Friday morning, we detoured about 15 miles west, then south on 283 toward Dodge City, of Gunsmoke TV show fame. On the way, we saw a historical marker for the Sante Fe trail, which ran from Kansas City to Sante FE, New Mexico. We parked the trailer at Water Sports Campground. Not much water in the area behind the campground. Even the Arkansas River bed had no surface water in it. Don't know if this is unusual or not. After lunch and buying a few groceries at Wal-Mart, we went to the Boot Hill Museum, to watch a short video and see the displays. At $11 each, it was well worth it. There are lots of great displays, starting with the plains Indians, then the buffalo hunters, the railroad and the events that led to Dodge being the end of the cattle trails from Texas, and the culture that went with all of that.
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Saturday we 'got out of Dodge' heading south to Oklahoma. We also crossed a couple of the many rivers the cattle drives had to ford on the way north. The Arkansas in Dodge, and the Cimarron just north of the Oklahoma border. Once in Oklahoma, we noticed that the exposed soil here is red. Another interesting thing is that the grid roads start with EW or NS. Not a bad system. We drove down the west side of Oklahoma to Elk City through rolling hills with frequent patches of trees. This surprised us as our image of Oklahoma was flat prairie, with wind stripping the soil in the dirty 30's. Halfway between Woodward and Elk City we crossed the Canadian River, one of the larger ones on the route. Elk City is on I-40. We spent two nights here so we could watch the Nascar race on Sunday.
Monday, we headed out of Oklahoma. The first point of interest was a town called Granite. It is at the foot of the only significant hills, the Witchita Mountains, we have seen for a while. The terrain has been 'hilly', but because of creeks and rivers running west to east, not due to actual hills.
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| Wichita Mtns near Granite, KS |
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Then we crossed the Red River on the border into Texas. It lives up to its name, as we are still travelling through red soil country.
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| Red River |
We started seeing some cotton fields in Oklahoma. We stopped for lunch at a historic marker for the Great Western (Cattle Drive) Trail, which basically follows our route south from Dodge. About 2:00 we arrived at our destination, Whites RV park in Clyde, just west of Abilene, Texas, on I-20. We didn't cross I-30, since it starts on I-20 east of here in Dallas area and goes northeast to Little Rock, Arkansas, where it ends at I-40. We were a bit surprised to find that Whites had no emtpy spaces. They recommended a couple of nearby parks. The first two we called had no spaces either, but the second one had a phone message that they did have several overnight spots. We headed there, and found the office was closed until 3:00, but one space was available for 6 days, which works for us. We parked in the site, which has a bit of a tree obstacle, but works. We got talking to the fellow next door, and found out that the reason the parks are full is that there is a big pipeline project in the area. He works at Midland, a 3 hour drive west, and this is the closest place he could get a spot for his 5th wheel trailer.
Tuesday we arranged to take the trailer to a local RV service shop on Saturday, and leave it with them to get an estimate for repairing the slide-out. If we get them to do the work after they give us an estimate, they will store it for free after they repair it. Otherwise they will charge us for storing it until we get back.
Wednesday and Thursday we did some cleanup and got organized for our trip to Washington.
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