No Reservations

Our travel style for some time now has been NO RESERVATIONS,  and it has worked well for us.  We don't like being committed to be anywhere at any specific time, and if we make reservations in advance it means we may miss another opportunity, because we're supposed to be somewhere at a given time.  Originally we were going to dry camp in the Super Walmart in Sand Springs on our way to Muskogee, OK to visit friends, but it appeared it would be hot....well, hot for us...high 80's, so we located an RV park that looked like it could handle our size and put the address in our GPS and rolled the wheels.  

We left Newton, KS around 9:15am and continued south on I-135 toward Wichita.  Eventually, just southwest of Wichita we picked up I-35, which in Kansas is a toll road.  For the stretch of I-35 that took us within 16 miles of the Oklahoma border it cost $3.75.....not too bad.  The drive south into Oklahoma was sort of up and down, continuing the trend from the day before, but the highway was smooth, and we continued to have a tail wind....this time from the north.

As we crossed into Oklahoma around 10:50am we knew we would be merging on to US 412, which is also a toll road, and that the tail wind would probably become a cross wind, which it did.  On US 412 we went to two toll booths and paid out $6.50 total in tolls for about 40+ miles of toll road, which was not in very good condition.

Unlike other days the only time the coach stopped moving forward was to stop and pay a toll.  We did not utilize any rest stops.   Amazingly, I drove the entire 194 miles to Sand Springs non-stop, which is not something I like to do.

We exited US 412 around 12:55 and headed south on HWY 64 a mile, or so, and then west a 1/2 mile on HWY 51 to Riverview RV Park.  This park is located on a hill above HW 51, and has a nice view of the Arkansas River, looking back north to downtown Sand Springs.

We arrived, of course, unannounced at the park......by that I mean NO RESERVATIONS.  The owner was not in his office, so I walked around the park and found an open 65 foot pull through spot, which was the ONLY spot open.....of course, this is Saturday, and that is to be expected.  So we pulled into the pull through spot (#22) and just plugged in the electrical, waiting for the owner to return and let us know if we could stay in that spot.  Well, the owner returned around 3pm, and came over and rang our door bell.....yes, the Newell does have an actual door bell!  Ray, the owner, is a very polite guy, and apologized profusely for not being in when we arrived.  He advised us that he did have someone coming in around midnight Saturday night who had reserved #22, but, the good news is he did have a spot for us....not a regular site with a concrete pad, but a spot where we could plug in to 50 amp, hook up our water, and close enough to a sewer connection to dump when we needed to, if we needed to.  Because it was not a regular spot he discounted the daily price to $20....a $5 savings per day. the move was easily accomplished in about 10 minutes, and we were set up again quckly, and will be here for two days.

The space Ray found for us....not perfect, but perfect for no reservations!

After getting ourselves organized we hopped in the T'Bird and drove 8 miles into Tulsa to have dinner at James E. McNellie's Public House on 1st...just a few short blocks off US 412.  McNellie's has 58 great beers on tap.  You can see about half of them in the picture below.  TLE had a pint of "Left Hand Milk Stout", and I had a pint of Fuller London Porter along with Fish and Chips, which were to die for.  Very cool place in an area of town that has a lot of old red brick buildings that are being re-purposed into pubs, coffee houses, delis, book stores etc.  Very cool area of town.

We ate our meal at the bar as there was a 25 minute wait for a table.  While we were eating a lady named Caroline sat down to order food, also, and we struck up a conversation.  She is Energy Engineer working on some natural gas projects in the the Tulsa area.  Very interesting lady, and she was in turn fascinated by our life style, and had dozens of questions.

After our meal we headed out to walk around the area for a few blocks to get a feel for the area.  There are a number of cool places we would like to check out if we were going to be here a week.  

We arrived back at our "home" just at sunset.  Another great day of travel and a great evening exploring downtown Tulsa.

Thanks for stopping by!