Travels in Oklahoma and Missouri

              Sadly, we left Enos, Oklahoma after a wonderful visit with the church in Madill and personal time with John and Mary Ann Kelly, Bob Melugin and Nancy Cook, Mary Ann's friend who lives nearby.  Nancy was taking the photograph so unfortunately, I don't have her picture.  

We drove next to Birch Cove park located in Barnsdall, OK, just south of Bartlesville. 

We went to the church in Dewey, OK on Sunday morning and got to meet a couple of our orphan sponsors, Mark and Brenda Tucker and Doylene and Ray Myers. We met Richard and Barbara Towers, members at the Bartlesville congregation, for lunch and had a delightful visit with them. They have been sponsors a long time and after meeting them, I’m even more appreciative of their sacrificial giving. They have a number of grandchildren they could be spending their money on but they have a heart for the poor children in China who have so little hope in life. We also met Randy and Cathy Everett but did not have much time to spend with them. We missed seeing others who were not present that day. Not having phone numbers for everyone, we could not call those that we missed on this visit.

Oil pumps all along the highways.

 
I saw a field of longhorn cattle that were the ugliest I have ever seen. They were spotted, not like the usual spotted cows that we know about but horribly patterned smaller spots. They looked fierce with the long horns. I have never seen cows like that. We saw many pastures with cattle everywhere in Oklahoma. This is my first time in Oklahoma and seeing the countryside was interesting.

Another interesting sight between Barnsdall and Bartlesville was a horse farm. It’s not just an ordinary horse farm. It consists of rolling hills and pasture for miles and miles and as far into the distance on each side of the road as you can see. We asked about this farm and were told that these are wild horses that have been rounded up and the government pays the landowners for taking care of them. All along the roadside we saw droves of wild horses and oil wells, actively pumping. Were you aware that our tax dollars are paying to keep wild horses?

While at the congregation Sunday night, we were told that tornadoes had hit around Prague, OK and the area just east of Oklahoma City. There was one death as a trailer park was demolished and many houses destroyed. It was reported that trailer trucks were thrown over along Interstate I-40. We got out our computers and checked to be sure we were not in the path of more storms that night. Early Monday, we packed up and drove to Aunts Creek, Corp of Engineer Park, west of Branson, MO. 

We had not been settled very long until we received a weather alert on our phone and began closing down the sliders on the RV. I walked to the bathhouse nearby and told Ron that I thought it was much more substantial than staying in the RV. While in Barnsdall, I checked out the bathhouse and took a shower but the doors to the showers and toilets were open to a courtyard that had a high rock wall but no roof. I immediately ruled that bathhouse out for a proper tornado shelter. While we were closing down and shutting off computers, the park official drove in on his golf cart and told us to immediately get to the bathhouse.

No camper was allowed to stay in their campers as a possible tornado was heading directly for our area. Many people had smart phones with them and were tracking the storm. There was rotation in the storm and warnings were going out for all campers on all of the parts to leave for shelters. We all congregated in the bathhouse for about an hour until it passed over and the weather was downgraded to thunderstorms. We had thunderstorms all night and again today but so far nothing threatening.

The campers had all of the news about the horrible tornadoes that hit Moore, OK and we were all saddened by that news. It is horrible when little children are sent to school and face disasters. It should be a happy and safe place but parents can no longer be sure their children are safe. The shootings in Connecticut, the tornado in Moore, OK and the earthquake in Sichuan, China, took the lives of many innocent children in schools.

One lady in the group last night told about a tornado that came through Joplin, Missouri some years ago and took off the top floor of a hospital. That floor was the maternity floor and many babies were killed; many of them never found. These disasters are so terribly sad that we cannot imagine having to endure such hardships.

We did not see any black bears but we did see a lot of campers over the Memorial Day weekend.  Lots of kids, dogs and people but everyone was well-behaved and there was no problem having people camped all around us.