lake sardis (end of day 6)

so not exactly the day I'd planned, but an oklahoma folk historian and oklahoma vikings in one day? it works. it never did rain much in heavener, but I was locked in by a solid wall of purple occasionally showing sharp white veins. it blocked the way south, and a greyer mass blocked the north. after an hour a gap of blue opened up in between, and I guessed unrealistically that it marked the way I was headed. in the event the deep blue wall stayed safely to the south and always just one ridge away but squarely over the talimena parkway. so the detour worked, I reached the end of the parkway a few hours delayed and continued southwestward into the choctaw nation; one bank had the temperature plummeting all the way down to a chilly 80 degrees. abandoned the atlas-approved scenic routes for a grey-on-the-map state route past lake sardis. I considered a wireless and laundry night in the mountain gateway town of talihina, but am happy I pressed on a bit more to an army corps campground right on the lake. for $10 I have a lakeside site with nobody around, enough breeze to discourage the skeeters, a decent sunset. (but no food.) the lake itself is vaguely lochesque with sharp hills on three sides, though it's a bit wide and of course manmade. that piney sandy smell that somehow evokes both greece and the outer banks at the same time for me. and intermittent bursts of frognoise. if only I knew my frogs...these are no spring peepers or bullfrogs that I know. what sounds like dozens explode together at random intervals, one company in a grassy lagoon to the left, one to my right, and I swear the ones on the right are deeper-voiced. their call sounds like a cross between donkey braying and goose honking, if that's possible. and then silence, except for one loner who keeps going for a while until realizing he's all alone. the bugs have quieted down as well...just one katydid left.