a surviving stretch of the mother road and the Buffalo River

5/31 Oklahoma City to Ponca, Arkansas


Sunday night and Monday early morning gave us a flash bulb light show, resounding strikes on a really huge gong, and the steady drum roll of waves of heavy rain. The wild thunderstorm was rolling southeast by the time I could get a look at the weather channel in the morning, but I still worried that we’d be in for it on our planned drive east to the Buffalo National River and a little campground near Ponca, Arkansas. The rumbling moved on and the sky brightened leaving only a thick soup of 95% humidity. The forecast told of scattered thundershowers where we were headed so we girded our loins and set out. If things got loud and wet for the evening we could always head for a motel in one of the towns we would pass through. Luck was with us and we didn’t see a drop from the sky all day and that night.


We left Oklahoma City on a surviving stretch of route 66 toward Tulsa that parallels toll highway 44. The road carried us through many small communities and lots of farmland. It seemed to be the day for turtles to cross the road and we silly Californians just had to pull over to rescue them from the rush of traffic. The first was really stuck on the yellow stripe. It just sat there with its legs folded in peeking its head out just long enough to be scared back in by each passing vehicle.
We made a u-turn, came to its rescue, and placed it way off the shoulder in the wet weeds. The second larger turtle was still forging ahead walking slow across the lanes. This time, with a very narrow shoulder and no place to park, mrs. a-go-go jumped out as I yelled to be careful, from a distance it looked like it could be a snapper. The ungrateful bugger soaked mrs. a-go-go’s leg with all the urine it could muster. She stuck the ingrate into the weeds near the pond it had been heading toward. After mrs. a-go-go changed into clean pants I declared an end to turtle rescues for the day. Fortunately no others ventured out in our path.


In Tulsa we left route 66 and drove due east on route 412 to the Arkansas boarder
and within reach of the Buffalo River that cuts across the Ozarks. There was a similar array of small towns and farmland but the terrain slowly changed from Oklahoma’s flattish to the Ozark’s rolling hills and oaks.
Once we turned from the 412 to the road to Ponca the roadside warnings signs became more dire, “very crooked and steep next so-and-so miles!” Wow, never have I delighted in such a descriptive road sign.

Several more steep ups and downs, and several more pictures of little black trucks loosing their brakes on down grades, and we found our campsite in Lost Valley.
As we set up our tent and alarmed hiker came down from the near by trailhead asking anyone for a cell phone. Another hiker up the trail had fallen and badly injured their back after leaving the trail, climbing over a railing, and trying to reach secluded waterfall. A steady stream of rescuers made their way up the trail over the next two hours. Rangers, volunteers, a helicopter in a nearby field, a paramedic ambulance... We stayed out of the way and put off the hike up the canyon to the next morning. The rescuers and the injured hiker didn’t make it out to the parking area until well after nightfall. Jeepers, the hiker had to be carried out strapped to a steel cage stretcher. Folks, don’t go climbing off the trail in steep rocky canyons. You just end up looking foolish or worse when all those people have to come get you and drag your sorry butt out to the hospital.

Happy to have that excitement over we turned in for a sticky humid night. There was no rain after all but the condensation kept us good and clammy. The night sounds in the Ozarks were something new and delightful for us. We heard many birdcalls we could not identify, alien insect buzzings (mercifully few mosquitoes), an unfamiliar and vociferous owl, and lastly wild turkey calls in the morning mist. Oh, I nearly forgot, mrs. a-go-go was able to cross off her life list one fantastic first, we saw fireflies drifting through the tree branches over our campfire. Yep, we’ll be coming back to visit the Ozarks again sometime soon.

trouble with ol’ PBG4

5/30 The Apple Store in Oklahoma City

Last night there we were, far from home and near totally dependent on a G4 Apple Power Book for all our photography editing, posting, and other internet needs. Sure as shootin’ it goes and catches a virus something awful. The system log contains an endless scary list of “crash/dump” this and “restart” that, the camera can’t upload photos, the menu bar is doing wacky things, wi-fi is a distant memory... Ak! what are we to do?

To our good fortune we find that Oklahoma City has an Apple Store at the mall, they are open on Sunday, and they have an appointment available in the afternoon. We spent the first part of Sunday having visit with friends in Norman, just south of Oklahoma City, and planned to see what the geniuses at the Apple Store could do for us in the afternoon. We walk in and a blue shirted junior genius checked us in quickly typing in a brief description of mrs. a-go-go holding her sick laptop, “green shoes, striped socks, red ponytails, wild colored dress over jeans.... you know, Pippy Longstockings type.” so that when our appointment came up the consulting genius from the back of the room could identify her. Soon enough, Erick, was on the case and after we described the problem he told us what they could try to do. He was pretty confident that a system reload would do the trick and if that was the case we might be able to have the laptop back in an hour. If that failed the problem could be much deeper and involve replacing hardware, but luck was with us and Erick made our laptop happy again in just under an hour. The store was crowded and busy but the folks there made our lives so much easier, and the service was free even though the warrantee period was long over. Now I expect we would have had something to pay if the problem had been more serious, but I never thought we’d get away so easy.

