Left Robbers Cave State Park (Oklahoma) around 10:30am heading to Foss Lake State Park (also in Oklahoma).
A little excitement during the drive, on the opposite side of the divided highway (thankfully) we saw a semi-trailer truck pushing a car along the road. The car was perpendicular to the truck (and the road). Smoke everywhere. Looked like it was a slow motion special effect from a movie.
No other excitement and we arrived, unscathed, at Foss Lake State Park.
First thing we notice as we are setting up is that it is very windy. Nobody at the other RV’s in the campground are sitting outside, so we hide inside as well.
Next morning it is still windy, so breakfast inside, then we head out for a hike.
We found a trail head at a nearby tent camping area that looked like it had been set up for halloween. Being the intrepid adventurers that we are we threw caution to the winds and entered…
There was a fairly lengthy trail with all sorts of halloween-themed sections (coffins, electric chair, zombies, cemetary, etc). Whoever set this up did a most excellent job! We got lost trying to get out and had to go off-piste to escape.
On November 8 and 9 we hiked two different trails. One trail went between campgrounds and the other trail was mowed, for horse riding.
After each hike the dogs were covered in ticks, dozens on each dog! We spent more time on tick removal than on hiking!
November 9:
Drove into the nearby town of Clinton for lunch at the Route 66 Cafe. B had catfish, fries and onion rings. I had the special of the day – Chicken Tenders with fries. Food was oowwee-gooey greasy goodness! Everything had some kind of coating (fries too). Onion rings were huge (I had to help out here). Neither of us could finish everything on our plates.
We waddled back to the truck and while watering the hogs (dogs) we noticed more ticks, so another tick removal session in the diner parking lot.
Then down the road to the Route 66 museum. $7pp entry fee and it was well worth it. Lots of very interesting history and trivia about the construction, use, and eventual demise of this famous highway that stretched from Chicago IL, to Santa Monica CA. Route 66 was the first paved highway that crossed the midwestern states.
During the night the trailer started to shake and I looked over to see which dog had decided that they needed a vigorous scratch during the wee hours of the morning. Much to my surprise both dogs were soundly asleep. As I looked around I noticed through a window that the nearby trees were behaving a bit peculiarly, they were moving around like they were doing a frenetic samba dance! The trailer was moving because the wind was howling.
Trip Summary:
Depart from: Robbers Cave State Park, OK
Depart time: 10:30 am
Odometer: 127029 miles
Arrive time: 4:00 pm (Foss Lake State Park, OK)
Odometer: 127299 miles
Gas Summary (fill-ups):
Odometer: 127036 miles, 11.7g @ US$3.32/g (US$39.68)
Odometer: 127162 miles, 7.9g @ US$3.79/g (US$30.00)
November 10:
Odometer: 127355 miles, 23.8g @ US$3.40/g (US$78.45)
Is there something that you can apply to the dogs to deter ticks? One of my former colleagues has lime disease and has been ill and incapacitated for six months! Bad stuff.
We use NexGard for our dogs which kills the ticks before they can transmit any disease. In theory we don’t need to remove ticks from the dogs, but we prefer to minimize (or eliminate) any ticks bites they may receive.