Day 16 (30 May). Oklahoma

From: Mena, AR

To: Tulsa, OK

Miles today: 226

Total miles: 3786

When I pulled out of Mena in the morning, the sky was blue.  It was the only blue sky I saw today!  A scenic route called the Talamena National Scenic Byway starts in Mena, Arkansas, and runs 54 miles along the ridgeline of the Ouachita (“Wash–i-tah”) mountains to the town of Talihina, Oklahoma (hence “Talamena”).  When most people think of Arkansas mountains, they think of the Ozarks.  The Ouachita are not the Ozarks.  The Ozarks are actually a dissected plateau (more on this when I get to West Virginia), but the Ouachita are “real” (folded and faulted) mountains.

The Talamena is a lot like the Skyline Drive in Virginia, both in terms of road twisties and scenic views.  I got some nice shots before I reached the fog, and saw several other motorcycles out on it.  About halfway through, at one of the few crossroads (US 259), large barricades appeared with signs stating that the rest of the road was closed due to high water.

The Ouachita Mountains of Arkansas

The Talamena Scenic Drive

US 259  took me out of the mountains, and now the sky was covered in a deep layer of stratus clouds. These were low and grey, but not threatening like yesterday.  It occasionally misted (less than a drizzle), but it never rained. It was cool, though, about 65 degrees.  As I drove though Oklahoma countryside, mostly farms and pastures, I could see standing water on many of them.

Only in part because I couldn’t get that stupid Merle Haggard song out of my head, I cut over on OK 9 to US 64 and went through downtown Muskogee.  It looked like it used to be an industrial town (tied to the oil industry?), but it looked pretty run down now.  So did some of the other towns I passed through, like Haskell and Bixby. 

Not so Tulsa, though.  Tulsa has become a major city, with a skyline and everything. It also has the key identifier of good economic health in 2015: ten miles of strip malls, car dealerships, restaurants, and apartment complexes before you could even see downtown.  This place would give Northern Virginia a run for its money.  I’m happy for them; it beats the alternative.

In Tulsa I was joined for the evening by my lovely daughter Babs (aka Diana).  She drove over from the Oklahoma City area where she works.  We walked around downtown some, but Tulsa’s downtown is the kind where people work but don’t live, so it was pretty dead.  We went back to the hotel for dinner, and talked long into the evening. 

Babs visiting me in Tulsa