Departed: Russellville, Arkansas 8:30 a.m. Arrived: Oklahoma City, OK 4:00 p.m. 286 miles
Hello friends,
I didn't think I'd have anything worthy to share today, however, we did have a little bit of an adventure. First of all we rode through a lot of foothills, I guess maybe of the Ozarks. It reminded me of one of my favorite children's novels...Summer of the Monkeys, which took place in the Ozarks.
As we were approaching the Oklahoma border I told Bill we really should stop at the welcome center and see where we should go for a Native American history lesson. So we ask the very helpful lady if we were going to make one Native American stop where should it be. She says the Five Civilized Tribe Museum in Muskogee. She shows us on the map, we ask how far off I-40, she says 15 miles, so we take off for Muskogee. As we think we are getting close, we see a sign that says Muskogee 40 miles.... so we look at one another and say what the heck, we've committed... Apparently neither of us can hear as she must have said "50" not "15" miles! So we sit back and enjoy the very green, hilly scenery. Now we were not expecting trees, green hillsides, and water everywhere in Oklahoma. It is very similar to north Georgia. There were many ranches with horses and cattle. I did even spot a longhorn steer of some kind. The picture below is very typical of the area.
So we get to Muskogee and are trusting Mr. Garmin to lead us to the museum. We follow directions, take a right through some housing projects, take another right up a steep hill with 2 or 3 s curves with Bill saying, "I don't know about this." At the top of the hill is a Veterans' hospital with a little sign that says Five Tribes Museum to the back of the hospital. We arrive in the parking lot of a neat very old building with only one car in the parking lot. We are both thinking, THIS is the one place the welcome lady sent us, but we are committed, so we pay our 3 dollars (he asked us if we qualified for senior citizen discount, had to be 62!) I am humiliated... not really! As it turns out it was a very authentic, but small museum. It was very neat building built in 1875 (pic below) It was about how the five tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole) all were relocated there and how they combined to become part of the U.S. and wanted to be their own state but are not, etc. So that was our history lesson for the day, a very sad part of American History. We then proceeded to Oklahoma City through some more pretty country.
Did see this sign: "Beware hitchhikers may be escaped inmates." Thought that was kind of funny. Saw a couple of working oil wells, just in the middle of a pasture. Also thought it was interesting that their water towers are skinny tall cylinders. (don't know why this picture won't go in the right place, but it is the Five Tribe Museum.)
Arrived at Twin Fountain RV Park, thought we'd run to the grocery store before we set up... 2 hours later, after following Mr. Garmin on a goose chase for Albertsons that are now closed, we settle on Walmart. Bill says there are 3989 Walmarts across the country, I'm sure we'll find at least half of them!
Happy Camping!
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