs and more Indian reservations than towns. Our RV park was originally a site where oil rig workers parked their mobile homes. There are still a lot of people who appear to be living here full time, although who knows what they do now. We did pass through a wind farm on the way here.

But we have a pretty good internet here and that was both a good and a bad thing. After not even any phone service at Great Smoky, most of the campgrounds after that had rough and uneven wifi and that made catching up on a lot of things impossible. But was able to do that last night. But not sure that was a good thing.

For one, I ran across some idiot on Facebook who argued that Trump's review of all the national monuments was because westerners were sick and tired of easterners taking advantage of their land. I had to respond to him that I was a westerner and was very happy with the creation of the monuments. And I had to point out to him that these monuments were not just seized from private holdings but were, almost entirely, taken from land the federal government already owned. And that this ownership came because the lands were either won by a war of some kind, or were purchased by federal funds. They never were owned by private citizens, so this certainly isn't, and never was, a case of seizure of private property which is what some nut cases want you to believe.

That pissed me off enough that I didn't care to continue on Facebook so I caught up on email. There was one from my insurance company about my auto and home insurance policy renewals. The one on the car wasn't too surprising, but the one on the house had a bomb in it. Our home insurance is going up over $2000 this year! Reading the notice in detail, it seems that they now don't believe we have any fire department service. This being news to me, it means I have a major headache to look into when we get home. Believe me, I don't look forward to paying more than $300 per month for home insurance!

And so reality begins to poke its often ugly head into the reservoir of happiness and delight we had built up from our trip. Maybe it really is time to just hit the road and never come back! (17.1.82)

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