One of the Missouri rest stops had the coolest sanitation thing ever. Stick your hands in under the tap, and it spritzes some liquid soap on them, and then the water starts. Pull your hands out a little and the water stops and a hot air blower starts drying them.
And speaking of restrooms – someone needs to teach the Oklahoma DOT some lessons in customer service. The very first hghway sign (on I44) for an Oklahoma Visitor’s Center says at the bottom of the sign, “Free Restrooms”. At the ext ramp to go there is repeats that and adds, “No Purchase Necessary”. And I’m wondering WTF they mean – “not like those other states that charge you by the sheet for toilet paper”??
What they meant in practice is “No restrooms”. The restrooms were inside the gift shop and the gift shop was closed. The sign for the next rest stop had a note saying, “Free restrooms”. I didn’t bother to stop. In retrospect I should have taken a dump in front of the gift shop door.
And then there were the strange signs. Almost every mile there was a large warning sign, “Do Not Drive Into Smoke”. There weren’t any big forests to burn. I wonder if they have that many oil fires? Do I really need to be reminded every two minutes?
I passed a sign that said, “Entering the Cherokee Nation”. No customs stop or checking of papers. A few minutes later I was slowly catching up to a semi-truck with a yellow sign that seemed to read “wiuc LuHu” (I have to approximate this because I can’t type exactly what it looked like), and I thought, “Is this some kind of Cherokee language warning sign?” It was only when I got really close that I saw the top half of a “WIDE LOAD” sign had been torn or broken off.
And every few miles there was a sign that said, “All Other Drivers Pay at the Toll Plaza, X Miles ahead.” Am I one of the Others. Who is not the Others? Eventually I figured out that at every exit there was a booth for drivers exiting there to pay. But there was no real space correlation between the Pay at Exit signs and the All Other Drivers signs. And it wasn’t All Other Drivers, dammit. Every damn driver paid as they got off the tollway, either at an exit on the way, or the toll plaza at the end of the tollway.
The speed limit in OK on I44 was 75mph, which meant I was cruising at 80 with all the other carrs for about a hundred miles. Being a deprived midwestern driver, I’ve never cruised at that speed before, 'cause I’ve never been on a road with a 75 limit. It was actually kinda comforting that my car handled it without a wimper, a gasp or a shimmy.
I saw a Goodyear blimp over Stanton, MO. No idea WTF it was doing there. But I did notice that I drove by a Stoughton, a Staunton, and a Stanton all on the same drive.
Almost exactly 14 hours door to door. Google says the route is 764 miles, I don’t recall what the odometer said at the end, but I’m pretty sure it was quite a but further, and there were no substantial detours. I’ll look again in the morning. Anyway, I expected to need to take more and longer breaks, so I am kind of impressed with myself that I didn’t.
