Great Plains Road Trip Begins

This post finds us in Pratt, Kansas, having traversed Oklahoma from south to north today. We have begun a road trip to see Mount Rushmore and visit some Colorado ski resorts on our way back to Texas.  I’ve wanted to see Mount Rushmore ever since I saw the movie “North by Northwest.” Cary Grant won’t be there, and I’m sure it is more commercialized than when that movie was made decades ago, but still… and it is a national monument! Because we will only be in the lower eastern part of the Rocky Mountains, we are basically taking a road trip thru the Great Plains.

We left the ranch this morning at 9:20 am, and made a prolonged lunch stop at the Kiowa and Red River casinos just across the Red River from Wichita Falls. Our cows are looking good and have plenty of grass because of the recent rains. The females are definitely pregnant – Thelma, being the shortest one of the herd – looks like a black barrel with legs. However, they aren’t ready to calve yet and probably have at least a month before we have new calves.

Phillip did all the driving today. I expect he will continue to drive as he gets bored being a passenger. I brought some crocheting, so when the scenery looks like this, I can stay occupied. We were pleasantly surprised with today’s driving conditions. We took US 183 then picked up US 281 thru Oklahoma, mostly on two-lane roads. However, we never had a traffic slow-down and we were usually the only car in sight. I guess everyone else was on the interstate highway. Yes, we had to slow down thru towns, but the route was so much better and traffic lighter than the highway.

We stopped in Clinton, Oklahoma, at their Route 66 museum. It was a nice little museum, only $5 each to visit. We saw vintage cars, signs, and items that our grandkids (and maybe even our kids) will never see: a phone booth, a rotary phone, and a punch button cash register.

 

The museum did a good job taking the visitor thru the history of Route 66, “the mother road,” with displays of its construction, the exodus of the “Okies” to California on Route 66 during the Dust Bowl, the Rock and Roll era’s drive-ins and diners, and the eventual end of Route 66 when it was decommissioned because of the interstate freeway system.

One of my favorite display areas was the one about the rise of bus travel across Route 66. I took several pictures of the Greyhound bus company items. My dad retired from Greyhound after driving a bus for almost 35 years. I have found memories of riding with him on occasion. He never drove on Route 66, as he worked out of Cincinnati, Ohio, but the Greyhound logo and bus stories on the signs resonated with me. 

Phillip got a real kick out of the hippie van they had in the museum. Of course, he was just a kid in the 1960’s and in high school then the Air Force in the 1970’s, so I was probably closer to being a hippy than he was.  Even so, I know I never rode in a van like that, although I did come to Texas in a VW Beetle in 1978.

Since we are on a road trip, I chose to pose next to the station wagon. Shades of Clark Griswald! No kids or elderly relatives with us, though. On a related note, we did stop at two WallyWorlds, aka Walmarts, today. Once in Wichita Falls to pick up oil for the SUV and the second time in Alva, Oklahoma, to use the restroom and buy a delicious dinner. I’m actually not kidding about that dinner. Those Hormel ham, cheese and cracker packages you can buy for $6 are actually quite good and more than enough for two people.

We planned to spend the night in Alva, but the options in Alva were either dumpy looking motels or tremendously over-priced hotels. $169 plus tax for Alva, Oklahoma? We paid less than that for the Hyatt on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. That’s why we picked up our Walmart dinner and kept driving. We passed some interesting areas, especially this one where the erosion exposed layers of grey rock in the red soil. I saw a pheasant next to a recently cut field and we both saw a spotted fawn, wanting to cross the road in front of us. We slowed almost to a stop as we passed so we could actually stop if she darted out in front of us.

We stopped for the night at almost 9 pm at a Super 8 hotel in Pratt, Kansas, 68 miles farther than we planned to drive. Less than ½ the cost of those Alva hotels! Free WiFi, free breakfast, a refrigerator, and a new TV. The art above the bed illustrates something else we’ve seen, other than thousands of cows, namely wind farms. Lots of wind farms in Oklahoma. I expect we’ll see more of them here in Kansas also. Tomorrow, we’ll drive north thru Kansas. Since Dorothy and Toto are associated with tornados, here’s hoping we don’t see them!