Humming across Oklahoma

I wonder if everyone in McAlester wakes up in the morning glad the place has not exploded? Bruce laughs at my anxieties. The US Defence’s Ammunition Facility is incredibly safe and high-security, he assures me.

But it turns out to be located beside a very odd little town. Our morning explorations of McAlester reveal a town covered in statues of Buffaloes, not because there are any buffaloes around the place but because its football team is called the Buffaloes and they are the star turn of the town.

There ain’t much else, I can tell you.

McAlester has a sort of decaying charm to it.

Organ music is coming from a very ugly and huge cream brick church as we drive past. A train whistle is blowing.

There are lots of empty buildings in the town centre, a little sewing centre and lawyers. Yes, law offices. I never saw so many law offices in such a confined space. Their only competition is loan offices. There is a bank, too. But lawyers rule the McAlester CBD, hands down.

We pause to post a parcel at the post office. It is a friendly, helpful interaction but it takes about an hour. Sending parcels to Australia is uncommon and it is always a long and complicated process.

On the road out of town the strip malls show that the place actually does have a healthy population and economy. It has and Oklahoma East College and, therein, a very lavish colour sculpture depicting a cattle drive.

We’re headed for Tulsa today.

Past a neat trailer park and a big cement factory, we rattle forth on one of those cement roads with rat-tatting expansion joints. Not my favourite things.

Soon we’re in open country on smoother roads. There are low trees. It is dryer here. Vulture circle overhead.

A nice town name. Indianola.

An odd name. Eufaula. It’s the name of a lake, a huge shallow flat brown lake which runs beside the road. It goes on and on. It is very peaceful. Quite lovely.

There’s a sign to Canadian Indianola. My mind spins. Canada is nowhere near. I check with Google. Ah, it is a local town.

I learn that we are in Creek country. It is an important Native American tribal identity. Arrowhead State Park is around us now and, over a low hill, the road presents a vista with a pale brown lake.

We pass over the South Canadian

River on a long causeway with brown waters on either side of us, little mud cliffs etched on the shore.

Who knew that Oklahoma had so much water?

We turn into the town of Eufaula. It looks interesting. There is a sign to

The Haunted House Restaurant. Hmm

There’s a tall water tower, panels of tourist information and a little main street of inviting-looking shops, and look, the Granny Vapors Shop and E-Cigs store. I want to go in. I want to go in.

Bruce says no. It’s lunch we need.

A lot of cars surround a Country Buffet building so we swing in to give it a go. How odd. For all those cars, there seem few people inside. Where are they? Just a few people moving around and another couple in in a kitchen behind a big servery. Something was very strange about this place. Then I saw the religious screeds posted on the walls and the crosses, the crosses. This is some sort of revivalist den. Bruce and I look at each other and sidle out the door.

Braum's is across the road. We have been keen to try this Oklahoma institution anyway. It is family-owned, famous for its fabulous ice creams and the fact that it is the only major ice cream producer that milks its own cows.

It also specialises in burgers. Very good burgers. Of course, Bruce and I order the salad special which turns out to be superb. And I can’ t resist the idea of a pumpkin spice latte. This is quintessentially American and must be sampled. Oh, my, oh, sweet swoon. Ambrosia. A million kilojoules go down the sighing hatch and I don’t care. No wonder there are so many fatties in America.

The Eufaula Lake goes on. Great shallow freshwater with sandy beaches and low scrub.

There’s an RV park along the road, all tricked out with faux palms to be a cement tropical oasis.

Onapa is identified by a very low water tower which suits these low watery lands.

Farmlands emerge, small farms, fields with hay bales, rusting farm machinery, low grassy crops, small barns…

A Baptist Church. Incongruously, a McDonalds in Spanish architectural style.

The town of Rentiesville.

The Creek Nation Casino.

Lovely pastures, flat land with happy cattle.

There’s Checotah, world headquarters of steer wrestling, if you’re interested.

Names we pass: Muskogee, Wagoner, Pryor, Pecan Creek…

The road has been good but now we strike a closed lane but it has not created a bottleneck out here. The traffic is relatively sparse. But where are these roadworks? Why is the lane closed? This happens a lot. Miles and miles are driven on restricted lanes. Is there some team out there somewhere who go out with bollards closing off highway lanes just for amusement?

Speed signs direct the maximum of 70mph and the minimum of 40mph.

We know the police here are hot on speeders. We wonder what they do with the slow ones. We envisage slow car chases…

We are getting silly. Cabin fever?

We turn on the radio and listen to Country and Western music. That makes us a bit silly, too.

We pass Wayside Creek, Anderson Creek and the Outlaw Motor Speedway.

It is still all mown neatness on the verges of the road. Oklahoma is a neat state. I like it.

Civilization shows itself in the form of huge signs. Creek Nation Casino. Braum's. Peach Barn. La Quinta. Rodeway Inn. Wendy’s. Visit Muskogee. Valero Petrol. Lifebreak Youth Ministries. Oklahoma’s Only Submarine.

Muskogee is a density of fairly grim-looking motels. The Spooner Motel is as downmarket as they go. Even the Deluxe Inn looks bleak. The Economy Inn is downright terrifying.

A strident service station sign says Kum & Go. I say. Is that a bit vulgar? Is Kum a brand of petrol?

A cluster of commerce - Little Caesar’s, Runt’s BBQ, an Amish Fudge factory... a hospice? Set alone in a fenced paddock and painted lurid eye-stopping unsecret pink is Little Secret Adult Store.

It looks bleak and lonely out there. One car.

There’s a pseudo castle with grey battlements. How extremely odd.

There’s a medical centre advertising its gynaecologists.

A sign: Got E. coli? State Water Act. Hmm

Names - Tehlequah, Bacone, Shawnee, Mazie, Chouteau, Coweta, Broken Arrow…

A traffic light. Red. We stop.

It’s the Muskogee Turnpike. West to Tulsa.

The landscape is now soft scrub. It is almost park-like. Pastures, cattle, trees. These trees are divine. And the blends of trees very aesthetic. I have no idea what they are.

There’s an occasional neat farm.

Low and sparse woodlands, more grazing black cattle.

There’s a Pet Resort offering dogs for adoption.

Now, huge radio transmission antennae towers.

Developments and techno-style buildings appear on the skyline. Huge housing developments.

Phone towers. A mysterious industrial complex. Oh, it’s a plastics factory.

We are in Wagoner County says a sign.

Another sign says: So You Want The Best Airport Parking Security? Fine. Hmmm

These must be the outer burbs of Tulsa. St John Broken Arrow Hospital. Car and truck yards. There’s the city - sparse semi-highrises on the horizon.

And suddenly more traffic.

We have arrived.