We spent the morning in the area of Tonkawa looking for "QUIET" geocaches. We had made arrangements to drop the camper at a truck stop while we drove OK highways and backroads looking for geocaches in cemeteries. We had to find 6 of them. The truck stop manager, Rhonda, told us we might encounter closed roads as they had 8 inches of rain after midnight Friday morning. Some of her staff could not get to work. In fact, Highway 60 east and west of the truck stop was closed earlier in the morning because of water over the road, but she thought Hwy. 60 was open as the water had probably gone down by the time we had arrived. Okay. We were forewarned.
We were in wind tower country.
We visited cemeteries large and small. Most of them were out in the country where little country churches and maybe small communities once were located.
Water was everywhere. Driving on a state highway north of Hwy. 60, we drove through some water on the road after we saw another truck go through. We saw a vehicle in the ditch, probably hydro-planed. It was being attached to a large tow truck for rescue. That reminded me, the driver, of what could happen.
There were times when the road we needed looked like. I'd turn around and head in another direction. We figured we drove about 100 miles to get those 6 caches. Something that would have taken maybe 2 hours max in normal conditions, took 4.
I drove on roads that I probably should not have been driving. If there were tracks, we took it. There was a government ARM facility in the southwest area on that map. How those employees got there was amazing as some of those trucks did not look like 4 WD. We never got stuck, but I have to admit I was very happy to get back to the truck stop and hook-up the trailer and turn the driving over to Hubby. It was fighting a south wind on Interstate, but at least it wasn't backroads!
This is how the truck looked after the last cemetery cache. It didn't look as dirty as I thought it would.
Mud and grass (like sod) was packed in the wheel wells. It took a lot of water and the strong pressure hose at the car wash to get most of it out.
The rivers banks were over run after the rain. The area got more rain Friday night.
This was an area of Hwy. 60 that had water over the road earlier in the morning. Notice the mud splatters on the windshield.
This truck stop was farther south on I-35. Flooded parking lots and ditches full of water.
We were very happy to get to Guthrie, wash the truck, and kick back after the stressful, but kind-of fun and successful morning. When named this trip GeoAdventure, little did we know it would have a day like Friday. It truly was an ADVENTURE!
On to Arkansas...
Thank goodness you made through OK! Sherry
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