Thursday, 6 August 2020
This morning's walk in the campground included meeting a young deer who stopped to stare at us. Of course, the dogs were acting like idiots so I suppose there was a lot to stare at, but I wondered if he was so young he hadn't seen people or dogs that close before.
 |
| today's route |
 |
| detail of driving in town |
That overly chatty guide at the archaeological site yesterday told me, among many other things, that the reason the Spiro Mound society broke up is that the people lost faith in the leaders' ability to take care of them. Specifically, the leaders claimed to be able to influence the various gods or forces of nature or whatever it was that controlled their environment. But back in the mid-1400s they were experiencing an extended drought that caused animal behavior to change. Some critters moved north into OK from where they'd been living in TX, including jaguars, armadillos and Pileated Woodpeckers. People saw these increased populations as ominous signs and gradually stopped following the dictates of the leaders.
The guide drew parallels between the climate then and the climate now, asserting we've been experiencing a drought since the 1970s and, sure enough, there've been more armadillos and Pileated Woodpeckers up here. I have no idea whether he's right that their populations are increasing and, if so, are increasing due to migration rather than better breeding conditions for the ones already here. But I can say I've seen as many dead armadillos on the highways here as in TX, and I've heard Pileated Woodpeckers pounding on trees since I came to the state. Interesting idea, anyway.
The drive to Muskogee
I passed a bar with a sign out front saying:
Liquor by the drink
God bless the USA
I'm not clear on the connection, but I saw online that OK only legalized liquor by the drink in 1984 (49th out of the 50 states to do so), and in 2016 allowed sales of beer and wine in grocery stores, among other liquor law reforms.
I passed Camp Gruber's 2 entrance gates: Central Europe Gate and Sicily Road Gate, both named for the streets they connect with. Given the camp's location in rural OK, I was surprised by the names but am concluding this camp - which is a national guard training facility - must have supplied troops to the European Theater of Operations during WWII. (The camp was named for the Brigadier General who composed the Army's official song, though I think it was his prowess with artillery that got the camp name.)
I went around a curve in the road and suddenly saw a small turtle in the middle of my lane. This road was 2 lanes with zero shoulder room and I didn't have time to move to the other lane. All I could do was aim as straight down the road as I could and hope I didn't squash him. If there'd been any place at all to stop I'd have moved him out of the road.
I've crossed 2 bodies of water called "bayous" in OK. I connect a bayou with marshes or swamps and alligators and other Louisiana sorts of things. Not even eastern Oklahoma looks swampy to me.
I passed 2 large fields densely planted with what might be soybeans, or I suppose maybe tobacco.
The Muskogee Power Plant is enormous - until I saw the sign, I thought it was a major industrial plant.
A sign told me I was Leaving Cherokee Nation, and another sign told me I was Entering Muskogee (Creek) Nation.
Coming into town I passed Muskogee High School and saw what looked like a guard box at the parking lot entrance. I went online and saw that yes, there is a guard box there along with closable gates, but there's another entrance just down the road that looks wide open, so I have no idea what that other entrance is set up for.
Looking at aerial views of the school online left me with more confusion, because though I got that location when I searched for the high school, Google absolutely insists it's not the high school but instead Bacone College. I did pass signs for Bacone College down another road, but I'm almost certain that building I saw was labeled as the high school. Google is sometimes seriously out to lunch.
Bacone College, by the way, was founded in 1880 as the Indian University, and is now Oklahoma's oldest continuously-operated institute of higher education.
Hotspot hassles
I stopped off for what I thought would be a quick fix: to get a new SIM card for my hotspot at a T-Mobile store I happened to be passing. Two full hours later I finally got what I needed, which it turned out wasn't a new SIM card, though I ended up getting that too. For starters, this store was a Sprint store up until very recently, when T-Mobile took them over, so the staff weren't at all familiar with T-Mobile's procedures and software and had to call the help line several times. Then I guess there was some other glitch caused by my having been hooked in via Millenicom for so long that even T-Mobile had trouble with. Fortunately, the sweet young thing working with me was very patient, listened to what I told her about the past and my present needs, and figured out how to get the service I wanted out of T-Mobile. But when my laptop finally accepted the signal from my hotspot after - I swear - 2 hours, she breathed an audible sigh of relief.
