day 6 -- rainstorms and oklahoma vikings

last night I charged the netbook at the campground with the expectation that I'd take a scenic picnic break somewhere in the mountains and catch up on writing. preferably with a baguette and brie in hand, olives, the whole trying-too-hard aesthetic. instead I'm writing from the unoccupied bay of a car wash on the strip outside of heavener, oklahoma, where I've parked the bike for the second rain delay of the ride. so let's back up.

coming down out of the mountains I stopped at mcdonald's for a sausage egg mcmuffin and hasbrowns in booneville, arkansas (unfortunately passing up the 'donut palace' chain again) and then a turkey-bacon-swiss sammich in mena near the oklahoma border. both less for the food than for the possibility of local news and notes. I'm constantly torn between the quiet mountain picnic and the lure of overheard conversations and the clatter of diner dishes. so far the diner sentiment is winning, even though there's really no such thing as the lunch counter of road trip fantasies anymore. I figure I'll hit one someday. I wasn't far from it in a pizza place on the courthouse square somewhere in illinois. blinds pulled way down for the sun but busy at lunchtime. grandma and mom with the kid, city maintenance workers, a text-frenzied quartet of teenagers, and larry. larry most likely has williams' syndrome (a developmental disorder) was accordingly unabashed and friendly...of course he greeted everyone by name and got hugs from all in return. and the sunny (sunrise? sun?) cafe in mena was closer. sit-down-at-your-table proprietor, orders shouted from across the room, 'the usual,' and so on.

I had roughly charted a route through the rest of the ouachita NF into oklahoma and beyond, taking the shorter of two routes, but when she was ringing me out the sunny cafe lady asked if I was headed 'up the mountain.' I said that if that's the way to go then yes. she proceeded to issue dire warnings about taking the turns slow enough, which I said I'd heed...and then five seconds later an old regular repeated her warnings (independently), noting that 'there's a wreck up there every day.' and more about his motorcycle days commuting 60 miles roundtrip throughout chicago winters (really?). now perhaps all that should have scared me off, along with the 'steep and crooked road next 12 miles' warning sign, but where there are curves and hills there's scenic. after a brief false start (doubled back to mena for gas, where I unwisely changed out of a left-hand turn lane into somewhere in between to more easily access the gas station and disturbed a burly arkansas state trooper. this one less friendly than the first two I met, but no ticket), I was off and up the hill. and well well worth it...the talimena parkway runs something like 50 miles along a high ridge with sweeping panoramas on either side every couple of miles. compares favorably with the blue ridge parkway / skyline drive. deep blues and greens and hazy beauty, supposedly bears (not for me) and definitely coyotes (one scurried across in front of me). thrilling ride, no traffic. but after I'd passed the state park lodge I noticed that some of the blue and purples were in the sky squarely ahead of me. now, I've ridden in rain when I didn't leave myself a choice on the way back from ontario...had to get from bucyrus, ohio to dayton by 10am for a class. but this is vacation, the chrome on my bike is spotless, and I really don't want to mess with soaked leather, tricky-slick curves, and twisting rain covers over my jury-rigged packs. so a mantra: I'm not in a hurry, I'm not in a hurry.

but if you've traveled with me or heard me narrate travels, I don't really work that way. sensibly, that is. instead of turning around and finding cover at the lodge, I calculated where the clouds were actually raining and where they weren't, gauged the direction, watched for windshield wipers on oncoming cars, and the like. I pretend in these circumstances that I'm calculating, but in reality it's more like wishful thinking. like the time I set off on a cross-hamilton-county run, 12 miles from the glendale running spot to a point on the far northeastern reaches of the metrobus system, with a mistaken time schedule in mind and only a vague idea of actual mileage. and got to the bus route for the last bus of the evening with, oh, 20 seconds to spare and no other options for the 15 further miles it would have taken to return to walnut hills. so...since it worked out I can pretend that I had this excursion under control, but really? pure luck. the talimena parkway is a parkway, which means there were no turnoffs. only forward or retreat. the latter isn't really an option, though I know I'm unlikely to find much cover ahead. but there's that gap between thunderheads that I can just squeeze through, surely...

