Time To Travel Again

Friday, March 3, 2017

This morning was our last Oklahoma sunrise. In addition to meeting great people and making what we expect to be life long friends, and working on a great project, by working this Oklahoma disaster rebuild project we also got to add another state to our map. We now have 21 states and 3 Canadian provinces  on our map of states where we have spent at least one night in the motorhome. We probably won’t get to add any additional states until we go to Iowa to our annual meeting in September, since we are trying to stay a little closer to home these days. We really enjoyed our stay in Oklahoma and wouldn’t hesitate to go back and work with the folks again.

Hated to leave, but today was a travel day and we enjoy travel. It was in the 40s when we got back from dinner last night but we knew it was going to be in the low 30s again this morning so we went ahead and did most of the outside departure tasks. We also started the inside packup. Everything has to be secured or put away so that we have nothing flying around if we have to stop suddenly or get bounced onto the floor on the rough highways. We both slept well which is always good for the night before travel. Sometimes our brains won’t shut down and we stay awake going over the departure checklists in our heads. We had breakfast, went over to the Badger Den and got some cinnamon rolls for later in the day and then said our goodbyes to all our team. Love them all!! Dennis and Carol will be joining the team in our place tomorrow and they will have another great week. Then next Friday Scot and Pat, Henry and Barb and Gary and Gwen will all be leaving and 3 more couples will join Dennis and Carol.

We departed at 8:10 and drove to I-35 to Oklahoma City, then took I-240 to I-40 East which will take us all the way back to Memphis. There was the usual areas of construction and congestion, but overall not a bad driving day. We noticed what appeared to be several large wildfires in the distance as we came across I-40. It is still very dry there and they continue to be under fire warnings. We made a fuel stop before leaving Oklahoma as fuel was less expensive there. Almost as soon as we crossed in to Arkansas we began noticing how much greener it was than 3 weeks ago. The redbuds and lots of trees along the interstate are blooming and putting on leaves. We stopped at a rest area about 36 miles after entering Arkansas and had lunch – leftovers from last night’s dinner. We then arrived at the Forrest City, Arkansas Walmart about 5:30. We will stay here tonight and it looks like several other RVers have chosen to overnight here too. Tomorrow morning we will continue east back to Alabama. Hope you all have a nice weekend.