Roadside Park to Weatherford in central Oklahoma 425 Miles.
At about 5:45 AM, a group of motorcyclists drove into the picnic area. It was still pre-dawn, and I imagined that I could still stay asleep, but that was an illusion.
The cyclists were just a advance force. They began setting up for the rest of them to follow. When they started talking about how many dozen eggs to cook, I hauled out my laptop and set up on the picnic table to work on my novel while the sun rose.
Before I leave the wrong impression, let me say that the motorcycle club people were very nice and offered me coffee. Don’t imagine black leather and tattoos, these were ordinary people from the surrounding towns who went on outings together on their white and chrome machines. By the time the others arrived, I packed up. They probably needed the picnic table a lot more than I did.
My mother was recovering from hip replacement surgery, so my first order of business was to go visit her in the rehab center in Amarillo. It was nice to see how well she was doing. She had been moved from the hospital just the day before and today was the day all the different rehab specialists came to visit and check out how well she was doing.
While I was talking to my father, and explaining that I was going to be taking side trips on the way up to Chicago, he mentioned Mt. Scott in the Wichita Mountain Wildlife Refuge. So, when I left Amarillo, that is the direction I headed. The day was very hot. Driving in an open jeep at 106 degrees does tend to wear on you, so I made an extra stop at McDonalds for an ice-cream cone. Mt. Scott was every bit as pretty as he had said. From the top, there is a wonderful overlook over the surrounding lakes. The buffalo herds and the longhorn cattle were a nice compliment to the rolling meadows between the mountains. As it got close to sunset, I headed north, in the general direction of Waynoka.