It was a bittersweet morning as we loaded up the bike to depart from Grandpa’s for the last time. RJ washed the bike, I cleaned the helmets and made sure everything was packed. Grandma was trying to feed us anything and everything- toast, eggs, orange juice, coffee, dessert, leftovers, … trash (jk, only the best from Grandma). She packed us cookies and water bottles for our journey. Grandpa, Grandma, and Aunt Maria had all stayed home from church to see us off and wish us safe travels. After big tight hugs and another “Are you sure I can’t feed you anything else?”, we were on our way to Oklahoma City.

The drive was roughly five hours with not a lot of scenery along the way. It was reminiscent of the Utah desert mixed with the rolling hills of Nebraska. We talked about our time in Montezuma, setting puzzles with Grandpa and listening to Aunt Maria’s crazy jokes. We joked about how sad we were to leave Grandma’s cooking even though we both could barely fit into our riding clothes at this point. We were itching to visit more states and knew we couldn’t spend forever living in my grandparent’s basement so off we went.

We made it to the Capitol about an hour or so before it closed. The entire place was deserted and we couldn’t tell if the building was even open. There was ample parking, but as you pull up to a parking spot, you notice that it was reserved for some state official. We then spent the next 30 minutes putting around the building in 90 degree weather in all of our gear trying to find a public parking spot. It didn’t help that RJ never listens to my amazing parking suggestions… By the time we found a 15 minute parking spot, we were quite sweaty and a bit on edge, to say the least (If we had stopped to think that it was a Sunday, we could have parked in any of the staff spots because they don’t come to work on Sunday 🙄). We walked to the side entrance where construction had halted for the weekend. We walked through the construction site to the doors but they were locked. How were we supposed to get in now? We walked around the construction to the front of the building but the doors were blocked off due to more construction on the front of the building. By this time I was ready to give up and come back the next morning (we had to come back anyway because the gift shop wasn’t open on the weekends) but RJ is not one to give up so easily. It was hot out so I waited in the front of the building under a tree while RJ walked the perimeter trying to find a door that was open.

A short time later RJ reappeared to let me know that he did find an entrance and yes, it was open. So around the building we went to the opposite entrance of the first entrance we tried. We entered the basement where a security guard greeted us, gave us a guide booklet, and told us how to make our way to the main floor. By this time we had maybe 15 minutes or less to be in and out of the Capitol.

The place was void of any staff or visitors and the interior was rather bare as staff had taken down all pictures and decor for renovations. The dome however, was beautiful along with the grand paintings in each wing. Until recently, the Capitol had a flat roof until the governor asked 10 people for a million dollars each. And they all said, “Sure, I have a million dollars and I’d LOVE to give it to you to build a tall round roof on a building that already has a decent roof. Just put my name in the circular roof thingy and the money is all yours.” If you look closely you can see their names were added to the bottom white strip.

We left the Capitol with plans to return the following morning for our stamp and coffee mug. We drove to Pops, a restaurant/store that our friends in Montezuma told us to check out. This place has over 700 different kinds of pop from Kitty Piddle to Ranch Dressing to Alien Snot to regular good ole Coca Cola. I wanted to try a crazy pop but I didn’t want it to taste terrible and have to throw it out and waste a precious two whole dollars so I was safe and we shared a soft lemonade. It was delicious.

From Pops we drove a couple miles to a coffee shop where I sipped coffee while RJ worked to pay off my coffee addiction.

A couple hours later we drove to our campsite and I set up the tent, aired up the sleeping mats and got out the sleeping bags while RJ worked. This might seem unfair to the casual reader, but it’s actually an agreement that we made – RJ gets me coffee and I set up camp while he works. I stick it to him by getting a Large (take that).

The next morning we drove back to the Capitol when the gift shop opened. We walked around a bit more to the Senate and HOR chambers as they were open. We met an older lady who sat at the desk to the entrance of the HOR. She gave us a little impromptu tour of her floor, even though we never asked for one, nor did we ask for her to talk our ears off with information about her state I didn’t care to know. She was pretty sure we wanted our picture taken in every room but one was enough and we politely declined anymore then got the heck outta there. Jk, she was a very nice lady but we did have to make our way to Little Rock so we thanked her for showing us around and headed back to our bike.

We drove through Eastern Oklahoma which was beautiful! We had to make a stop close to the border because the phone charger wasn’t working and RJ needed his phone to charge for GPS. He didn’t end up getting it to work but we had a couple of motorcyclists stop to see if we were ok. We chatted with them for awhile and couldn’t get over the fact that we were on a motorcycle all the way from California. The entire conversation RJ and I were both thinking the same thing, “Are they father and daughter or boyfriend and girlfriend??” After they wished us well on the rest of our journey and rode off, we came to the conclusion they were probably partners- with a huge age gap but we were left thinking about it for the rest of the day.

After putting tools away and the seat on, we got back on the bike and drove through beautiful Ouchita National Forest and into Arkansas. We drove to Hotsprings, an hour from Little Rock, where the closest KOA was. Another coffee shop, another coffee,  and more work followed. We found a Slim Chickens for supper then drove to the KOA where I set up camp while RJ got more work done.

We drove to Hotsprings, an hour from Little Rock, where the closest KOA was. Another coffee shop, another coffee, and more work followed. We found a Slim Chickens for supper then drove to the KOA where I set up camp while RJ got more work done.

I crashed for the night while RJ stayed up late to finish up some work.
Cheers! ~ em and rj