Westward ho

 12/5- Ardmore, Oklahoma 

   On the way out of town we found all of the town we were looking for on the way in. This was a day of non highway driving. Well sort of , we hoped onto US 70 and it took forever to get out of Hot Springs. Who would have thought it was such a spread out place. 

    The road switched between divided highway to three lanes to a two lane road. The speed limit was 65 to 70 on most of it. As we had a bit of cross breeze so doing 65 was pretty much out of the question. 

   In Western Arkansas we drove through miles of scrub pine forests. It was quite beautiful to crown the top of a hill and see pine trees forever. We slowly, if you ask the people behind me, made are way down out of the Quachita Mountains. These are rolling hills that made me feel like I was riding a roller coaster. They gradually flattened out as we made our way across southern Oklahoma. We began to see larger and larger ranches and fewer trees. This also mostly Indian reservation. I think it’s Choctaw Indians. Anyway we drove down a section of the Trail of Tears that went along this route.

    Google kind of crap out on us just before a major intersection and we ended up going the wrong way. It only took us about 50 miles to realize that we were on the wrong road. Coincidentally we also lost all signal to our cell phones. So while we merrily bopped along we were unknowingly getting off course. Fortunately once we figured it out it was only a 20 mile correction as the roads had mostly paralleled each other. 

    We finally pulled in a Walmart in Ardmore OK. We debated going to a campground but we had to stop at Walmart anyway to pick up a few things like groceries. And $100 later we had our “free” campsite. It is a pretty nice spot though backed up against a fence on the far side of the store. Apparently it’s common for campers to stay here. It’s a little noisy now but when the store closes at 11pm it should be fine. 

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