“Do Not Impede Left Lane”

After leaving Arkansas, we decided to do a “Hail Mary” and make some progress west and shoot for the Texas panhandle. It seems like the entire Interstate 40 through Oklahoma is being repaved but fortunately we came through early on a weekday. But the thing I noticed was the Oklahoma state law sign “Do Not Impede Left Lane.” So, so simple. It doesn’t matter your speed, if you are in the left lane, get over if you are slowing people down. This sign by-and-large seemed to work, there were only a couple left lane hogs the entire way. A lot of people don’t understand that being slower than traffic in the left lane (or barely having enough speed to pass) causes dangerous bottlenecks.

Roadtrip Note: After fiddling with CarPlay, we stop using Apple Maps and switched to Google. In Apple Maps, you can’t pick a stop along your route, it treats it as a destination. For example, if you choose gas stations, the list that comes up may actually be BEHIND you. And even if it is on your route, it tells you that it will add minutes to your route. Google Maps allows adding stops along the way and is working quite well. We’ve not tried Waze yet.

What happens when it gets really windy?

Lake Meredith is beautiful. It’s part of our National Recreation Area system and there are no reservations required and no fees taken. Strictly first come, first serve. While the campgrounds are mostly primitive (no electricity or water), they do have toilets (but not after Nov. 1, ha!) and there is one bathhouse with showers.

I had hoped to get the telescope out, it was such a big sky. But the clouds rolled in about dark and the moon came up about midnight so no bueno.

And the wind! They weren’t even calling for wind that night! Of course, knowing us, we probably pitched the tent in the funnel or something. Fortunately, we have a 4-season tent, the MSR Elixir 3, and we had ALL the tie-downs secured. Man, it rocked all night.

It was so peaceful in the morning, but they were now actually calling for wind the next three days so we decided to pack it up while we could get the tent down and took a nice driving tour around the lake before continuing West. The views were stunning.

I remember a tourist asked a native Kansan sarcastically what they did when it got really windy. She replied casually, “we put more rocks in our pockets.”