Skipped canyon in Texas because of high forecasted temps. Instead i drove north to No Man’s Land to view the Dust Bowl area, part of region Timothy Egan wrote about in Worst Hard Times. He wrote that Dalhart, TX and Boise City, OK were ground zero. To my untrained eye and lack of finding back roads w/ original settlers houses to me the area looks cleaned up. Huge area and truly flat. Fields are mostly irrigated. Outside Dalhart the hwy took us past several large feed lots for beef. Jail time for cows but the chow is good. If only they knew the more they ate the closer they would be to your dinner table. I found a piece of USGrass Land to camp on. No mtn bike riding. The wind does blow all the time.
Spent yesterday driving Oklahoma heading east to Arkansas and the Ozarks. Flora is green. The further east the more likely h2o was flowing in the creeks that the roads bridged over.
Verizon lacks no local coverage here so I am paying extra for data which truncates my information.
95 degrees yesterday w/ very high humidity. I slept in a truck parking lot last night outside Henryetta, OK. This AM the windshield was dripping wet on the outside from the humidity. My choice to be traveling this route, however, I question my choice. I could be dry and chilly on the other side of the divide in the mountains. I did my wash in an air conditioned clean laundromat. great place to hang out. Line drying clothes will take long to dry, hopefully they won’t mold before dried. No chapped skin.
McAlester, OK where I am scribing this. OK is a 3.2 state. Not the microbrew choices in the liquor state. parts of AR are dry. A mediocre choice is better than drinking stream h2o.
WalMart is king grocery store. Sometimes peoples’ choices are made for them.
My plan is western AR to ride the Womble and learn how my body is performing.I wish I had a peaceful easy feeling the Eagles sing about.
Maybe Verizon has free coverage across the state line.