As promised, 3:00 a.m. came very fast; but at least this time, we were able to sleep well, in a decent hotel room.  It may have been an Econolodge, but at least it was a flea-bag motel like that one in Dallas!

It was dark and cool outside when we left Sallisaw, OK and hit the road.  Mary and I continued to sleep as John drove us through the state of Oklahoma; I only woke up momentarily, when John announced that he had just run over an armadillo crossing the road. 

I was finally awake at 5:00 a.m.; by that time, we were in Oklahoma City.  We had considered stopping to see the Oklahoma City Memorial - which commemorates the 168 people who were killed in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in downtown Oklahoma City - but it was much too early in the morning and the site wouldn't be open for another three hours.  We weren't willing to wait around that long - not if we wanted to make it to Overgaard by the end of the day.

That was our goal for the day: to make it to Overgaard, AZ, and spend the night there, in the Gaard-Chak.  Having the Gaard-Chak as a destination meant that we didn't have to pay for a hotel for the night, and we would only be two and a half hours from home.

Home...it was hard to believe that we had been gone for ten days.  Now, we were looking forward to being home again.

We drove like mad that day, only stopping when it was absolutely necessary.  Not that there was much to see along the way. There weren't any other National Parks along the highway; and as soon as we left Oklahoma, we found ourselves back in the desert wasteland known as Texas, on one long, straight, flat, and boring stretch of highway.  The only thing there was to see in that part of Texas was Amarillo, where we stopped for gas.  That was when John pointed out that we were more than halfway across Texas; that meant that we were on our way out of the state.

Next came New Mexico - and, up until we reached Albuquerque, the highway continued in the same fashion: long, straight, flat, and boring.  After Albuquerque, though, we were back in the scenic desert landscape that makes that part of the country popular among tourists: the intricate rock formations, created by centuries of erosion in harsh conditions and painted in beautiful reds and pinks and purples and browns.  Seeing that meant that we were getting closer to Arizona...and that was when we started getting that "destination lust".  We were so close; we just wanted to get there!

At long last, just after lunchtime, we passed over the Arizona state line!  An hour later, we were in Holbrook, at which time, we left the interstate behind and started south on the state highways that would take us into Heber-Overgaard: SR 77, SR 377, and SR 277.

We arrived at the Gaard-Chak around 3:00 in the afternoon - much earlier that we expected, but that is what happens when you drive like mad, when you have "destination lust".  By that time, we were exhausted from driving and very irritable, and that caused us to begin snapping at each other.  I guess it was a good thing that we didn't attempt to drive that last two and a half hours home!

While at the Gaard-Chak, we discovered that there was a sinkhole on the property.  Bill and Erika had heard a rumor from their Overgaard neighbor, Rick, that there was a sinkhole, but they had not been there to check it out for themselves.  We discovered that it was much worse than Rick had let on; in fact, it was about to engulf the birdbath.  We took pictures of the damage to send home to Bill and Erika, so that they could make an assessment as to what needed to be done.

Fortunately, the sinkhole posed no threat to the 4Runner or to the house, so we let it be and went inside to relax from the long drive. 

That evening, we cooked dinner at the cabin, then watched movies until we fell asleep - one by one - in the living room...
 

Return to South Carolina or Bust.

Return to Naked in the Woods.