The road to ammo-land

The day dawns humid, windy, cloudy. We’re sadly reflecting upon our experience with the Crowne Plaza Hotel’s rather inexplicable indifference to our double episodes of bathroom flooding as we drive off along Dallas’s Northern Tollway.

The Tollway has had us a bit tricked.

At first I was jangling change eagerly to be ready to pay the tolls. But it turns out it does not take money. It posts toll costs such as $1.48 but it has no tollbooths in which to pay them. It seems to photograph cars and then what? We have now been up and down this Tollway many times and undoubtedly been photographed. So will the hire car company get a toll bill we have to pay? How do they enforce this? It is the mystery toll of Dallas.

We’re photographed one last time as we whoosh off through all the overpasses, out of town along courses of powerlines, past ploughed fields, car businesses, road construction and a vast ghetto of huge and handsome corporate office buildings - Merrill Lynch, Ciber, BMW, Alliance Data, Legacy Texas, fancy banks…

Oh shit. We've missed a turn. Did you see that exit, says an indignant Bruce. Round and about we have to go, Even Siri Google is confused. Finally, we are on the Sam Rayburn Tollway, a big, clean six-laner.

Out through the burbs and fields of cows we hum, heading north through Texas.

Today we hit the 11,000 mile mark on this trip, says Bruce as another toll camera records our visit. Landscape whizzes past as it has done for these almost five months.

Fields, a massive cinema complex, power lines stretching away into the distance.

Oh, grief, we are driving in the sky. So high! Scary. This is one hell of an overpass. I hate heights.

The speed limit is 70mph. Some seem to think it is not enough and whisk past us. They’re scary, too. Here comes a place called McKinley - and another huge cinema complex. They really like movies around here.

More car yards. Another ubiquitous strip mall featuring all the usual chain stores.

More vast car yards.

Sign: Need an Attorney? Call Malcolm Miranda.

Sign: Criminal Attorney - Bill Knox

Good to see the hungry lawyers.

The road opens up to scrubland and crops. A lake. Fields. Vultures circling aloft.

Oh no. Big slowdown. A bottleneck. Four lanes have narrowed to one.

This is big road construction. They are making massive new roads. Sleek and lovely. Aha. That looks like house developments over there. They must be servicing new satellite communities with new roads. Oh, how this great, big, busy country just grows and grows.

Oh, and now another one. Unbelievable. Another huge development, a sea of tan-coloured rooftops stretching out into the landscape. And there is a water tower under construction for them. And now extensive tracts of ploughed land with big Land For Sale signs. The next phase of development, I guess.

My, it is a busy future-driven landscape out here.

A town hoves into view. Van Alstyne. And here’s the Grayson County Line with a service station and a folksy old motel. We whoosh through. The speed limit is 75mph.

A huge hoarding shows a picture of a baby and the words The Future is in Your Hands. True.

And here the farmland is still being farmed. Great expanses of fields all freshly-ploughed and milky chocolate-coloured.

Above them, a beautiful big puffy cloud blue sky. The day has cleared right up.

A row of hoardings: Cowboy Chicken, Lone Star Inn, Cowboy Boots.

A place called Sherman features Angels of Care Therapy Paediatrics - and nothing much else until, get this - Stinky’s Scrap metal. What a juxtaposition.

Here come some more buildings and hoardings. Smile - Dr Ashe; Peanut Festival; Texas Healthcare $1 Billion Lottery; Tyson High Security Society.

Now a huge aluminium factory. Aloominem, I correct myself.

And a sign welcomes us to Sherman where, another sign adds, Dr Ashley Blunt Delivered Our Baby.

Isn’t that nice.

A chain of signs: Home Health, Collision Repair, Home Best Health Care.

Oh, a newspaper building. The Herald Democrat Newspaper.

Close by, Lucy Stop Tobacco and Discount sits pleasingly close to a Public Health building and a blocky edifice called Texoma Medical Centre which claims to be nationally recognised for exceptional heart care.

Sign: Are you curious about weight loss surgery?

Hmm.

I see Eisenhower State Park over there.

The road has turned vile. High speed, lousy surface. I have no idea what I am jotting on my notepad.

Jolting is the operative word.

Siri pipes up. Welcome to Oklahoma.

Immediately the road improves. Thankyou Oklahoma.

Oh, a warning about speeding. They might be strict here, I hint to Bruce. Not that he has not been exemplary throughout the road trip.

This is strange. There is a very different feel now. Just over the border, and there is a neat, old-fashioned feel to the world.

A lot of mowing has taken place. Big medians are sleekly groomed. Verge grasses are trim.

Farms and fields look super tidy.

Signs advertise an Amish Store and fudge factory with 75 cheeses and peanut brittle.

There’s a farm stand, a sign promoting All You Can Eat Catfish. A sign: AnewYou, Advanced Medical Systems. Sign: Slim Generator Weight Loss.

Beautiful sign declares we are in the Choctaw Nation.

The county is Durant. And here is a colourful cluster of commerce which may appease our hunger pains.

Oh, its the Amish Fudge and Cheese Shop with its 75 cheeses.

When we get out of the car, we are slapped by fierce, hot wind. The sky has cleared but it is a nasty sort of day.

The shop is lovely, cheerfully adorned with pumpkins and flowers. The Amish send their cheeses in from Ohio, it turns out. But the peanut brittle is made here. We taste and buy. And use the nice, clean Amish unisex rest rooms.

