Hope to Wichita Falls

 

On Thursday, we abandoned the Interstate and struck out northwest from Hope toward, eventually, Wichita Falls, Texas.  We did swing first past the birthplace/homestead of Bill Clinton.  It seemed like one of the nicer homes in town. I thought he grew up poor? 

Then we drove northwest through a patchwork of small beef and horse farms and lush, piny, viny woods. The traveling was so much nicer than the Interstate, a two-lane road with not much traffic, interesting scenery and almost no roaring trucks.  Small ponds spattered the pastures, inhabited by snowy egrets and great blue herons. I spotted one cattle egret by a beefer's hooves, and I'm pretty sure I spotted a Mississippi Kite, though the shot below is not mine. Mysterious white birds that might have been some kind of tern, but we couldn't tell for sure, flew over us so often from east to west, and not the other way, that Dad finally christened them One-Way Terns.

 The farms ran out as we kept going into the foothills of the Ouchita Mountains and the Choctaw Nation.  The primary businesses seemed to be marijuana dispensaries -- at least one and often two or three in each tired little hamlet. But between the towns were endless softwood tree farms. We saw more and more logging trucks laden with skinny trunks, passed a Weyerhauser plant and finally, in Broken Bow, Oklahoma, passed a pulpwood plant called Pan Pacific products. It was a bit like Western Washington State or Central Maine: just trees and trees and trees, plus trucks. But wild and lovely all the same.

 Eventually we turned south past Lake Hugo, where there were pelicans and black birds that I couldn't quite identify but were probably the cormorants. We passed through Durant and found ourselves in Soper, Oklahoma, which proudly advertises itself as the home of Freckles Brown, World Champion Bull Tosser. At least, that's what I think the town sign said; I wasn't quick enough to get a picture. But Freckles Brown was in fact a champion bull rider with a ranch in Soper. 

 In Bennington, OK, we passed Masterworks Dulcimers, with roadside signs urging passersby to play their dulcimers "before your master you meet." Signs with a religious cast seemed to be common in that part of Oklahoma; for instance, a billboard for a Mexican restaurant featured a mouth-watering painting of soft ripe peaches and a quotation from Psalms in the Old Testament: "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." 

In the afternoon we found our way to the Texoma State Park, one of the best parts of the trip so far. 

 

The Red River, which forms the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas, was dammed to make the river. Yes, that Red River: for this whole part of the trip, we were driving in or near the Red River Valley.  Makes a person want to sing.

We had the loveliest time at the park.  It's a big, sprawling, almost empty place, somewhat neglected, with many points of land extending into the lake, each one festooned with picnic tables and large oak trees for shade from the insanely hot sun. (While driving, I got a sun rash where the light reached my left elbow INSIDE the car).  You can swim anywhere; there are no roped-off areas or signs warning not to swim without lifeguards or even any lifeguards, for that matter.  That's Oklahoma for you. 

I'm told by Google Timeline that we were in Catfish Bay.  Wherever it was, Dad and I snuck into our bathing suits (the park was so empty that this wasn't too difficult), walked straight out from our shady picnic table into the lake up to our necks, and spent the next half-hour just drifting around in the warm water.  We had Catfish Bay to ourselves, except for one small nearby family and an occasional jet ski or party boat zooming past (the park marina was nearby.)  We could happily have stayed much longer, but the road called and finally, we reluctantly pressed on (still in wet bathing suits under our clothes!)  A quiet night in Wichita Falls. Next, New Mexico!