Friday, 8 September – Fort Gibson Lake, Wagoner OK

Slept in this morning, it was so peaceful here last night.  Woke to sunshine, again - and the promise of a hot day to come.  We got on the road by 10.45am, late for us, but we don’t plan on spending much time travelling today.  We drive back down Cow Face Road (we didn’t see any cow faces) then Puppy Creek Road (we didn’t see any puppies or creeks) so we just surmise the Americans like cute names for their roads?  We drive back through the city of Springdale and come across a CAT dealer where we might be able buy a replacement air filter for the coach.  Luckily the Cat dealer is also a Donaldson dealer, which we learn is the type of air filter we need, so our stars are aligned.

We continue west on HWY 412 to Tontitown where we got the exhaust elbow yesterday, and soon after cross the state line into Oklahoma.  What - there was no ‘welcome to’ sign or any indication we had crossed into a new state, except perhaps for the obligatory Indian Casino neon billboard immediately over the state line.

Cherokee Nation!!

We head south on scenic HWY 10, alongside the winding Illinois river, to Tarlequah, then west towards Fort Gibson Lake.  We drive 5 more miles along a very narrow and winding road to get to Wildwood CG right on Fort Gibson Lake, a small ACE campground with only 30 sites.

We are just on the northern outskirts of Muskogee and south of Tulsa.  There are a few sites for us to choose from, the first we select next to the lake has only 20 amp power which doesn't work for us so we opt for a pull-thru site in the inner circle which has 50 amp and we spread ourselves out there.  It is cloudless, hot and sunny at 28C, nice!  We are all set up by 1.45pm and Kim fits the new air filter and cleans the windscreen and our underbelly etc.  He is happy with his efforts, another successful day of R&M  : )

Is this party boat for us? Fort Gibson  Lake, OK

Even though we are in the wilderness, we have great cell coverage and therefore hot spot internet - and TV! The news is still covering the aftermath in Houston, a lot of people and companies are doing good work with getting donations etc. ie AT&T (our phone provider) is not charging local residents for internet use, for a period.  Walmart is collecting for the Red Cross and we heard last night that Willie Nelson and Paul Simon are doing a charity concert in Austin TX on 22 September.  We had planned to be in that area at that time so will check it out.

TV is also hot on Hurricane Irma closing in on Florida and the earthquake off the coast of Mexico as well as one in Oklahoma!!  Yikes, that is where we are now!!  Apparently they get then often but not overly strong, at least for the last 100 years!