It's always really hard saying goodbye to JD, and this was way too short of a visit, dammit. He will be coming up to Topeka for a few weeks after the semester is over, though, so I'll get to see him again in a month or so.
We left about 10:00, JD going to class and me heading north to Enid. I decided to take the "back roads", hoping for a better drive than the interstate, and it was. But it took a bunch longer, of course. I got into Enid about 20:30 or so.
I drove straight north on TX 19 and skirted Dallas, which was one of my goals. The countryside was pleasant, and most of the irritating drivers were short-termers... they were using the road to get from one town to another, but there was always one to take over when one dropped out.
I stopped just short of the OK line and had lunch... an omlette at a chain breakfast place. After that I hopped on the interstate and again headed north. Very pretty country, the Arbuckle Mountains. Nasty roads in OK city.
My plan was to get on I-240, which is south of the city, and then hit 3, which turns into US81, which goes straight to Enid.
Well, there is a lot of construction in the area. Lots. And there were about four big signs saying to take I-240 to avoid the congestion... but no indication whatsoever about where the I-249 exit was. I realized that I missed it after noticing that there were no more signs saying to take it, dammit.
So I turned off at the next exit that looked like it would be a through street... the one by the Remington Museum (which is a fascinating place, if you're a Remington fan, and if you're not, shame on you...) which was marked 50th street, which, on the map that I had, ran west until it hit the road I wanted.
Well, of course, that was way too simple. 50th really turns into 63rd, which goes somewhere else entirely. But I finally hit the right road.
Everything was pretty uneventful up until I got just south of Enid... it was heavy twilight as I approached an overpass, and I saw some faint movement to the right of the road. I hit the breaks hard and the two deer each had one foot on the pavement and they stopped moving when the tires started squealing... they looked at me as I slid by about halfway sideways, then turned and sauntered away. Strangely, my knees didn't get all watery and weak this time... usually close calls do that to me. I guess it'd been a long day and nothing could shake me up...
Mom was glad to see me, not that I was really worried about that... she tried to feed me, or mentioned it anyway, but I had stopped in Hennessey and had a large chocolate malt, so I wasn't really very hungry.
O'yeah... the quote of the day is "Imagination is our only defense against reality". Actually, the original was "weapon" and not "defense" but I think that defense is better. You're entiteled to insert whichever word that you like best, I will not try to influence you further.
The really bad thing about driving in this part of the country at this time of the year when you don't have air conditioning is the bumblebees. The have a propensity for flying around and going through open windows. They usually are injured and angry... but I got lucky today... the two that got inside were dead.
The other bad thing is that there is a lot of dust in the air, and most of it ends up on me. I do have a cure for that, though.
More tomorrow...