Now to say I’m not a lucky person is well known. I don’t gamble because I will lose, I don’t walk under ladders and knock 3 times for luck. But it still seems to allude me. And today was no different. It rained, a lot. It hasn’t stopped raining for over 24 hours. We went to bed with rain, thunder and lightning most of the night and woke up to rain. We were camped next to the lake and woke up to the lake 6-8 feet closer than when we went to bed. Packing up in the rain sucks but we were going to western Oklahoma so we hoped the rain would stop by the time we got to Foss and dry us out. So I got dressed, we ate breakfast of cereal and I went to use the BIG bathroom at camp. This campsite is a bit far from the bathroom so I took the truck up. Came back, turned off the truck and started to get ready to pack up. Keith now needed to go to the bathroom so he went to get in the truck, turned the key and…NOTHING HAPPENED. Now when I was on the way back from the bathroom, I drove over a rather large dip in the road at probably too fast a speed and had a rather bumpy (think I was airborne) landing. So when the truck didn’t start, I thought I caused it. Except the radio and lights worked. I called AAA to get help. It seemed to take them forever. In fact I had to call twice. Of course I was completely stressed out. No truck, no way to move and IT WAS STILL RAINING. Finally they came and tried to jump the truck. Nothing happened. Crap, crap, crap. The AAA guy was real nice though and recommended a service station in town to call. I called them and they were amazing. They agreed to come over and see what they could do. They were very prompt, coming right away. There were 2 guys and they diagnosised the problem right away. The starter was shot. You probably thinking, well no big deal just stay another night. That would be ok, put us behind again but we can adapt. Except our site was rented for that night and oh yeah there was THE RAIN. But the guys said they thought they could fix it that day if they could get the part and even get it back by 5:30. We were supposed to be out by 4 but would just tell the camp host the situation…If we could get a hold of them which we had not been able to do. So they took the car and we settled in to wait. At a lull in the rain we packed up what we could, raised the beds and waited. These awesome people called up at 3:30 and said the truck was done and they were on the way back. YAY!! We were out and on the road by 4:10. Thank C&S Auto Services. They are getting a great review.
Since it was still early enough we did take Route 66 most of the way to our next stop, Foss Lake in Foss, OK. And boy am I glad we did. We went through a couple of little towns, Bristow and Depew. The came upon Stroud. Just tons of Route 66 signs and the Skyliner Motel for the 1930s. We stopped at the Rock Cafe for dinner. Run by Dawn Welch, it was featured on Diner, Drive-ins and Dives for the Buffalo Burger. Keith got that and I got the smothered pork cutlet. Both were excellent. The place was packed with photo ops and a lot of “Cars” memorabilia. It was cute but I wondered why so much of it. Then I read that Dawn was the inspiration for Sally Carrera, a character from “Cars”. Made total sense then. Also found out that Stroud, or more accurately 4 miles south of town was the Sac & Fox Reservation whose tribe members included Jim Thorpe. Interesting.
From Stroud we went through the small towns of Chandler with it’s cottage style former gas station, Warwick, Luther and Arcadia with its round barn. Since it was now getting late and we had about 2 hours until our next stop, we jumped on the freeway at Oklahoma City and went directly to Foss Lake. Maybe we will come back again to see Oklahoma City. We got to Foss and set up camp. We didn’t even unhook the camper from the truck because we were only there for one night. And it was again RAINING. Will it never end!! But the campground was beautiful. On a lake and very very clean. It even has a restaurant on site. Fancy! I would like to come back here. Since we had already eaten, we walked the dog and went to bed.
Unlucky Day 8