Oklahoma Oklahoma Oklahoma

Today was the most miles covered. Probably somewhere around 350 today or at least in that ballpark.

Rolled out of Branson around 8 AM and crossed over into Arkansas around 8:30. Got on route 7 and found it to be really nice. Until the tractor trailer. I have no idea what a tractor trailer is doing on a narrow windy road rolling up and down mountains. It was tough sitting behind them (yes, there was more than one) especially up hills. Had to gear down to 1st in order to go slow enough.

But I eventually pulled off and took in some of the wonderful views of the Ozarks.


It was a gorgeous day out and it was one of those days where you just wanted to ride the day away (oh wait I'm doing that regardless).


Most of the scenery finally petered out and came down into the wide valley around Russellville, AK. I should've pulled over shortly after that and flipped my map in my tank bag around. As I got on route 27 just outside of town, I noticed I was at a half tank of gas. No problem, there'll be a place to stop. Surely there'll be a gas station coming up soon... 20 minutes into it....hmm, 179 miles on this tank...this uh, might get interesting....time to check the GPS. Heh, 20 some miles in every direction but the direction I'm heading. I distinctly remember saying to myself: "You know, I half expected to run out of gas in some place like Nevada or in a desert. But never would I have expected that it would be in Arkansas." Well, I ended up going about 13 miles out of my way to go to a place where I knew there was gas. As I figured, I worried for nothing. I put in 4.2 gallons and I had about 220 some miles on the clock. Rough math..that's about 53 MPG...I had another ~100 miles left.

Very remote part of Arkansas for sure. There was not much down in this area at all. Pretty much all forest and the start of some more mountains. I gotta say this area reminded me a lot of New England. Same types of roads, same types of hills, and the trees didn't look much different.


Crossed over into Oklahoma and the road condition went down a little bit. It was like riding on rumble strips...then add a speed limit of 65 and well, your butt has now been tenderized.

However, once I got on state route 1 in OK, holy cow. This is not the Oklahoma I was expecting. Mountains, pines, twisty roads and beautiful vistas. Man what an awesome road this thing was. Such a happy accident. It's not even marked as a scenic road on my AAA map. However, it is one of America's Byways



A mountain??! In Oklahoma?!


Look at this road! There were places you could see it twisting around all over the hills in front of you.

To top it off it was lined with these pine trees. You had this nice smell the whole way along. I had this stupid grin on my face and just surprised after each turn I came around.

So as you can see I took some pictures. I actually pulled u-turn on the road at one point. I blew past one or two vistas on Route 7 in Arkansas and I looked at my "Stop! Take a picture" reminder and then pretended like it was never there. What? What picture, there's no place to take a picture. But I made up for it here on Route 1. I redeemed myself.

Got in here to McAlester, OK tonight. Cheap place, free internet...I'm happy. Plus it's a motel..parked right in front of door makes easy loading/unloading.

All of today's pics