Thank you Apple for taking care of us. Getting the original system disks from home and all the messing about would have knocked our trip off the rails. We were figuring we’d have to quit posting and have to write about the trip after we got home until Erick got us straightened out. We also got to spend an hour playing Lego Batman.

bakery dance hall

5/29 Ingrid’s Bakery

We just had to go. After a brief description of the regular Saturday afternoon crowd at Ingrid’s Bakery in Oklahoma City, we just had to. Ingrid’s is a longstanding tradition in Edmond, where you’ll find German schnitzel and bratwurst fare for lunch, fresh baked breads and pastries, and on Saturdays from noon to 2 pm a live band playing swing, polka, waltz, and mambo for a crowd of eager dancers. Now the majority of people on the small dance floor are at least in their sixth decade, but the band draws a few families and some youngsters who want to learn to dance with a partner. Kitty, the singer with the band, belts out the hits and keeps the dancing couples coming back for more.

We had hoped that Ingrid’s would still be serving breakfast fare at 11 am when we arrived but they had moved on to the lunch menu. Unfazed we sampled the smoked bratwurst and sauerkraut sandwich (delicious) and the grilled three cheese sandwich (also delicious). Then we moved on to a selection of cookies and pie, all were serviceable but not thrilling except for the tasty peanut butter cookies. The restrooms are wall papered with German newspapers to remind even those in need of rest of the German food they came for what they came for.

mrs. a go-go was eager to join the gang on the dance floor but I was reluctant for a bit. I just wasn’t ready to step on the heels and toes of the senior couples filling the floor. Naturally, when I saw our chance for a little space, then mrs. a-go-go was reluctant. Nonetheless we took a chance and had a bit of swing through the next two numbers.

If you think you can keep up with Kitty and the hoofers at Ingrid’s don’t miss it the next time you’re wondering what to do on a Saturday afternoon in Oklahoma City.

artsy oklahoma

may 29
i suppose most people tend to think oklahoma doesn’t have much going for it more than twisters, sonic & red dirt. i used to think so too (except for that whole i-have-family-there part), until my pal jennifer and my sis guided us around town. we saw painted buffalo all over the place, murals and a banjo museum. the houses, big and small are made of brick and there is even an asian district where mr. a-go-go and i hunted out some banh mi and thai tea.there are more estate sales than you can shake a vintage salt shaker at and tiny farmers’ markets where sellers sell handmade baskets and felt.on saturday, after an awesome time at ingrid’s kitchen, we searched for a little adventure and thought we found it at the chuckwagon festival. sadly, we weren’t thrilled at the $18 entry fee so we wandered “home” for a nap and a dvd until it was time to meet up with friends at the paseo arts festival.at the festival there were tents and tents full of art that i was not allowed to photograph. seriously! i asked if i could take a picture of a doll and was told only if i shot the whole booth from far away. another vendor flat out told me no while yet another said she didn’t want her ideas stolen. instead, i took photos of the colorful buildings and the happy hillbilly band that busked itself silly. gotta remember to look them up on facebook, they were pretty nifty.i also happily snapped away at the fried food stands and my family because i never know when i will see them next.

pop! go the a-go-gos

apparently, there is a lot of old route 66 that snakes through oklahoma. while it may not be what it used to it's nice to discover that some people so enjoy the legend of the road that they build new tourist traps for you visit. new tourist traps that involve enormous light up bottles and are called pops.pops boasts over 500 kinds of soda. while i am a big fan of the magic of fizzy bubbles, it was the organization by color that drew me in to this roadside soda stand. they even had an entire cold case of ginger ale. the orange pop however was much more colorful so i of course took pictures of it.we met up with my nephew and his girlfriend and an old friend and her family. it had been eleven years since i had last seen her and her man and this time around there were wee ones to welcome.

milkshakes, malts and other snacky bits were ordered. coloring was attended to and my niece took advantage of the vast lawn out back to run around and practice her cartwheels.we took advantage of the vast lawn out back and set up the old rebel for some family jump shots. we even managed one with each one of us air born. go-go a-go-go family! the sun was just beginning to set when we finally gave our table back to the wait-staff and wandered out front to view pops enormous light up soda bottle. you could see that it changed colors but it was still a leetle too light to admire it.we stuck around for another half hour or so and i snap, snap, snapped away at all the happy neon. we posed for pics, ran around the bottle and enjoyed more conversation which included making plans to visit the paseo arts festival the next day.to see more pics of the light up bottle and all our jump shots, check out the pops set on flickr.