Elk City/Clinton KOA, Foss
Saturday, 22 and Sunday, 23 August 2020
I have no real expectation that I'll be able to pick up an internet signal once I leave here, because the next 8 days will be spent in campgrounds in very rural western Oklahoma. Maybe I'll be lucky, but I sure can't count on it so am trying to get as many blog posts done as I can while I have one.
This campground is definitely not up to KOA's usual standards, which is a shame. It's not that it's right on I-40 with its constant noise, because lots of them have that situation. And it's not that the management are uncooperative, because they're very friendly and helpful. But there are only 21 decent campsites in this whole campground and, of course, most of them were already reserved. The office had assigned me one right in the middle of the pack, thinking they were doing me a favor because of it being shaded. But with my dogs, it'd be a nightmare instead because of having to walk past other, possibly dog-inhabited campsites.
Half the campsites, including the spot I'd asked for, turned out to consist of pavement that was half-covered by grass, very few trees, and the hookups on the wrong side of the RV for half of them. When I finally decided to stick with the one I'd reserved, I found the water was as rusty as the water I got in Michigan. This KOA isn't but about 50 miles down I-40 from the KOA at El Reno, and the water there was fine. So I finally decided the water hookup at this site is used so rarely the pipes got corroded.
Whatever it was, I couldn't use the water hookup and had to use my own tank for the whole stay. Which was a shame since I wanted to get cleaned up while I was here and had to overwork my water pump to do my shampoo-in-the-kitchen-sink-and-sponge-bath-in-a-dishtub-for everywhere-else routine. I'd intended to brave the campground's bathhouse but, having seen the condition of the rest of the park, I had no faith in its cleanliness. That was enough of a problem in the pre-virus days in most campgrounds.
I heard a TV meteorologist one morning point out a "blob of clouds" in the Caribbean. Then she told us, "That's a technical term," which I thought showed a lot of humor for that early in the morning.
I saw that the Stillwater (OK) Weedstock Festival was held as usual this year. That's an annual 3-day music festival sponsored by the Tumbleweed Dance Hall, which is conveniently located outside the Stillwater city limits. The city fathers have asked them to postpone or cancel it, but the dance hall owners say they've already canceled one festival this year and need the money and never mind if people get sick. Actually, they didn't say that directly, but that's the way I read their statement. Stillwater is about an hour west of Tulsa, and about an hour northeast of OK City.
I passed one of the campsites when the folks were setting up to cook dinner. They had an appliance on the table I'd never seen before and I stopped to ask about it. The wife told me it was a Blackstone griddle that some friends had given them, and now that I see the price I wouldn't mind meeting these friends. https://blackstoneproducts.com/tabletop-griddle She was fitting a cute little foil container inside an attachment to the griddle and told me it was part of the system for dealing with grease. She said she and her husband love it. She also said they dumped the 19-year-old kid and 2 Golden Retrievers back home in Weatherford (a half hour away) to come here for the weekend to celebrate their 32nd wedding anniversary. I can see that this place would offer a much lower energy level than they've got at home.
A couple from California that parked directly behind me after I went to bed one night had a kind of tent I hadn't seen before - it had an extra piece that attached to the rear of their SUV that let them use the back of the car as a part of their living space. When they were taking down the next morning I asked them about it and they said they liked it a lot. They said setting it up the first time was difficult, but after they'd gotten the hang of it, it was quick and easy. Here's a link to what they had. https://www.amazon.com/Rightline-SUV-Tent Run through the photos and you'll see what it's like.
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