Day 4: Ozarks to Oklahoma
St. Louis, Missouri—Ozark Mountains, Arkansas—Hitchita, Oklahoma
We woke up early, about 7 A.M., in order to get on the road. Dwayne was a good guy and got up to see us off. The weather had been excellent all weekend and we had a good time in St. Louis but it was time to move on.
We were off by 8:30 A.M. and encountered a little rush hour traffic. Took I-64 to I-270 south then picked up I-44 west. Once out of the city, the terrain was still hilly and there were many trees. We stayed on I-44 till the Cuba exit where we turned south on MO 19. Yesterday, we made the command decision to go through the Ozarks instead of going into Nebraska. MO 19 is very hilly at points and passes through many national forests and recreation areas. It also passes through another Salem, Salem, MO (this had nothing to do with the choice of routes). We drove through the Ozark National Scenic Riverway and one of the many patches of the Mark Twain National Forest spread throughout the lower part of Missouri. Thayer is the last town in Missouri before crossing into Arkansas. We turned on AR 9 going southwest and the first town we encountered - Salem, AR (surprised?). Yes, Salem. How many is that? The towns on this road were few and far between. Once in a while there would be an unincorporated two-second town (it only takes two seconds to drive through these towns) but the towns listed in the atlas (which were only five to ten second towns) were about 15 to 20 miles apart.
There is not much to see here, the ground is too rocky for farming so there are just old houses and rolling, grassy, scrubby hills with the appearance of rock once in a while. Also, many evergreen trees which served as a constant reminder that, yes, we were in the south. Passed into Izard County and the towns of Mountain View, Melborne, and Clinton, AR. Turned south on US 65 in Clinton until AR 9 began again in Choctaw, AR. In the interest of time, we decided to cut short our Ozark tour through the Ouachita National Forest and take I-40 west. It was getting late and we wanted to cover a few more miles. The Ozarks were interesting but didn't really compare to any other mountain chain. Actually, it's not really a chain of mountains but a clump of mountains. It reminded me of the mountains in western New York, but New York was much prettier, probably because of the vegetation. The Ozarks are a lot scrubbier than New York and the towns look like southern towns with many old, run-down buildings and the like.
We passed on the "Hand clappin', knee slappin', toe tappin' good ole time" that we could have had at the Mountain View Ozark Folk Center - this is all I'm going to say about the culture down here. Picked up Izard County's White River Current, the local paper. Among the comical headlines is the announcement that Marlon and Alma Collins were proud recipients of the Yard of the Month. It sounds like they need incentive down here. Okay, that was definitely the last comment on the local culture.
First night of camping. Step 1: set up the tent.
We continued on I-40 paralleling the Arkansas River west into Oklahoma where the land became drastically flatter and the trees became more sparse. Passed by signs for Sequoyah's home in Sequoyah County, OK. For our first night of camping we chose to look at this place which was on a little branch of Eufaula Lake, which drains into the Arkansas River and is fed by the South Canadian River. It was about 6 P.M. when we got off the highway and into Checotah, OK. This put us on US 266 till we got to the campsite outside of Hitchita, OK. The camp was in a park, Gentry Creek National Recreation Area, set up by the US Army Corps of Engineers. We drove around the park and checked it out. There were two parts of the park. We chose the part where there were no people and figured that everyone was on the other side because that's where the bathrooms were. So we chose a site and parked the car and, being the experienced campers that we were, I asked, "Is that it?" Did we need to pay anywhere? We both shrugged our shoulders and laughed. I had only camped two nights in my life and Andy's track record was about equal to mine. We set up our stuff anyway. I think I lost five pounds in water due to the oppressive heat.
Step 2: forage for food.
Around dusk an army woman arrived and took $7 from us and asked us how we could stand the heat. She didn't seem to be handling it too well, she had the A/C blasting in the pickup. We talked about our trip and she concluded that she was the first "okee" we had met, and she was right. As night fell a cool steady breeze moved in off the moonlit lake. After cooking dinner (spaghetti) and cleaning everything up, we walked down to the lake's edge. It was a beautiful, clear night. We eventually went to bed after doing some planning in the tent for tomorrow's journey. This was our first night of camping - there would be many more to come.
