Spacious skies and amber waves of grain.....

June 15 – No rush at all this morning, so nice!  Once Bill was stirring I made scones, ham and eggs and fruit for breakfast.  It seemed like a Sunday! Everywhere you look are beautiful skies and fields of wheat.  I asked Bill to stop and take my picture in the wheat field but he said he didn't want me to cross the weed fill ditch and get bit by a snake.  I think he just didn't want to do it.

Eye of the needle

Once we got in full motion we headed out got Monument Rocks.  It’s about 20 miles south of the campground and then gravel roads 8 miles across farm and oil land.  They are located on private property and the owner is kind enough to allow tourists and locals come and go.  They are on both sides of the road and when we arrived there was no one there but us.  We were lucky to have some time to

On one side of the road

ourselves for photos and fossil hunting.  The monuments were once under water and though upheavals the Jurassic fossils are above ground.  You can literally pick them up off the ground or fleck them off the sides of the monuments which are sand.  I concentrated on drainage areas where I thought fossil fragments would go during any rain. I did find some things and maybe once I wash them off I’ll have something good.  I was hoping for a shark’s tooth but didn’t find one.   Mostly shell fragments.

Two more cars finally came and I took a photo for one family and then we headed out.  Bill spotted a nest with what we think are swallows.

The swallows

We continued down the gravel roads 9 miles and passed fields of wheat, corn, cattle and oil derricks.  We came out on the main road and visited Keystone Gallery across the street.  They are professional fossil hunters and do restoration for other museums with fossils.  He had a huge Jurassic fish and other large fossils.  Some stuff was for sale but we really don’t need any other clutter. 

Must be lots of crude for 3 derricks

It was closing in on lunchtime when we got home so we ate and re-organized for a trip into town.  We had dessert at the Diary King.  What a nice treat and then Bill dropped me at the library to use the internet and while he took the FILTHY car to the car wash and filled up the gas.  I posted some blogs and loaded some software that was missing on my new laptop.  Bill came in but wasn’t able to get on the internet.  He read a while then went to drive around town.  I knew he would be bored after a while so I finished up and called him to come pick me up.  Maybe things have changed in libraries since I used to go, but this was the noisiest library I’d ever been in.  Bill even commented on it and he’s hard of hearing.  One girl got loud and belligerent on the phone to her mother and the people working the front desk were just talking away like they were sitting on a porch for a long visit.  Think I’ll try our library in Ocoee and see if that’s the way it now is. 

Definitely not a long and winding road....

Once we got home and put way the laptops we read a while and for dinner we went to Cap’n Jack’s Pub and Grill which is located kind of on the RV property.  They gave us a $5 off coupon and in checking the reviews that and the steak place in front of it are 2 of the top rated places in the area so we gave it a try.  The bulk of the menu surprisingly is seafood.  Cap’n Jack is from the Chesapeake area and has the seafood flown in weekly.  The rest of the menu was ribs and burgers:  beef, kobe beef, elk and bison.  The seafood was all fried, which I steer away from but didn’t have too much other choice.  I had a platter of calamari, shrimp (tailless) and cod.  I traded up from fries to grilled fresh green beans.  Well, the beans were the best, but the rest was very good.  I would have preferred cocktail sauce to tarter but the remoulade sauce for the calamari was perfect.  Bill didn’t surprise me as he went with the elk burger and fries.  He did have a few of my calamari.  We were both stuffed!  Price was great for the amount of food and then $5 off, good deal!

Oakley is a nice little town.  The graduating class this year was 39.  That’s pretty typical of the town we’ve been through.  There’s a whole lot of nothing but farming out here.