Day 23 - ending near Healdton, OK - The Great Plains Trail - Sort Of

June 6, 2023

Day 23 - ending near Healdton, OK

Day 23 - Tishomingo, OK to Healdton, OK

Heart

Comment

Started my morning at 5:19am working on picture selection. At 6:45am a police officer showed up and said I shouldn't be camping under the pavilion. I asked him what time City Hall opens up - 8:00am. I packed up and left at 7:53am.

The clerk at City Hall said I shouldn't have camped underneath the pavilion, then consulted with someone. They settled on $20 as the fee for me.

Since I was back at the east side of town I went to DG Market - a place I've never been before. Looks like it's a Dollar General with fresh food as well as all their other stuff. Except they didn't have Beanee Weenees!

Heading back west through town gave me an opportunity to see everything in Tishomingo better than I could see last night in the dark. I planned to eat at Boomarang Diner, and arrived there at 8:59am. Selected Elvin's Omelette for breakfast, which has sausage, bacon, and cheese. It was good. The waiter gave me an ice water to-go and also a coffee. Outside they have a bench and I decided to sit there and work on the report some. Ended up drinking all the coffee as I worked. When I was done I went back in the diner for a vanilla shake. I received another to-go coffee offer, which I declined, but did accept more ice.

It was past noon by now. Here's the odometer reading: 3.1 miles.

I left town going west on OK-22 at 12:40pm. Destination: Healdton Municipal Lake near Healdton, Oklahoma. Nice wide shoulder on this road, which made for easy riding. I was not very far out of town when I decided to call my wife to see how her weekend party went. It kept her busy. Twenty-four minutes later, I got serious about making some progress, mileage-wise. More hills here than I figured, but they weren't too bad. My route was turn left on OK-1, then a right onto OK-199 to get me to Ardmore. I was a little concerned about getting through Ardmore, but a bypass north and west had the same wide shoulder I'd been enjoying all afternoon.

Interesting to me in Ardmore was passing by a roof shingles manufacturing plant (Atlas Corporation). Lately I've been interested in shingles because we're getting a new roof on our house.

At 5:50pm, I stopped at Pro Mart Shell to buy chocolate milk. The clerk asked if I was old enough to be drinking that. She was a character, telling everyone who came in, "Oh sorry, we're closed."

I was looking forward to heading on west on a calmer road - Prairie Valley Road, but it wasn't calm. There's no shoulder on it, and it was busy with traffic until about 7:00pm. Finally, I had the road to myself.

About 8:15pm, all of a sudden the wind went from calm to blowing pretty hard from the southeast. There were storm clouds around here and there. I was thinking, OK, maybe this is an updraft or downdraft. It stayed breezy and pushed me along.

As I neared Healdton Lake, I was seeing lightning and hearing thunder from clouds to the east and to the north. I was pretty sure I could get to a campground and get set up before it started raining. But there was a problem as I approached the lake. The roads I had routed on were gated off. I referred to Google Maps to figure a different way to the campground. The recommendation was go farther north then west a little to get to Memorial Drive. I think they call it Memorial Drive because you'll never forget it after you've been on it. A terrible washed out dirt road, with mud holes I could almost not get around. It was dark by now. I was walking the bike. The headlights were helping, but still I was having trouble following the road. I kept using my phone to check where the blue dot was, which indicated I was either on the road or had sidetracked off it. Finally I came to a paved road and knew I was close to the campground. I'm including a picture of the track display on my DeLorme PN-60 GPS to show the wandering around I had to do to get here. Just wish I had a few pictures of Memorial Drive!

I arrived at 10:04pm at a campsite close enough to the lake that I could hear waves. I noticed there is a nice pavilion just down the road, so I walked over to see if it has electricity. It does! I decided I couldn't get into any more trouble with city officials than I was last night, so set up under the pavilion with my extension cord routed into my tent.

Didn't do any report writing; I was ready to go to bed, which I did at 11:45pm.

Jeff

Spent: $14.40 (lunch bag items) + $15.31 plus $4 (breakfast) + $4.81 plus $1 (shake) + $4.13 (chocolate milk) + $6 (camping fee) = $49.65