Continuing through town
I passed a billboard for an Amish restaurant and wondered whether there are really Amish in OK. The answer seems to be yes. The nearest is Chouteau, founded in 1910, OK's largest and oldest Amish settlement. I understand there are 4 settlements in OK, all in the eastern half, which makes sense to me because I don't connect them with the kind of land I hear they have in western OK, and apparently they don't connect themselves with it either.
Phillips 66 and Sinclair are gasoline brands still very much in evidence in OK, though I think of them as being practically defunct. Obviously not.
I passed the VA Medical Center which had a sign: The Price of Freedom is Visible Here. Many of the staff were outside taking a smoking break. Cigarettes are extremely popular in OK. Maybe they don't believe that cigarette smoking causes lung cancer, just like they don't believe COVID-19 is a threat?
5 Civilized Tribes Museum
The driving route Google gave me should be traversed only by a small car, and even then it'd be better if the driver is familiar with the road. Unfortunately, I have neither a small car nor local knowledge, and I was trying to negotiate a hairpin turn after having made it through low-hanging branches when I realized I got suckered again. Google just has this fixation with short-cuts that's verging on the bizarre.
This museum has contributions from all 5 of the tribes included in that description (see below). I got lucky and happened to visit when they had a showing of art done by Muscogee/Creek artist Jerome Tiger who, unfortunately for everyone, died at the early age of 27. His paintings were displayed on the 2nd floor of the museum, the only part that I wasn't allowed to photograph. Many of the paintings shown at this link were on display, and I have to say they're far more impressive in person than in these little spaces. http://www.jerometiger.com He had an amazing talent.
I was allowed to take pictures of all the exhibits on the 1st floor that gave some basic information about the 5 tribes, their backgrounds and their present circumstances. There was also a half-hour video playing upstairs, but it was later in the day than I'd hoped, thanks to the stop-off at T-Mobile, and I'd left the critters in the RV - in the shade, but still it was hot outside, so I put that on my list of things to do on another trip.
I'll post the photos from downstairs here.
Background
The Code Talkers
In their own words
Art amid everyday life
 |
| Eisenhower jacket |
USS Batfish
This submarine is famous for sinking 3 Japanese subs during a 76-hour period in February 1945. It sits in the War Memorial Park, that seems to be mainly full of hardware from the war, though there are a few monuments. Most of it, including the Batfish, were closed due to the virus, but I wasn't interested in going aboard anyway so that's okay. I took photos of what I could see.
 |
 |
| I'm not sure what all these things are, but this is a sample of what would have been available had it been open |
 |
| memorial to the USS Shark - lost Feb. 11, 1942 |
 |
| WWII memorial |
Back on the road
I passed a gun store with this sign: We have the ammo Walmart is to [sic] scared to carry.
I crossed the Verdigris River and twice crossed the Arkansas River. That's a lot more bridges than I'm happy with.
I went through the town of Okay. I promise. It had 4 names before it settled on Okay in 1919, named for the O. K. Trucks that were built there beginning in 1915. I guess there're odder reasons for naming towns in this country than that. Apparently, beginning in 2016, some school teachers were allowed to carry guns in their schools. According to the school superintendent, "We've heard you may possibly see more attacks from radical groups looking for children." And after all, Okay only has 1 police officer so armed teachers might be needed to repel these roving radical groups. I'm reporting this to try to give a flavor of what this state is like. Not exactly anything I can put my finger on, but it's not like other states I've been in.
Nearing tonight's campground I was surprised to see 2 White Pelicans in a pond. In fact there's a marina near the campground named Pelican Point Marina.
No comments:
Post a Comment