West to New Mexico

 We left Ponca City driving west. As we passed through town we saw the largest oil refinery we had ever seen. It stretched as far as the eye could see on either side of the highway.

Along the way we did some sightseeing. We stopped on OK 8 to see Sod House Museum. It is the only homesteader's sod house still intact. Most sod houses were built to last for 3-8 years while the owners gathered materials and built their permanent home. The owner of this house lived in it for 15 years. It was unusual in that it had two rooms instead of one.

I am standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the bedroom.

The stove is original to the house.

So people could see this historical marvel, the museum was built around the house!

After we left the museum we stopped at an Oklahoma State Park--Glass Mountains. When settlers originally came west, the mountains shimmered in the sunlight, thus the name Glass Mountains. The reason the mountains shimmer is because they have layers of selenite crystals throughout them. We would have liked to walk to the top, but we were parked at a picnic area outside the park and it was a ways back to get water and it was HOT!

After a quick lunch, we continued on our way to Fort Supply.

We made it to Fort Supply and were delighted with the Corps of Engineer Campground.

Unfortunately, we were disappointed with the historic site. It was supposed to be open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., but it wasn't!

We stopped at the gate Thursday morning at 9:30 and a prison guard from the nearby prison/asylum told us that the volunteer who runs the historic site keeps his own hours. Oh, well, we drove to the Historic Cemetery so we could learn something from that time. We found out that all the soldiers who were originally buried at the site were moved to Fort Leavenworth. The headstones remained.

After spending one night at Fort Supply, we decided to change our plans and head to New Mexico via Texas rather than go to Felt, Oklahoma, to spend the night at the grasslands. We decided it was too hot to boondock, we needed hook-ups.

While at Fort Supply we found that Oklahoma highways still have roadside picnic areas. Bob got on the internet and found that most of them had geocaches hidden. So as we traveled toward Logan, New Mexico, we stopped and found some caches. We also went through another town that makes you go hmmmmm... Slapout, Oklahoma. Because there was a cache locate in this desolate area, we know the reason behind the name. There once was a general store located there (no more) and if the owner didn't have what you wanted, he would tell you he was "slapout" and was expecting it any day.
 

  
 As we crossed into New Mexico, we also entered our third time zone--we are now in Mountain Time.

We spent the night at Ute Lake State Park. The park was almost empty! The lake for which it is named was also down. After setting up camp, we drove to Tucumcari to see Historic Route 66. There weren't many places left and the town hasn't done much upkeep on them.

The next morning we began the long drive to the west side of New Mexico. Since there are not many roads to choose from going that way, we traveled on I-40 almost to Gallup.








We chose a campground in Cibola National Forest for our camp that night. The campground was at an elevation of over 7000 feet and we didn't think it would get to hot! In fact, the temperature dropped into the low 40's!

It was a great campground just outside Fort Wingate, New Mexico.

From Fort Wingate we continued on our way into Arizona. More to come later!