While we listened on the radio to Norman North High School defeat Owasso Community College* in the semi-final round of the state 6A football playoffs, my wife did some preliminary mapping of a route to circumnavigate the state of Oklahoma.
As I have mentioned before I would like to drive around the entire state of Oklahoma. My ultimate goal would be to drive exclusively on county roads. This would simulate as rough a passage as any jaunt around Africa. Oklahoma has notoriously bad roads and bridges (#6 on the Business Insider Website).
Mainstreet.com has us at #3. Sweet! Well, not really sweet unless you like driving on crappy roads.
Mrs. OkieRover took down some preliminary distance and time calculations. The initial route is on highways that edge around the state. It looks like it would take at least 4 days to accomplish the feat. We plan to make lots of stops and take lots of photos and video so this may morph into several more hours of travel per leg. The best part is if we run out of time we are at the most eight hours from the farthest point directly home.
I am thinking where possible we would use the state line roads. I know there is a lengthy section on the western border and across the northern border. The southern border is the Red River and has a good part of it lined with county roads. We will use these as we can.
The eastern border is mostly “mountainous” or what passes for mountains on the plains of Oklahoma. As such, the roads are a windy passage around the peaks and through the valleys. Not a lot we can do there.
I am thinking the trip will require us to outfit the Range Rover with a roof rack and fuel cans, “just in case”. It would be really awesome if I could figure out how to get the trip sponsored and some coverage by the local news. I will think about this more as we get closer to finding the dates for the trip. Spring Break would be ideal.
As far as the Range Rover mechanically, I think she would make the trip today if I wanted her to. The fuel mileage is not ideal but as I discussed in a previous post we have some things to work on in regards to that. I would like to get the radio outfitted. Having some boss tunes would be good but not absolutely necessary. The Mrs. and I most go radio-free on long drives. We just spend the time talking. And lastly, I don’t think the trip would be possible without air conditioning. Mrs. Okierover is fond of conditioned air.
To recap, it looks like 4.5 days of driving with a moderate level of stops. If the Mrs. is working the numbers she is game to give it a try. I really like to have 100% buy in and I believe I have it. I wish I could say we would sleep in a tent in the fields “expedition style” but that is not practical considering I would not want to “camp” in some farmer’s field without permission. This is Oklahoma and I can tell you I would not appreciate it if I found someone on my land.
Now I’m off to secure some URLs and to plan the next phase.
Thanks for reading. Go Timberwolves and Happy Rovering.
*This is an inside joke in our state. A joke the east side schools don’t appreciate. There are four east side schools that are enrollment-wise, twice as big as the biggest west side school. Each of these districts refuse to split like the west side schools have. The largest of them Broken Arrow has 4500 students enrolled 9-12th grades. Therefore the media on the west side of the state calls each of them either a college or university. There is even talk at the OSSAA, Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (the sanctioning body of high school sports) of making a 7A class, just for those schools. We on the west side of the state are all for this, of course. Since 1996 only Jenks High School or Union High School have competed for the state title in football.
UPDATE: We did not win. We were proud to have the chance to play though. Heads are up.
