Our journey began on May 8, 2010. I feel like Captain Kirk's voice is going to infiltrate my brain telling me what the stardate was or something. Anyway, we loaded up in Yertle around 8:30 am and headed west on I-40 toward Clinton. Of course, while Bird drove, Baxter consulted the Historical Markers iPhone app. And what did I find? Marker upon marker, historical place upon historical place between Oklahoma City and Clinton! I know, you're all completely shocked.
In consulting the Oklahoma Historical Society (yay!) Historical Markers list and the Historical Markers app, we found a marker that the guides said would be located outside of Hinton called Rock Mary. It is a large, flattish red rock that was used as a marker along the California Trail. The rock was named for the 17-year-old granddaughter of the Governor of Arkansas in 1849. So, we took a slight detour on the way to Clinton through Hinton to find Rock Mary. And by "slight detour" I mean we wound our way through several country roads, ended up on a dirt road, and still didn't manage to find it. Well, we found where it should be, but it's on private property and the thought of walking out on private property in rural Oklahoma makes me a little nervous considering the likelihood of "shoot first, ask questions later" being the tactic used by the population. Of course, I could get out and ask the people at the house if we could explore, but the house looked, well, fairly abandoned. So, instead, we drove out into a field and named our own Rock Mary, pictured above with my trusty driver.
We then hopped back into Yertle and headed for I-40. Clinton was calling our names! The RAV4 rolled into town and into the Route 66 Museum parking lot. EVERYONE should go see this museum. It doesn't look as if it would take long to peruse, but we spent a good two hours pouring over the chronological presentation of the building of, history of, and pop culture icon that the road became. After some time in the museum (and the gift shop, of course!), we headed across the street for some tasty Italian food on the recommendation of some of my Historical Society coworkers who had been out to Clinton to the museum for work. From there, we cruised downtown Clinton until Bird found a store that said the magic word on the window. What magic word might that be? "Hallmark." Yes, the following day would be Mother's Day and he needed a card. So, we stopped in, picked up a card, I found a great theater marquee on the main drag to photograph, as you can tell, and we got in the car to start on our way south.
Our two real destinations for the day had been Clinton and Quartz Mountain. Anything else we saw and I subject you to are just shiny objects we were distracted by along the way. One of our better "shiny object" moments happened in Cordell, county seat of Washita County. As evidenced by the fact that we drove past a street, looked down it, and found the incredibly striking Washita County Courthouse. And then turned immediately around to go investigate. Shiny object, shiny object!
I find it so amazing when such impressive structures are hidden in places that so few people except those who see it every day will find it. And, of course, courthouses in small towns have great historical markers on their lawns. We continued to see that as we continued on our trip south toward Quartz Mountain...
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