It's 0230 and I'm out of the chute, a foot-ful of throttle and a hole in my boot. I'm outbound.
I rolled out of a southern Oklahoma truck stop in the wee hours of the morning, headed for Fort Smith, Arkansas. Most of the trip was going to be on four-lane highways, traveling through a number of small towns in eastern Oklahoma. I popped a C.W. McCall CD into the stereo and turned it up. There is just something right about listening to C.W. while trucking through the dark, the highway to myself. I joined up with his Convoy as they hauled a load down Wolf Creek Pass; we stopped for fuel and a bite at the Ole Home Fill 'Er Up and Keep On A-Trucking Cafe. The Freebird was making good time as we cruised into the town of Durant. There is a large casino here, owned by one of the Native American tribes that now call Oklahoma home. As a matter of fact, almost every town of any size has a casino; these are about the biggest money making enterprises around, other than the speed traps that are in every town. Heavy industry is almost non-existent in these parts.
The next town of significance was Atoka, one of the larger towns along the route. The speed limit dropped from 70 mph to 40 mph as we wound through streets lined with darkened stores and restaurants and a couple of all night gas station/convenience stores. All the towns we were going to travel through are pretty much the same, differing only in size, the number of traffic lights, and the size of the casinos. The main effect these towns have is the bunching up of the truck traffic. The highway, US69, is a major north/south thoroughfare for commercial vehicles from northern Oklahoma down to Dallas/Ft. Worth in Texas. And invariably, the line of trucks at each traffic light is headed by a driver who starts off in first gear (super low/granny/creeper) every time and takes his time accelerating to the next gear. What happens is all the drivers begin jockeying for position, jumping from one lane to another, trying to time their arrival at the next light so that they are still moving and can accelerate around the slower trucks. It gives the rigs that are governed (cut down and castrated) a chance to get ahead of the ones that can actually run the speed limit; once out of town and on the open road, it's no holds barred. Think of a NASCAR race with a lot of caution flags and guys trying to better their position on the restarts. It's like that, except with 80,000 pound trucks. And all the while, the local cars are racing to get ahead of the big trucks so they can dive into the next convenience store or supermarket. It does keep one on his toes. Anyway, just north of Atoka, the highway splits and I took the right hand fork, running my speed up to the governor. A flatbed truck came off the shoulder in front of me in third or fourth gear; I snatched the wheel to the left, powered around him, and eased back into the right lane.
The next town up the line was Kiowa. I caught another truck there and followed him to the town line. He was slower than I was getting up to speed as we roared out of town, so I ducked left and passed him too. As I signaled my return to the right lane, I looked in the mirror, just as he flashed his high beams at me to show I was clear to merge. This blinded me, and irked me a little bit too. I am not adept at Morse Code at all, so I could not flash “You are supposed to dim your headlights at night, not kick on your high beams, you lazy, can't reach for the dashboard switch, ignorant monkey nut sucking fool.” with my wig-wags, so I contented myself with sending him a Foxtrot Uniform message and merrily went on my way.
Between Atoka and Kiowa, I noticed a faint flash in the sky to the west. I had checked the weather radar before I left and knew there were storms in central Oklahoma. The night sky above was incredibly clear and shimmering with stars; the storm was well over the western horizon. A few more times, the sky flashed as the storm released its energy somewhere to the west. I was reminded of an early morning storm that caught me in central Kansas in the late spring. That day, I pulled out of Tonkawa, OK, north of Oklahoma City about 85 miles, traveling north on I35 into Kansas for a delivery near Olathe, KS, somewhere west of Kansas City. I knew from the radar that a pretty strong storm was going to be hitting Wichita about the time I got there, and as I started that trip, I could see the lightning dancing across the sky. It was a fairly strong storm, but I made it through Wichita without any problems and was soon driving through the Flint Hill region of the state. To say it is lonely out there is an understatement. Another storm was crossing through the area, and it was strange. Instead of forks of lightning, the sky kept flickering like a strobe light; my windshield wipers appearing to stutter across the glass, instead of sweeping across it. This went on for about five or ten minutes, then the hail came down. At first it was just the size of BB's, nothing to worry about. Within minutes though, the hail hitting my windscreen was the size of silver dollars, with no sign of letting up. The ice built up on the roadway and I, along with two other trucks that had caught up to me, slowed down, put on our hazard lights, and drove to the nearest rest area to pull off, another ten miles up the road. When the hail quit, we jumped out of our trucks to assess the damage; the only damage to the 'Bird was a bent wiper arm. We took off again, determined to make up time as the storm kicked the hell out of the cattle pastures to our east. We soon ran into some of the heaviest rain I have ever experienced, including a pair of Category 4 hurricanes. We slowed down again, crawling along the next 50 miles of flooded interstate. Our little convoy made it through; we received no word on any others who might have been swept into the ditches. A few days later, I saw a video on
Spaceweather.com that had been shot of the storm from a couple of hundred miles away. The video showed red sprites flickering off the tops of the thunderstorm. It also showed gravity waves moving through the air. These happen when a storm is so strong, it makes the ionosphere ripple. All this being said, this morning's storms never gained that much power, nor did they get that close to the highway I was on..
