Monday, October 15, 2012

Day 40 ( A Travel Day) Oklahoma City, OK - Texarkana, TX  miles, New Total = miles
Left the worst campsite I had stayed at during the trip. But, hey it's only one night. Headed east on I40 for about an hour before we turned South toward Eastern Texas on The Indian Nation Turnpike.  Before we made this turn we noticed a number of roadside signs denoting the boundaries of various Indian tribe reservations.  Not just 1 or 2 but at least 6 or 7.  So I asked Jan to look up on the web (on my smart phone) the number of Tribal Nations in Oklahoma. There are 38 Federally recognized Tribal nations in Oklahoma. Remembering a little of our nations history brings to mind that Oklahoma was the state/area that many of the nations tribes were relocated to when they were displaced for various reasons from their original tribal grounds (Including the Seminole from Florida).  The terrain was rolling with no steep grades and the farmland was made up of much smaller parcels than we had see in the Texas panhandle and western Oklahoma.  The trees were also taller and we started to see some color reminding us of New England as some maples were mixed in with oaks and the various conifers.

Just before we stopped for lunch, ( a little late because we couldn't find any roadside rest areas) we crossed the Red River (which forms the Southern border of Oklahoma for everything but the panhandle of the state).

Before and after this we encountered much larger stretches of farmland.  This was all bottomland in the floodplain area of the river. Beautiful dark, rich soil.  The downside of this rich land was bugs!  ...and many found their demise on my windshield! This was the first day in the trip when I had to wash my windshield both in the morning and at lunch.

Also we saw 2 large wood product mills.  One of International Paper (by the smell it was a pulp mill), and Weyerhaeuser (no smell or visibility to determine the type) and many logging trucks passed us heading to the mills.

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