Drove thru Oklahoma yesterday

[zxcvbob]

What's with all the marijuana dispensories?  They are everywhere.  That's the main point of this post and the topic for discussion -- unless y'all wanna riff on something else

Picher, OK is pretty much gone.  It has been a ghost town for a while, but now most of the streets (what's still recognizable as a street) are fenced off with No Trespassing signs that look oddly US govt issue. Probably the EPA.  And I didn't see the gorilla (high school mascot) statue this time, but I might have just missed it; I was driving >1100 miles in one day so I didn't make any unnecessary stops or detours to look around.  There was a small Picher school district administration building that looked like it was still open, I thought that was strange. The only other building with vehicles around it looked like a sand and gravel company (selling chat?)  Next time I'm in the area i should drive by the neighboring ghost town Cardin.

I saw 99¢ gasoline, just south of Picher at a casino gas station, but I had just filled up with $1.29 gas about 20 miles up the road    That was the cheapest gas I saw on the whole trip.

I made it back home safely; got in just after midnight.  Didn't get to bed until 02:00 cuz it took a while to unwind after driving that far in one day.  (Houston, TX to Rochester, MN)  I guess I could have stopped in Des Moines like usual, but I thought pushing on was safer that staying at a motel.  BTW, I chose my route to have no toll roads, just to avoid any unnecessary human interaction at the tollbooths.  It would have been a little faster to use the I-44 (Will Rogers) turnpike for a few miles.

[BobR]

Here is an article that was in the local rag about OK and pot. Seems it is fairly friendly to the pot industry.

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/mar/07/pot-entrepreneurs-flocking-to-the-bible-belt-for-l/

bob

[Brad Johnson]

The only other building with vehicles around it looked like a sand and gravel company (selling chat?)  Next time I'm in the area i should drive by the neighboring ghost town Cardin.

...

It would have been a little faster to use the I-44 (Will Rogers) turnpike for a few miles.

Chat is the small leavings from gravel screening. It's usually the coarser stuff. Like walking on legos. The nice, pretty round stuff is usually gets marked as pea gravel.

Last time I was on WRT the booths were pretty well automated. Toss in your money to get the Green Eyeball of Pass.

Brad

[Perd Hapley]

Chat is the small leavings from gravel screening.

Chat's what it is.

[RoadKingLarry]

The damn things are everywhere. Even my little piss ant town of about 1500 has 2 "dispensaries".
The medical marijuana law here is pretty generous and it doesn't take much to get a "prescription".

[RoadKingLarry]

Chat is the small leavings from gravel screening. It's usually the coarser stuff. Like walking on legos. The nice, pretty round stuff is usually gets marked as pea gravel.

Last time I was on WRT the booths were pretty well automated. Toss in your money to get the Green Eyeball of Pass.

Brad

There is a couple of outfits producing industrial abrasives in the Picher area.  Most of the mine tailing mountains are made of pretty small stuff and is mostly a flinty material with plenty of lead and zinc contamination included as a bonus.

[Brad Johnson]

There is a couple of outfits producing industrial abrasives in the Picher area.  Most of the mine tailing mountains are made of pretty small stuff and is mostly a flinty material with plenty of lead and zinc contamination included as a bonus.

Picher isn't far removed from Galena, KS, so I'm not surprised at lead and zinc contamination. Any idea how widespread the deposit is?

Brad

[charby]

Chat is the small leavings from gravel screening. It's usually the coarser stuff. Like walking on legos. The nice, pretty round stuff is usually gets marked as pea gravel.

Last time I was on WRT the booths were pretty well automated. Toss in your money to get the Green Eyeball of Pass.

Brad

I thought chat was mine tailings from lead/zinc production.

[grampster]

Man, driving 1100 miles in one shot.  I couldn't do that when I was 39.  I tried to drive from Ft. Lauderdale Fl home to W. Michigan in one day.  I got to just north of Atlanta when the hallucinations started and I had to quit.  When we drive to Florida for the winter now, I do about 400 miles a day.  That's enough.

[Brad Johnson]

I thought chat was mine tailings from lead/zinc production.

I've always seen used to describe a general product classification for sand a gravel operations. I suppose the term would equally apply to mine tailing piles. Not a lot of mines in our part of the country, though.

Brad

[zxcvbob]

Picher isn't far removed from Galena, KS, so I'm not surprised at lead and zinc contamination. Any idea how widespread the deposit is?

Brad

I think cadmium contamination is the main problem with the chat piles (giant heaps of white gravel); they extracted the lead and zinc, and cadmium is more toxic anyway.  The ground water is getting contaminated with lead and cadmium when the mines fill up with water and the sulfides oxidizes to make acid, which leaches the heavy metals from the rock.  And the whole area is subject to cave-ins because the secondary mining companies mined out the support pillars and also undermined buildings (like the local high school)

[Brad Johnson]

And the whole area is subject to cave-ins because the secondary mining companies mined out the support pillars and also undermined buildings (like the local high school)

How considerate of them.