A couple more small towns appeared in my windshield and disappeared in my mirrors as we drove north. A fair portion of my night was spent dodging skunks and armadillos crossing the road, the coyotes that came out to feast at the roadkill buffet, and potholes. Now, I'm not saying that Oklahoma roads are rough, but I once tried to pour a cup of coffee out of my thermos and splashed coffee all over the console and dash, shorting out half the panel lights and seven switches. This trip, I attempted to light a cigarette just as I hit a particularly bad part of the road; I burned a hole in my beard, singed the nose hair in one nostril, seared off both eyebrows and scorched my left ear so badly that the ear wax ran down the side of my face and matted in the rest of my beard. This evening, I will light the beard/ear wax and enjoy my dinner by candlelight.
The next city on the map is McAlester. This is a fair sized town with numerous restaurants, motels and hotels, shopping centers, etc. On the north side of town is a small rise just off the highway, with a large grassy area about three acres in extant. On this is a well lighted display of three cowboys on horseback driving about two dozen head of Hereford cattle. Many a night I have seen this display as I drowsily rounded the bend and topped the hill and had to slow down to make sure I didn't run over any of the cowboys or cattle that might be following; tonight, I remembered they are mere statues and did not give in to such foolishness. Just north of here are the long steep hills that surround Lake Eufala, an impoundment along the South Canadian River. These hills, like many others throughout Oklahoma, are steep enough to give most rigs trouble if they are dragging any weight; I was light enough that this was not a concern on this morning. I passed a few trucks on the uphill side, and a couple of them rolled on and passed me on the downhill. As I came over the top of the last hill, the town of Eufala spread out before me on the far bank of the lake, street lamps and store lights shining, traffic lights changing color – green, amber, red.
The early morning dampness hung in the air as we rattled up out of the river valley. The road is smoother along here, except for the seams between the concrete sections. These impart a weird, syncopated beat as the trailer tires hit each seam about a beat and a half after the drive tires. The rough surface of the roadway sings under the tires with an off-key whine. We are cutting the fog when the air is split by the atonal blast of air horns. A Union Pacific train on a track parallel to the highway is pointed south, announcing its approach to a grade crossing; no quiet zones here. Forty eight enormous diesel pistons thunder out the power as the train roars past, steel wheels screeching in the night. As a couple empty flatcars go by, small imperfections in the wheels clatter and bang along the rails. Train and truck go their separate ways and a relative quiet again descends upon the landscape, broken only by the throaty growl of Detroit Diesel power and Bridgestone tires humming on concrete.
Soon, we near the town of Checotah. Here, the Freebird and I will exit US69 and merge onto I40 east, another faceless, soulless stretch of highway. We will be trading the intimacy of the smaller highway for the efficient, yet impersonal, interstate system. We settle down and cruise effortlessly along, driving east, chasing the sunrise. And a brilliant sunrise it is, full of reds, oranges, and yellows stretching from the northern to southern horizon. A few high clouds far to the east reflect the fire of the coming day. As we cross the line from Oklahoma to Arkansas, the sun finally crosses the horizon, as if to herald our arrival. There are twenty more miles to drive before we make our delivery, then the two of us will go across town to make our pick up. After that, we will drive north through the Ozark Mountains of western Arkansas, up the west side of Missouri and its cattle ranches, and into Iowa's rich farmland. But that is a tale best left for another day.
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