just when the first drops splashed my faceshield I reached the first intersection in 25 miles, which conveniently led north and around the front edge of the storm. four miles to the bottom of the hill, road just barely damp. at the bottom another intersection, this one with an abandoned gas station...possible shelter. but the sun was out again, so I pressed on toward heavener, only 18 miles away. clouds keep advancing, the ozone smell and cool breezes that first hit me a half hour have intensified. 9 miles to go. (again, a little rain won't really ruin anything, but this is a full on rolling thunderstorm, and at this point I had convinced myself of the worst. tornadoes, hail...) puddles on the road, but no rain. approaching headlights and windshield wipers. and just as it starts to spatter me again, in the distance I glimpse a red-and-green lighted signboard...first open gas station in the last 40 miles. it's a 'tote-a-poke,' in the grand southern tradition of choosing the most ridiculous and meaningless names for gasoline / convenience store / grocery franchised chains. piggly-wiggly comes to mind. I pull in literally seconds before it really opens up and buy a snickers in exchange for the parking space.

conventional banter about the trip until the clerk motions me toward one of two booths, half-occupied by a tall skinny cowboy with a white hat, amber glasses...and a shiny laptop. (there's another cowboy there too, who gets out of his truck carrying -- no kidding -- a lasso, which he brings into the tote-a-poke.) great, another opportunity for conversation of the type that I figured I'd never initiate, the kind that makes me jealous of least-heat moon's travel writings. but Gary Courtney was even more than I expected. sparkling easy-winking eyes, white-blonde hair under a white 8-gallon, incongruously dark mustache, constant glances back toward the laptop (ebay? checking his book sales?). the conversation meanders from topic to topic, almost all about his experiences, but the gist: grew up and spent most of his life in tulsa (occupation unknown), with proudest accomplishment heading to some durango, colorado trail and hiking to 14,000 feet seven years in a row, and then taking his teenage kids with him the next two years for the same journey. catch the steam train out of town, have them let him off and hike around the wilderness for two weeks. took the kids when he had 'em for the summer after the divorce and saw the journey as an 'outdoor classroom,' which they apparently enjoyed enough to come back the next year. in all honesty you can see a dad like that cutting two ways for teenagers...an opportunity to get out of houston for the summer, but he talks a lot. and you can imagine him repeating stories. a lot. but not obnoxious...soft spoken and prepossessed, easy smile. anyway, at some point he retired from tulsa to concentrate on his book-writing (he noted that you can find all his books on barnes&noble.com). lived at the clear creek campground outside of hodgen...six weeks in a tent through a frigid winter. and now a year-and-a-half in a no-electricity, no-running-water cabin halfway up to the talimena ridge. he writes about the pioneers of northeastern and southwestern oklahoma, about the etymology of country phrases, about clear creeek campground ("the most beautiful place on god's green earth, and I've been to colorado"), and so on. proud of a daughter just out of the navy (destroyer-navigator) who's back in grad school at UCSD and recently required dad's presence at her wedding -- he took the greyhound, naturally.

the facts he dropped on me are far too numerous to recount, but one stood out. when I mentioned archaeology (barely getting myself in edgewise, just to be polite?), he directed me to the 'viking runes' on a hill outside of the next town, heavener (pronounced HEE-ve-ner). viking runes. so I know about the modoc tales of blue-eyed native americans in the great lakes and thought them barely plausible, but viking in the southland? when the rain cleared I headed into town and followed little blue signs that wound through the weedy streets of heavener and up a steep hill past the 'heavener wolves' water tower. and there it was. signboards outside a visitor center explained that 'some epigraphers' (dr so-and-so and dr such-and-such) believe that the symbols are scandinavian runes and have translated them. I jog down the steps to the rock (rain is suddenly threatening again) and sure enough there are some definitely-not-native-american symbols. a double-axe, some crescent-shaped thing. no accompanying picture because the rock is in a dark shelter...you can find one at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavener_Runestone. convincing? these were found supposedly by a 'choctaw scouting party' along with several other similar runes in the area in the early 19th century. and documented by europeans in 1874 with the sort of witnessed affidavit that suspiciously recalls that associated with joseph smith and his golden plates. so who knows...easily forged, that being the era of 'canaanite' tablets found buried in the tops of hopewell burial mounds as well.