So this is my first official blog post for Hugo’s Highways & Byways.  I purchased my new Coachmen Freedom Express Libery Edition 321FEDS travel trailer on July 23rd.  Then purchased my Chevrolet Silverado the following week so that I could pick up the trailer on July 30th.  I then spent my first week out at Copan reservoir in Oklahoma figuring out where everything was and ordering the additional items I needed to get this journey started.  Satellite dish, high gain wireless antenna, and a better queen sized a mattress.  It wasn’t a bad view.

My first stop heading out on this journey was to Waynoka, Oklahoma.  I had heard about Little Sahara via a girl I had been conversing with on the internet from a dozen or so years ago and always wanted to check it out.  She was a cute redhead that I never actually met but introduced me to a place that has 1,600 acres of sand dunes primarily used for ATV’s.

I didn’t rent an ATV the time I was there.  Warnings about going out on the sand dunes by yourself turned me off.  Plus, the cost of $200 for a one seater for a day and $500 deposit.  If you want a four seater that’ll run you $400/day and $2,000 deposit.  When I go back with someone else I’ll make more of an effort to get out on the dunes.  But while I was walking up to the observation tower I saw this sign.

It talked about how there was a Harvey House in Waynoka and how it was one of the 8 stops in the first cross country air plane routes started by Charles Lindbergh.

I went and had lunch at El Charro restaurant which is in the Harvey House.  This makes the third Harvey House that I’ve eaten at.  Including La Fonda in Santa Fe, NM and La Posada in Winslow, AZ.  The best reference I can make is that the Harvey House was the original breastaurant.  They also have a great museum upstairs in the guest rooms that show the history of the Harvey Houses and the Cross Country Air route.

You can find additional information about the Harvey Houses at http://harveyhouses.net/

The big airport hanger that had been build for Lindbergh was eventually sold and moved to Missouri.

I finished off the day going to Alabaster Caverns in Freedom.  No pictures were allowed in the caverns.  It was a 3/4 mile hike underground and a very nice cave.  Didn’t know there were any in Oklahoma.  More information is here.

Travel Oklahoma

Additional photos on:

Flickr