We have an auxiliary braking system between our motorhome and Jeep so that as we're traveling and towing the Jeep, when we apply the brakes on the motorhome the Jeep brakes are also proportionally applied. It is an air-activated system, and the air supply (small compressor and tank) on the motorhome had sprung a leak and the tank wouldn't hold any pressure. The company, M&G Engineering, that manufactures these systems is located in Athens. Since we were in this general area, we took the opportunity to get it fixed. I had called earlier and the guy, Monte, said to bring it on by and he'd take a look. We arrived at M&G about 11:30 and Monte immediately had us pull the motorhome into a bay in their garage. In no time at all he had determined that the problem was a broken 'check valve' between the compressor and air tank and he replaced it. He also replaced the main fuse holder because the fuse in the old one wasn't making good contact. There was no charge for the work and we were out of there in 45 minutes!
There was a weather front coming across with a big line of thunderstorms and a lot of rain forecast, so we didn't want to be on the road for that. We made it to Tyler State Park in Tyler, TX about 2:00 and got a site for the night. Sure enough, a little later here came the weather - thunder, lightning, and lots of rain. We were glad we were hunkered down. It rained and dripped (we were under a big tree) all night, but the front had moved on across by morning.
Tuesday we were up early again on the road by 8:00. Again, it was mostly Rand-McNally 'red' (two-lane) and 'orange' (four-lane) roads thru towns like Lindale, Mineola, Quitman, Sulphur Springs, and Paris in Texas. We crossed into Oklahoma just below Hugo, and took the Indian Nation Turnpike (toll road) to McAlester. From there it was a controlled access 'blue' road (not interstate) to Muskogee, then back to the 'red' and 'orange' roads through Wagoner, Pryor, Viniti, and Fairland - we looked for Merle Haggard as we were going through Muskogee, but didn't see him. Just east of Fairland we stopped at Twin Bridges State Park for the night. It is on Lake of the Cherokees and is mostly a fishing camp. I got a long distance shot of a pretty good size catfish a man had caught.
One thing we found out -- the Texas roads (even the two-lanes) for the most part are very good. However, most of the roads in Oklahoma are concrete (in need of repair) and are very rough. It probably wouldn't be as bad in a car, but in the motorhome it's awful! The speed limits on a lot of the roads in both Texas and Oklahoma are 70 and sometimes 75 mph - including the two lanes. We definitely weren't going that fast (I try to maintain it around 60), but on the rough Oklahoma roads if I had gotten over 50 it would have shaken the motorhome apart.
We did enjoy that ride up through east Texas and across the southeastern corner of Oklahoma. All of the small towns are really interesting and the countryside is beautiful. It was a lot of piney woods in east Texas up until the northeastern part, then it was a lot of rolling hills and lots of pasture land. We did see some agriculture (corn & wheat fields), but not as much as we expected. There were a good many cattle ranches and horses.
Today (Wednesday) we left Oklahoma early, crossed into Missouri and were back on good roads!! We hit I-49 North to Joplin, MO, then I-44 East to Springfield, then Hwy 65 North to Sedalia. It was rainy, but a very good ride through more rolling hills, farms, and small towns. North of Sedalia we hit I-70 East for a little way, then were off through the small town of Blackwater and on to our destination for the next several days - Arrow Rock State Park in Arrow Rock, MO. We've been here before and really like it. We got a nice campsite and got set up - we hope to enjoy about 6 days here! There's lots of birds here and it didn't take LaVerne long to get the feeders out - 2 seed feeders, 1 oriole feeder, and 1 hummingbird feeder. A hummingbird was trying to eat of his feeder while it was still sitting on the table before LaVerne filled it up. More about this place on the next post.
You win the prize if you can spot the hummingbird!!
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