Texas & Oklahoma
January 4, 2022Our way continued East through Texas and Oklahoma. Official speed limit in Texas sometimes reaches 85mph. The roads are straight and wide and you can just fly through.
We found an official free campsite on Lake Meredith, which was a rare occurrence. Moreover, that campsite had free hot (!) showers. “Finally we’re in luck!” – we thought, super excited. We didn’t know there would be a catch.
We got there around sunset. The place itself was quite beautiful, featuring free campsites on top of the ridge of a giant reservoir. The campsites were about half-full. You could see the flickering buoys all the way down on the water, regulating water traffic. The water was red in some parts due to bacteria or pollution.
Free hot (more like warm) showers were real and we took full advantage of them. They were nice but full of spiders and dead bugs. It felt amazing finally to be clean first time from the start of the roadtrip.
I don’t know if it was normal, or out of the ordinary, but it was very, very windy up there. The whole night our tent was threatening to take off on a transatlantic journey. On top of that, the wind gusts would bring a strong odor of gasoline, as if a car parked nearby had a strong leak. We later found out it was coming from the natural gas & resources facility nearby. Jackson couldn’t get any sleep that night and a headache was a direct consequence.
Initially excited and enthusiastic, we were eager to get out from Lake Meredith as soon as possible, so we took off first thing in the morning. What seemed promising and attractive ended up having more underwater rocks than we could have imagined. If free cheese only comes in a mousetrap, then free hot showers only come with a gasoline puddle.
Fleeing Lake Meredith we were looking forward to something better, however Texas prepared a second blow. As we were driving through its panhandle, we saw the saddest sights: rows and rows of cattle farms with hundreds of animals cramped together in tiny spaces, being kept in inhumane conditions. It felt like those farms were all competing for “who will be able to fit more animals in the smallest area” contest. Needless to say, those places reeked of disease and neglect. I’m not sure how many Texans realize where their burgers actually come from.
Oklahoma
It was nice to finally be out of the sad cow country. In Oklahoma our headlight went out. Luckily, we were headed directly through OK city, so we stopped at a mechanic there.
The shop was kept by a group of Hispanic guys, who took pleasure in restoring old relics. They gave us a quick tour: all sorts of car parts and tools filled every corner and every shelf of the space. Then we saw the gem – an old racer meticulously repaired to its original look.
One of the guys fixed Ежmobile’s headlight with one hand in under 5 min. These guys definitely knew what they were doing…