Oklahoma......Turtles, Turkeys, Bobcats, and squashed Armadillos.

Darian had a real hankering to ride into Oklahoma. I have never been into Oklahoma so why not? We headed over to Wellington Texas which would eventually take us into Oklahoma. We stopped at a nice little local restaurant in Wellington for breakfast. I used to have some distant relatives ( 2nd. cousins), Charley & Kate Palmer, in Shamrock Texas years back. I visited her in the late 70's and she was in her 80's then. While having breakfast we were sitting next to some local ranchers, one who appeared to be in his 70's so I thought he may have heard of my cousin. After striking up conversation I come to find out that the 70 year old looking guy was 103 years old. He had knew of my relatives years ago and said that old Charley Palmer was a rodeo announcer too. As we left the 103 year old guy waved from his pick up as he drove away.....103 years old......That would be.......born around 1906.......12 years old during WW1. Plumb ass amazing! Damn good genetic pool down here in Texas! One thing I see here every day, friendliness, and lots of it. Everyone waves when you meet on the highway. I must have waved a hundred times today

Crappy photo here but I saw one of the biggest salvage yards I've ever seen. (other than in CA.) There were hundreds of old cars, a lot of 30's to 50's. Lots of newer stuff too. A truck salvage yard, equipment yard, even a combine yard. I have to say that for years my dream was to own a salvage yard........the gear head coming out in me. I turned around and had Darian take a movie of the salvage yard as I drove by it. Can't get it to upload though....oh well, not everybody is excited by a junk yard like I am.



Forever the romantic, Darian was singing the theme song to the musical "Oklahoma" for the first few miles into the state. She came in loud and clear through the ear plugs. I think that was her motive to going there.


This part of the country was beautiful. Rolling farm lands, trees and everything so green. I loved seeing new territory. Saw corn fields, lots of grain fields. I don't know my "grains" very well so don't know if it was wheat, barley, oats or whatever, maybe all..... Saw a lot of cotton fields too.

This was a little town in Oklahoma...don't remember the name but the Musician, Roger Miller was from here. I loved...KING OF THE ROAD" as a kid, so that tune was running through my head for a while. Better than "Oklahoma" in my opinion. (no offense Darian, you sounded beautiful!) While driving through this town I saw two Armadillos' smashed on the pavement. I wanted to show Darian an Armadillo as she has never seen one. She didn't see them in the road. When I told her I saw two Armadillos she wanted to see them too......until I told her of the state of their condition......... Well, if she had used her imagination she might have been able to tell what they looked like. She passed on the opportunity.......

Oklahoma farming country.

I didn't want to promote any particular beverage company so hence, the brown bag.

Actually water in this river. Most of them were full of trees and mud.

Saw quite a few turtles along the road in the past two days. This guy was heading out into the road so I stopped to aim him back the other way. Not a lot of traffic out there but hate to see the little guy get mashed. He hunkered down and sucked himself into his shell. Not a very cooperative little fellow. I may have saved his life and he wasn't gonna stick his head out for nothing. As we drove off I saw him running back into the brush. Actually moving pretty fast. Fifty miles or so up the road we were in pretty heavily brushy country. It brought to mind some of the close calls I've had with deer in MT. & WYO....... So here I am, thinking about my closest call, driving straight through a herd of deer outside Cody Wyo., missing ones ass by inches on my left and nearly wiping ones nose on my right, right at that moment, a very big, almost Red Bobcat comes out of the brush with something in his mouth and tears right in front of us. He was as tall as the sidecar and we missed him by an inch. No time to react, which was probably a good thing. I had never seen a bobcat of that color. I think he was packing his lunch in his mouth. It happened so fast that we couldn't see what he was carrying. Weak knees for a second............

Yesterday we had a bird fly right into our faces too, he made us both "duck".

We saw numerous Turkeys along the road yesterday too, only a couple today. never got a photo. Texas Turkeys look a lot bigger than Montana Turkeys. But I guess they say everything's bigger in Texas.

Back to Texas. Passing through Pampa Texas, about 40 miles from where we are living. Pampa was hit by a tornado two weeks ago. Darian saw a home with the roof torn off but only got a tiny piece of the house in the photo. (above) I saw a series of irrigation sprinkler units knocked over with tires pointing skyward. Many people were re roofing their houses there. Scary.


Well almost home and we're heading into this. 36 miles to go.

Luckily the road veered northward and we were parallel to the storm. Had one stretch of rain and serious crosswinds so side car navigation was a hand full for a while. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees for fifteen minutes or so.

All and all a fantastic little 600 mile run. We dodged thunderstorms, bobcats, birds, dead batteries, and whatever came at us. Can't wait for the next one...soon I hope!