August 31-September 3, 2011 - Leaving Wichita Falls behind, we entered the flat landscape that makes up the state of Oklahoma. Our next stop would lead us to Bruce's sister-in-law and her family who live in Arnett, a town with the population of a little over 500. Here we planned on spending a couple of days getting the trailer repacked, loading up some more household goods, and visiting with Bruce's family.
The drive through Oklahoma was...scenic.
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| As a scenic photographer, I found Oklahoma to be the hardest to photograph. |
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| However, there are the occasional mesquite shrubs. |
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| Just add snow and this looks like parts of The Bush in Alaska. |
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| As much as I joke about the scenery, it really is pretty. |
A fun thing to note about the roads in Oklahoma; they're straight. The whole transportation network appears to be on a grid system which makes traveling from one place to the next easy, but at the same time, very boring.
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| Heat shimmer on the road, kind of neat to look at. |
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| Straight as an arrow... |
Eventually we encountered a river...
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| This is a river. |
and the City of Altus...
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| Altus was actually a good sized city, but we didn't stop here. |
and eventually made our way into Arnett late at night.
Arnett is small, did I mention that? One diner (that only accepted cash), one bank, and two gas stations. However, the town has its own charm and appeal that I found comforting. We went to a baseball game that Bruce's nephew was playing in, which I found fun to attend (I love baseball). We even got opportunities to tour some of the local surroundings which included an elk farm, the local fishing hole, and lots of oil wells.
I found the oil wells amazing. Bruce's brother-in-law works in the oil transportation field, so he had an understanding of the whole process. I found it interesting to see how the progression of finding an oil field to processing the oil to finishing up a site works. I really didn't understand the process since Alaska the oil fields are so far away and relatively inaccessible. Here in Oklahoma, they are quite literally next door.
Batman and Humberto took the nice break from traveling to have some fun.
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| Still buddies even after Burkburnett and a long trip. |
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| Yeah, sure, there's the occasional disagreement... |
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| No gnomes were harmed during the production of this photograph. |
The weather was very hot, but we also had some interesting storm systems blow in as well. The landscape is flat, so you can see the storm coming in for miles and miles. However, a cool shower helped keep our spirits up, along with the good food that our hosts treated us too was amazing.
Before we left, I got to see a spider up close and personal. Not your dinky Alaskan spider mind you, this one looked like it could eat a bus. My first instinct was to squish it; but Bruce's nephew likes the creepy crawly things, and we observed it from a distance instead. I still have shivers from that experience.
However, still no sign of the Southwest's iconic armadillo, much to my dismay.
We leave Arnett with good memories, our bellies full from a home-cooked meal, and a trailer that has been meticulously repacked; considering that we worked through the night on that one…all night.
Driving the rest of the night we traveled through the rest of Oklahoma and back into Texas. We ended up staying at one of the Walmarts in Amarillo. From here we would catch some sleep before heading out to New Mexico.
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