Brad

[zxcvbob]

Last time I was on WRT the booths were pretty well automated. Toss in your money to get the Green Eyeball of Pass.

I was on it a year ago; had to pay about a $3 toll at Afton or Miami, and then got most of that back when I exited at Big Cabin.  The toll was not unreasonable, but I had to handle cash at both tollbooths.  There was an automated lane if I'd had a PikePass.  I don't know how automated it is; hopefully they just scan your license plate.  I don't drive in the area enough to bother with a pass.

Is that maybe the Kansas Turnpike where you can throw coins in?  I know I have seen that somewhere.

[RoadKingLarry]

Picher isn't far removed from Galena, KS, so I'm not surprised at lead and zinc contamination. Any idea how widespread the deposit is?

Brad

I think the whole general area has the lead and zinc deposits.
You do know that galena is the lead bearing ore that is mined for lead right?

[RoadKingLarry]

I was on it a year ago; had to pay about a $3 toll at Afton or Miami, and then got most of that back when I exited at Big Cabin.  The toll was not unreasonable, but I had to handle cash at both tollbooths.  There was an automated lane if I'd had a PikePass.  I don't know how automated it is; hopefully they just scan your license plate.  I don't drive in the area enough to bother with a pass.

Is that maybe the Kansas Turnpike where you can throw coins in?  I know I have seen that somewhere.

I used to run that stretch nightly when I was working in that area a few years ago. The pike pass system is pretty automated as far as it goes as long as your pike pass account is kept up. They use a RFID tag on a sticker on the inside of the windshield. The only time a license plate scanner would come  into play is if someone blew through the gate without paying. I've never had one but the company vehicles all have them.

[Jim147]

Chat and oil is what Misery uses to "fix" the highways.

[RoadKingLarry]

Chat and oil is what Misery uses to "fix" the highways.

AKA "chip and seal"

[Brad Johnson]

I think the whole general area has the lead and zinc deposits.
You do know that galena is the lead bearing ore that is mined for lead right?

Affirmative. That's why I was curious.

Brad

[K Frame]

2018 I drove from Marion, Iowa, back to Fairfax, Virginia, in one shot. About 970 miles. It got pretty grim.

I did that several times in my 30s. I really didn't think I could do it again, but I managed to pull it off without too much trouble, just REALLY punch drunk at the end.

[RoadKingLarry]

2018 I drove from Marion, Iowa, back to Fairfax, Virginia, in one shot. About 970 miles. It got pretty grim.

I did that several times in my 30s. I really didn't think I could do it again, but I managed to pull it off without too much trouble, just REALLY punch drunk at the end.

I've made several straight through solo drives when I was a younger man. I think the Pensacola FL to Groton CT trip was the longest in a car.
Several other 1000+ runs over the years in cars and one 950 mile ride on a bike.
I damn sure couldn't do it today.
With the wife co-driving we've done 1500 mile runs in less than 24 hours a few times.

[MillCreek]

We did an 850 mile drive from Yellowstone to home one year.  We actually planned to stop overnight in Spokane.  But there was a classic car convention in town and there were no hotel rooms to be had in a 50 mile radius.  By the time we figured this out in Moses Lake, we decided we might as well just keep going.

[zxcvbob]

800 miles is what I like to do the first day of a long trip.  But that depends on getting away early.  Often I don't and only manage about 600 miles.

[230RN]

When Wife1 and I moved out to Colorado years ago from Noo Yawk, we couldn't help noticing how long the sunsets were.  Took me a while to puzzle that one out.

I'm sure OTR drivers see this all the time, especially at the higher latitudes, but to us it was kind of amazing.  (That was the longest single drive I ever made.)

This was long before any 55 mph limits.

Terry

[Doggy Daddy]

My longest stretch without a break (other than potty or McDonald's) was about 40 years ago. Straight from Albuquerque to Columbus, Ohio. I still remember the buzzing noise in my head and the way my hands were stuck in a clench at the end of the trip.  Won't try that again.  We had left Las Vegas 2 weeks before the MGM fire and made it to Albuquerque before the first break.  Got up the next morning and just went for it.  Oh, on the way West from Columbus we listened to the election results on the radio as we went from San Francisco to LA down Rte 1. We left San Fran at dusk, and enjoyed the sunset.  Then the fog rolled in. And the radio quit picking up much.  A frightful journey.  When we came out of the cliffs at the south end, we finally got the election results. Reagan got it!

[Jim147]

Did you stop in Muskogee to see if I can come back?