Hosting Bicycle Riders from South Korea

James and I hosted two young men - Min Ho Park Jaewon Heo -  from South Korea who were riding bicycles this summer from Los Angeles to New York. They contacted us through Warmshowers.org, where we offer a room for bicycle riders to stay as they travel across America. They are following Route 66 from Amarillo to Edmond, then turning north to Stillwater and then Kansas City, before turning back east towards St. Louis. We had a chance to visit with them about their travels and below are a few tidbits of information we discovered: They both served in the Korean military. Every male serves two … Continue reading...

Butterfield Overland Stage route on dirt bikes

Kay and I both love history, and we love riding motorcycles. We often combine our dual sport rides with a bit of historical sleuthing. This time we decided to follow in the footsteps of the Butterfield Overland Stage Route as it made it's way through Oklahoma from St. Louis to the 1850's gold fields of California. We met up with several of our closest riding friends at Clayton Lake State Park, one of our favorite camping spots. I had researched the route over the prior winter and discovered that the Oklahoma Historical Society had marked the stage stops with concrete markers on in 1958 on the … Continue reading...

Costa Rica Vacation

Off the Beaten Path - Costa Rica Kay and I recently spent a week in the Central American country of Costa Rica. Per our usual travel arraignments, we "winged it" on this trip. Our only reservations were our airline flights and a car rental reservation. We had a general idea of where we wanted to visit, but no firm hotel reservations or places to visit. Like is often the case, the first night "in country" we were questioning this decision. We had yet to learn the laid back "Costa Rica way". Nothing happens very fast here. The language barrier wasn't all that difficult, since quite a few Costa … Continue reading...

Off the Beaten Path – Skeleton Creek Ranch, Enid

Kay and I were driving in our Jeep north of Enid, Oklahoma and saw a sign that pointed to "Skeleton Creek Ranch". Thinking this was some type of cool dude ranch or something, we followed the signs to see something. Eventually one small sign pointed down a cow path in an empty field. Huh? We looked around and could see no "ranch" in site, so turned down the cow path. It looked like it was going towards and oil field tank, but then another little sign with just an arrow pointed down an even smaller cow path. Double humm. Now the going got a bit rough in our Jeep but never requiring 4WD - just … Continue reading...

Off the Beaten Path – Cowden, Oklahoma

I was recently meandering my way back from working in Altus and like usual, was traveling back roads, often gravel covered or paved secondary roads. As luck would have it I ran across a town that I had not heard of and that was not in my "Ghost Towns of Oklahoma" book -Cowden. Located south of Mountain View and north of the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, Cowden is a small town that began in 1893. A school and church was organized on December 4, 1893 and Cowden became an independent school district C-2 when it was consolidated with schools from Valley View, Bunker Hill and Caddo schools. … Continue reading...

Oldest Known Grave in Oklahoma

Gravestone for Sophia Pitchlynn has the oldest known gravestone in Oklahoma.

If you are ever in far southeastern Oklahoma, say around Tom (you know where Tom, Oklahoma is at, right? No? Idabel? Go to Idabel and keep going) be sure and stop by and see the oldest known grave in Oklahoma at the Garland Cemetery. It is a rural, very remote cemetery that requires driving down a gravel driveway to find, but when you get there you can see the oldest known birthdate on a gravestone in Oklahoma. Below is the inscription from the Oklahoma Historical Society marker: Small cemetery nearby contains graves of Choctaw chief Samuel Garland (1862 – 64) and family members including … Continue reading...

Off the Beaten Path – Sod Town

Sod Town is a ghost town in the eastern portion of the Oklahoma Panhandle. There is nothing there now except the remains of an old roadbed and I had to drive well over a mile into an open field just to find those remains. A bit about Sod Town from John Morris' excellent "Ghost Towns of Oklahoma" book: Sod Town was unique among the early settlements of the Panhandle. It was the first town to be built in the eastern part of No Man's Land, and all the buildings were constructed of blue creek sod. The village has been described as "standing irregularly and nakedly on the prairie." It had one … Continue reading...

Fort Gibson to Hulbert – Off the Beaten Path

Kay and I love to find out-of-the-way roads and places. A little known yet awesome route in eastern Oklahoma goes from Fort Gibson, north along the Neosho River and Fort Gibson Lake, to the small town of Hulbert. This all paved road takes you right by historic Fort Gibson, where you can see how soldiers lived in the 1800's. Be sure and take pictures at the Fort Gibson Dam. You can download these GPS coordinates and upload them right into your GPS and then follow the tracks yourself. … Continue reading...

Off the Beaten Path – Marshall, OK

Just a short hours drive north of Oklahoma City is the small town of Marshall, Oklahoma. Not quite a ghost town, it is a once thriving, but now mostly forgotten community in northern Logan County. Marshall began when the Unassigned Lands were opened for settlement in 1889. Sylvan Rice, from Marshalltown, Iowa, opened the first post office in 1890 and named the new town after his Hawkeye hometown. The town boomed with the opening of the nearby Cherokee Strip to settlement. Eventually the railroad came to town, spurring even more growth. Kay and I found this small town on one of our wandering … Continue reading...

Abandoned School

Kay and I love to travel dirt roads. We normally drive these on our dual sport bikes, but occasionally we take our Jeep. This time because of the cold weather we were in our Jeep Wrangler, just tooling along for an afternoon ride north of Crescent, and ran across this interesting, burned down school house. Being the intrepid explorers we are, I asked Kay “want to jump the fence and explore?” After 30+ years of marriage, I knew her answer before I asked the question. “SURE!” We hopped the fence and wandered through the old school yard and remains of this school. The walls were still standing … Continue reading...