A Sonic burger joint is next door. That will do. We have not tried Sonic

and I have liked the old-fashioned line-up of drive-in bays. We drive in and order electronically. I am disappointed the girls are not on roller skates and there are no car trays as in the old days. We take our food and eat at one of their outdoor tables. Their burgers turn out to be rather good.

Back on the road.

A huge swanky Choctaw casino presents itself - and our road has become smart black bitumen. We hum along smoothly. My notes become legible.

A little down called Durant. There’s not much to it but it declares itself the City of Magnolias. No, there is another sign. It is no less than the Magnolia Capital of Oklahoma. Wow.

We look for magnolia trees. See a few.

Along the highways of neat Oklahoma we now see a walk-in, no-appointment medical clinic and hospital. Mini storage. Family dentistry. The SCOK State University. The State Fish Hatchery.

Soft undulations on the landscape and pastoral views out the widow. Dry grass. Pastel sky. Mown fields and windbreaks of established trees.

The wind outside is buffeting the car.

Stands of old trees, more mown fields, a signpost to stockyards, open grazing land.

It is a handsome, cared-for landscape. Soothing.

Cattle graze, white cattle, black and white cattle. In some fields, they lie sated under trees. It is all gentle and bucolic.

A community called Caddo. Mown expanses of grass surround the highway. The speed limit is 70mph.

Open space with cattle.

Oh, a sign offering Used Shipping Containers for Sale.

Traffic has thinned out here. It is peaceful, rural, wide open spaces land.

But it has mini storage of course.

And, hmm, police stopping a car for speeding. That warning sign was serious.

Here’s a glorious signpost juxtaposition. A Death and Dying Lawyer straight in front of Brown’s Funeral Service.

The road is lovely. Smooth and open. Landscape neatly cultivated. Lovely.

We cross Clear Boggy Creek and wonder if there is a Muddy Boggy Creek or a Murky Boggy Creek.

Now we cross Fronterhouse Creek, then Little Tushka.

Interesting names around here.

A sign advertises Crappie Minnows. Poor little things.

Now a farm stand and, huh? Boggy Botto Antiques? What’s with the Boggies round here?

We are passing Atoke which must be big because I can see a Walmart among the churches.

And a another policeman picking up another speeder.

We’re on cruise control, never fear, says Bruce.

More police. This time they’re escorting an oversized load. Huge. We are all stuck behind it. Trucks are all pulling into the overtaking lane to get a go at passing. It is not happening. We daisy chain, big and small. An almighty great trailer truck drives up impatiently on the inside lane beside us. Big white bugger. Heavens above, of all things, it is an Amish truck. Delivering 75,000 kinds of cheese, perhaps?

Our massive convoy rumbles on, past a Choctaw casino and, oh, look, finally the Muddy Boggy Creek, When, many miles on, we pass the wide load, it is a big transportable home.

We’re now in a landscape of low hills and dense scrub.

And, don’t laugh, North Boggy Creek.

Patient vultures are wheeling aloft as we pass a little community called Daisy and another Choctaw casino, rather nicely designed, this one.

A bit further on, a great big jail, a very fiercely-secure looking place with layers of savage wire and windows which are nothing more than narrow slits.

Onwards past mixed forest, lovely curly-looking foliage. Outcrops of rocks. Rounded hills.

Then ridges and tree-covered hills.

Quite suddenly, the land looks dryer. The undergrowth is stunted and scrub-like.

Oh, and bloody road works.

And, guess what! Another police car nabbing a speeder.

Of course, road-works speed restrictions are a classic trap. Vigilance, Bruce. Nagger, he responds.

We are entering Choctaw Nation land.

Farms with horses and, wow, a working oil well in that back yard.

A little township called Savanna.

I am just commenting on the lack of Trump signs when we spot a Trump sign.

And signs to the US Army’s Ammunition Plant.

Ye goddesses. This is where they make their ammo.

All the US Army’s shells, bombs and hand grenades are made here. The plant covers 50,000 acres, says Bruce.

There’s a motel with a God Bless America sign. Yes, indeed. Bombs and all.

Sign: Choctaw Family Services - a non-abusive family is a happy family.

Sign: Larry Buggs for State Senate and a pic of a grey-bearded bloke in a 10 gallon hat.

Sign: Get Cobel Cox for death and injuries.

Sign: Pick Your Dr Pepper.

All these signs show that we are entering a significant Chocktaw casino. A massive Life Church.

Happy Days Motel. A cinema complex including a defunct drive-in.

Sign: Dr Chat E Crawley - joint replacement specialist.

Siri pipes up. Your destination is on the left. The Holiday Inn Express on Peaceful Road, McAlester.

It had better be peaceful, say I, as we head to a huge and well-appointed room in the hotel. That ammo factory is a bit close for comfort. What are we doing here?

Just a co-incidence, says Bruce. McAlester is a nice town and it is well placed for a stop. The population is about 17,000, big enough for a Walmart. 4000 is big enough for a supermarket. 9,000 for a Walmart. The ammo facility is a big boost for this town - the main employer.

Hmm.

We unpack and go for an exploratory stroll. The wind has not abated. It is a bit on the nasty side. We decide we will only walk to the nearby Chili’s Restaurant for dinner.

And back to our lovely hotel room. We have not stayed in a Holiday Inn Express on the trip and we are so impressed with its space and comfort and we wonder why.

Bruce sinks into the sort of contented sleep of someone who has worked in the spheres of American defence and finds everything perfectly normal.

Not so easy for me. I pitter pat on my laptop and watch endless annoying election dissections on TV for hours on end.

I mean, surely I am not expected to sleep with the entire explosives supply of the American Defence Force as my neighbour?