Mammoth leaves Great Plains

 Thursday 6/17

At 9:45 we left the campsite; at 9:54 we left the CLOSED dump station; at 3:18 we arrived in the driveway; and at 3:56 we were all unloaded and ready to rest. Whew.

I'm really going to blast Foss State Park for not warning us about the closed dump station. How is it that I can get no fewer than four texts about parking--your parking is going to begin--your parking permit has begun--your parking permit is about to expire--your parking permit has expired--but not a single one warning me that the dump station is closed?

Leaving the park, Google did it's usual shit again of routing us down a 2-mmile stretch of narrow, shoulderless, farm-to-market road instead of taking us the "longer" 3-mile way around on highways. Why can't I learn to NEVER assume that Google's routes make any sense at all????   Even in a car, that route would have sucked. But in an RV, it probably took an extra five minutes on account of the extra turns, stop signs, and having to slow down to let oncoming wide vehicles pass.

And the most annoying thing is, I'd have discovered this and changed the route if I'd had my expected five minutes of down time at the dump station. Bah.

Eventually we were on the road and driving Route 66...in reverse. Of course we stayed on I-40 and didn't detour down the through all the little towns. I can almost imagine what it used to be like, since I grew up in the days of a 55 mile-per-hour speed limit. Of course my days were due to the oil embargo and cars of my days were more than capable of going 85 mph.

But it's different going 55 mph with the air conditioner cooling your cheeks, cruising on a limited access, 4-lane divided highway. Can I really imagine traveling in a two-door Oldsmobile with a leaky radiator, lucky to make 50 miles per hour on a bumpy tow-lane road? Do I want to?

Yeah.

Oklahoma is weird. When we got on I-35 going south, we were warned 20 miles out that there was going to be a 35 mph slowdown for a workzone. Then warned about it at 10 miles. Then again. When we finally got to the work zone, the work was finished and there was no slowdown at all. We sure appreciated all the warnings.

But a little further along, there was a lot less warning and a horrible slowdown that went on forever. There was a lane closure, but the construction wasn't bad enough to have warranted so much sitting.  In Texas we'd have zoomed through that at 90.

It was excessively hot outside--97 degrees and sunny--so the best of RV cab air conditioners wouldn't have kept up. Ours sure didn't. The air coming out of the front vents was cooler than the outside air, but we were still sweating like pigs. We had one quick stop to fill up gas in Marietta, where I gave the dogs a pan of water and a quick walk. So the total was about 303 miles in  5 hours 24 minutes minus a 10 or 15 minute stop. I'll put it at 303 miles in 5:10 which is 59 miles per hour.  Google has this route at 4:37, so I can only assume they are not taking the slowdown into calculation.