Day Eight - Saturday 28 June

Oklahoma City

I went shopping at Jo-ann’s fabrics. When all the bolts stacked up in the shopping cart fell off onto the floor, it did cross my mind that I was going a bit nuts, but $167 is only about £85 after all, and it was probably going to be used to make Christmas presents... I can see why sewists (sewer is an awkward word, isn’t it?) have such enormous stashes of fabric. I think I felt closer to Rita, being in a fabric shop again.

It rained several of the days I was in OKC; the great, dark -grey-sky-bucket-sized raindrops kind, with ground-shaking cracks of thunder and brilliantly spread out bolts of lightening. I stepped out on the back porch and inhaled the scent of my childhood. Funny how smells bring back memories. The other smell that grabbed me, oddly enough, was the dusty laundry room smell of Rita’s garage. I don’t know if that is unique to her garage but I identify it with being at her house.

Bill’s Road Book
Day 6, 28 June: 160 Miles, 4 hours, Note 2
US180: 28 miles to Valle, turn left onto I-80; 50 miles to Flagstaff, turn left onto I-40 East
I-40: 80 miles via Winslow (stand on corner) to Holbrook KOA Campground?

Note 2 Painted Desert - I do not intend to book up anywhere to stay tonight from the UK. We can decide what time we want to leave Grand Canyon and follow it from there. We have 2 days to cover 425 miles from the Grand Canyon to Albuquerque

The group left the Grand Canyon RV park and headed towards Holbrook. Bill and Bob went along to the Watch Tower, the stone tower on the far end of GC Park, and then down to Cameron.

Bill says there are drawings on the wall inside but no one appears to have taken any pictures. Bill said he was taken with a steel handrail with leather binding that looked really old with beautiful textures, but there are no pictures of that either, so it must not have been that great. Either that or Simon didn't go in the building.

He did manage to get some cool pictures of this snake. I've not figured out yet what it was; it would be disappointing to find that it was a garter snake and not a boa or a Kingsnake. Simon didn't mention the snake that I know, so I'm guessing it didn't rattle at him.

From there Bob needed to go through Flagstaff to Winslow AZ to stand on a corner. The Tourists decried the two old men doing this, but turns out they came along shortly after to do the same thing. Someone has parked a flat-bed Ford on the corner and they sell t-shirts and hats. Of course they do. I wonder if the Eagles share in any of the profits?

They stayed the night at Holbrook. Bill says it was a really cruddy, nasty place, so don’t be putting it in your travel plans. Well, maybe it wasn’t nasty, it was just stuck up against I-40 along flat desert, nothing attractive to look at (which describes a great deal of that area to me, but never mind). He said to be fair the people were nice, but all the KOA people are nice and Holbrook did this cowboy cookout in the corner with an open air dining shelter. They were serving BBQ’d meat and potato salad and baked potatoes. They were happy for the foreigners to bring along a bottle of wine, so they went along to the nearest Von’s.

Everyone tells me the culinary highlight of that meal was ‘Petrified Toast’. Texas toast (very thick sliced sour-dough bread) dipped in liquefied margarine, coated with Parmesan cheese and grilled – went down wonderfully with crude red wine in the heat of the evening, I’m told. Sounds like a heart attack in the making to me…