Saturday September 19
Saw two lone scissortails in fields today, blowing my theory about the fall congregations...or else these hadn't gotten the word yet. My theory was that in fall, scissortails leave their lonely existence in the grassy fields and congregate along lake shores, where they fuss and scream at each other until the time is right to head south. I'm no longer sure that theory is sound, but you cannot argue that there are always a lot of scissortails around lake shores in the fall.
I got in a jog to the other camping loop and around, but I must have cut it short somehow because it only took fifty minutes. Then we packed our cooler and went on a road trip.
The object of the exercise was to check out a few campgrounds nearby and see if their descriptions online matched reality. Answer: not in the slightest. Campground descriptions are absurdly subjective, it seems. I'm sure the people camping next to us would describe the one we're at as a "beautiful place" and they "had a great time"--but my description would involve words like "sucky", "boring," and "noisy."
Before looking at campgrounds, we decided to check out the Sequoia Wildlife Preserve, at the junction of the Canadian and Arkansas River. According to Google it had a couple of handicapped-accessible walking trails and a six-mile auto tour. It was a pleasant drive, and their signage was excellent. Even though we met not a single worker, host, or employee of the Forest Service, we found everything easily.
And it was a great place. No, we didn't see any wildlife to speak of--it was midday by the time we arrived. In the winter we might have seen flocks of snow geese and the water might have been exploding with ducks, but it was too early in the year for all that. I did see a small flock of White Pelicans and a single gull, along with the usual Great Egret and Blue Heron.
The preserve has several fields planted with corn and some smaller crop, probably soybeans, that look like they will be left for food. The mission of the National Wildlife Preserves is not what you'd think--they're not about preserving "wildlife." They're about preserving game for hunters. It's trendy and cool to put in an occasional "nature drive" or a handicapped accessible walkway, and that sort of thing might bring in an occasional out-of-state visitor, but the real purpose for these "preserves" is to keep the cash flowing from hunters' game licenses and fishers' fishing licenses. Even though I'm a card-carrying treehugger myself, I appreciate hunters. Not on my own property, of course, but they serve a useful purpose--they keep these natural areas out of private hands.
We met a guy fishing with his little boy; he explained a bunch of complicated rules about the various areas of water that were marked off with buoys to warn motor boat traffic away. Not that we saw any motor boats--it was a delightfully empty place. We saw as few as six people the whole hour we were there.
I took the opportunity to drop my binoculars--hard--on the concrete and destroy them.
As we were driving through Oklahoma, I found a radio station that was sponsored by the Chickasaw tribe. I enjoyed listening to it--they played public service announcements, oldies, and some current country music. But, I wondered, why Chickasaw? I thought the eastern half of Oklahoma was dived up between Cherokee, Creek (central), Choctaw and Seminole--but I was flat wrong. It is actually Cherokee (northeast), Choctaw (southeast), Chickasaw (south-central) and Osage (north-central). The Chickasaw have the area to the south-center while we were in the southeast and northeast, but the radio station is broadcast from multiple transmitters all over.
There was some interesting news about the Indian tribes in Oklahoma recently. The Supreme Court ruled on July 9th that if a Native American is involved, certain major crimes committed within the boundaries of reservations must be prosecuted in federal court rather than state court. So if a Native American is accused of a major crime in downtown Tulsa, the federal government rather than the state government will prosecute it. Less serious crimes involving Native Americans on American Indian land will be handled in tribal courts.
But hearing that made me curious--who owns the land? It turns out that just because the boundaries of the nation are marked on the map, that/doesn't mean the tribe owns all the land there. It's analagous to a county line--a county doesn't own all the land within the county. It's more of a jurisdictional boundary, and in fact, the nation probably doesn't own very much of that land. But, oddly enough, they can make a killing by operating casinos.
Oklahoma Indian gaming revenues have risen 15 straight years — reaching nearly $4.4 billion in 2016. Oklahoma tribes are required to pay fees to the state based on the amount of revenue they derive from Class III games such as slot machines, blackjack, craps and roulette.
Many tribes also operate Class II and Class I games, but do not have to share with the state any revenues derived from those games. Class II games are bingo and bingo-style games, and include electronic versions of bingo that resemble slot machines. Class I games include traditional Indian games that may be a part of tribal ceremonies and celebrations and social gaming for minimal prizes.
