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.

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?