A quick side note about finding the library in Fitch TX. I asked an older lady at the gas station where the library was and the first time she told me I didn’t have any idea what she said. I asked again and finally realized halfway through she WAS speaking English and it was a Texas dialect. The third time I finally got it and thanked her. She must have thought I was a real dope not to understand ‘go down to the blinking light and turn left’. I couldn’t even begin to write it as she pronounced it.

3-22-04

I blasted the rest of the way across Texas and almost all the way through Oklahoma. I took route 60 and it is a really nice road. Surprisingly, not one road construction project slowed me down all the way across. it was great driving the back roads and I got to see a lot of what was going on in the little towns I went through. I will have to say that most of the small towns and all of the downtowns with Wal-Mart weren’t doing well. I saw a lot of wheat and cows grazing the wheat. The farming towns don’t look very prosperous but that could be that they just haven’t cleaned up after winter and everything looks a little seedy. I had a rather late nap in the afternoon so I wasn’t ready to make camp when it got dark, so I just kept going. I started looking for a good spot to make camp but it was hard to find anything that looked good until I came to a sign that said something state park. The gate to it said that you could leave anytime but that they locked the gate at 10pm. There is a strip of tire puncture pins that keeps anyone from going in after 10 but allows you to leave. I went on in and it was only maybe a mile to the campground that was almost empty. I found a place to park and took e dog for a short walk and fed and watered her.

3-23-04

I got up this morning and went over to the restroom and found that there is a hot shower as well as a 120v plug-in!! I jumped on the bike while it was still quiet and e dog and I went for a ride up the observation lookout road. On the way we came across about fifty turkeys. There were eight or ten big guys showing off and a few hens were sure impressed. Some hens weren’t, I guess they were married.

I went back and got my shower stuff and my hair clippers that I use for shaving and went down and cleaned up. I see that there is even a big double sink with hot and cold water for washing clothes? I looked at the map and I think this must be Osage State Park and not too far from Bartlesville, OK. I’ve got e dog on a chain, as the squirrels are really cheeky and bold. She would like to give them a tune up and the exercise would be good for both of them, but there must be some rules around here against dogs and squirrels having fun together. There is a nice fat redheaded woodpecker working a tree over just outside the door. 

Eastern OK and the western part of MO I went through on my way to Springfield looked like fairly good land. It was open with scattered trees but mostly fields being grazed by cows or hayed. I did see some heavily over grazed small goat farms that I think were raising Boar goats. One thing about this country that just makes me shake my head is that they leave their hay bales out in the field. These are big round bales and you can see that they are decomposing from the ground up and the rain doesn’t help on the top. When they do take them out of the field they will stack them along side the field in the trees. I did see two people that put their bales in a hay barn but most were just rotting outside.

as i passed Springfield the land gets rough and the roads get like a roller coaster. where susan bought, the land was very poor and the government bought the land back or got it back after the original settlers starved out, and made it a national forest. her place is almost surrounded by the forest and it is one of very few open places that i saw.

3-25-04

I just lost a huge part of this letter covering my trip to Susan’s farm to see Anna and her new baby. It must have happened for a purpose, as it was mainly negative comments about the area, which wouldn’t be good, as I send this to the kids. Just let it be said that it was worth it, to go see and hold Joanna.

I am in a little town in Kansas and I find the library has wifi. I was using their computer and the library was just about to close for lunch when I noticed that there was a small transmitter. The librarian said that they were getting two new computers (nice ones with flat panel screens) and decided to go wifi rather than get more cables. How cool. I brought the Silver Queen (my computers name) in and opened it up and presto, WWW!!! I can pick up the signal out side. I will go back and see if I can hook back up again later and send this.

I took a ride around town on my bike and met a guy in an old storefront carving a carrousel horse. It turns out that he has been carving them for twenty years and for the last ten years has carved over a hundred for Applebee’s Restaurants EVERY year!  they have since quit building large outfits and now will only build smaller convenience type ones that don’t need the large horses. I have never been in to see one but he says they are all over the world and he made them all. Over a thousand of them are out there. I told him my story and he thinks that he will do something similar soon with a small carrousel pulled behind an RV, he has a wife that will go with him. they had five kids and the last will graduate this year. He said that he would probably go down to Texas and work the winters as there are a lot of people with money down there. His wife is from Florida and doesn’t mind the humidity and he is marginal on it. I’m sitting here in the pod writhing this, it isn’t hot and I am clammy and damp. I finally took off my shirt and my underarms are sticky, yuck. I have to get going west to dry out.