Another change brought by the Supreme Court decision is to give the tribes a bigger say over oil and gas wells, refineries, and pipelines — including those running to the Cushing hub of the Keystone XL. <quote> With the high court’s ruling, oil and gas drillers in the nation’s fourth largest oil-producing state suddenly find themselves operating within the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and four other tribal reservations. Instead of dealing with business-friendly regulators from the state of Oklahoma, oil producers may soon have to contend with both tribes and the federal government, which often manages land for Native Americans.
Anyway, back to the trip--I can't write in detail about all the places we visited because I haven't reviewed the maps and notes to sum them up. There are some really pretty places, especially Tenkiller State Park, but they don't seem to be in full operation. At Tenkiller there were a few poorly placed full hookup sites, all in use, and a whole bunch of lovely water+electric sites with the connections disconnected. The boxes were open and the wiring hanging loose. Why, I cannot imagine. (Or determine by searching online.)
We went to two Corp Of Engineers parks that were okay but the sites were mostly short and poorly situated. And, I believe, closing for the winter at the end of October. The drive was pretty but I wouldn't call it mountainous. It's like if you took the Arkansas Ozarks, shortened them by half and cut out every other hill. Bumpy but not at all scenic.
We returned disappointed. There may be some great campsites up farther north, but they'll have to wait for another day.
I finally saw a bird in this crummy little campground--a Belted Kingfisher. Just once, and he flew away immediately.
Sunday September 20
Pancakes for breakfast! They turned out very well, I think, although a judicious application of real butter and real maple syrup would have made a distinct difference.
Meal summary and critique: salmon, skewers and baked potato--excellent as always. Barbequed chicken and salad--very good. Leftover salmon, gumbo, rice and salad--also very good. Steak and shrimp fajitas, guacamole and salad--excellent except I accidentally fixed the shrimp the day before so they spent an extra day in the marinade which had lime juice. That didn't ruin it, but it didn't help it either. I'd prefer chicken for myself, which I might do next time. Free range beef would be best but I can't expect my chef to keep one piece of meat separate from the other. Then on the last day, leftover chicken, skewered vegetables and salad. Marvelous choices, all.
I got in a quick jog and then made the pancakes while I wrestled with a huge load of dirty dishes left over from the night before. On the night before a moving day, I really need to take the effort to wash all the dishes--even if we're going to mess up more during breakfast, it's worth the trouble.
All that took longer than it should have and we didn't leave until 12:18. There was no rush--it was only a three hour drive.
The truck had developed a scary rattle on the right side, underneath, around the middle. Ed checked, and the only likely cause he could find were some worn out rubber pads around the brackets that hold the muffler on. I drove carefully, listening to the ratttle and cringing, until I finally got on a smooth road and up to speed where either the noise stopped or I stopped being able to hear it due to the engine noise.
The route home was just as horridly messed up with road construction as the one up. For future note, here are the bad spots:
-- From six miles north of MacAlester until the city limits; the entire southbound lanes were obliterated and both sides were squeezed onto the two narrow lanes of the northbound side.
-- From the highway 131 exit on down to somewhere; I didn't notice where. Just a single lane closure on each side.
-- From Caney to Caddo; both directions squeezed onto one side; very bad.
-- Around the northern approach to Durant, the construction was over but the lane marker painting was not done and the orange barrels were still sitting around.
== All around the Choctaw Casino/Resort at Calera; concrete walls were up; lanes were rerouted; and it was altogether bad. But I don't remember any lane closures there.
-- All around Sherman, Texas,. There were walls and construction zones and they weren't marked, flagged or given any warnings about. You were just driving along one minute and the next, WHAM! There it was and you were squeezing gingerly alongside a wall.
-- Intermittently all through the north part of Texas, no construction but huge potholes. I avoided most of them but hit one square on. Wham.
We accomplished a quick and efficient refueling stop at ta VPRacing Truck Stop in Savanna. It took nine minutes, cost $59.57. We took on 28.9 gallons to fill the tank. Then we arrived at the house by 3:46, so that made the total trip including the one stop at three hours and twenty-eight minutes. not bad.
NOTES
1. A bad site in a good campground is a hundred times better than a good site in a bad campground.
2. Stay off US-75 and US-69 for the foreseeable future. Maybe by Christmas they'll be driveable.
3. A long day trip can make a bad camping site bearable.
4. Some wildlife refuges are must better developed for non-hunters than you'd expect. This makes a second one we went to that had a decent, well-marked driving tour. But try especially hard to find a map ahead of time--the roads inside the refuges are not necessarily shown on Google Maps.
5. A lot of COE parks are closed in the winter.
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