Elk City - Clinton - El Reno - Oklahoma City - Bristow - Sapulpa - Tulsa - Claremore

This was a pretty uneventful day...until the end.. We left the motel and had to backtrack a bit on the Interstate to get oriented in the right direction Once underway, everything went fine. The Pres was running great with the new spark plugs installed last evening.

Morning in Elk City ( Rodeway Inn)

We took I-40 to Clinton , after which, we split off onto an old alignment of Route 66

It was somewhere along this leg, that while maneuvering on an access road, sided by jersey barriers, a feint voice from the lead car pipes up and says "!lost power!". We coast down the grade and pull to the right at a fortunate spot. Dave's carb linkage became undone, losing the retaining nut. Frank Fuller and Bob take the point, do the necessaries and we're on the road in no time.

We stopped for pictures at the old Pony Bridge, passing El Reno. It was built in the early 1900's, has 38 arches.	/td>

The Pony Bridge spans the Canadian River, near Hydro, OK

Then we started over it...about half a mile

As we approached Tulsa, the weather started to get threatening. Very ominous clouds off to our left and with the news about recent tornados, it put us on edge. Our direction of travel was NE and presuming the weather was traveling west to east, it appeared that once we turned east toward Claremore, that it would stay clear. Apparently the storm was progressing SE toward Tulsa and as we exited northeast toward Claremore, it hit us. This was the first real test of a hard rain in the 55 Pres. Quite a different world inside a 50 year old car with only a defroster and slow wipers.    It wasn't too bad on the throughway, but once exiting off at Claremore, the slow traffic was hard to deal with. The streets were flooded in many areas, obscuring the unwelcome potholes. Merhaut, Edmonds and Johnstone made it to the hotel first with the others following shortly after.

The dark clouds by Tulsa, OK

We're heading ENE, with the dark off to our left. Thinking we were clear, when we turned due east, it caught up to us in Claremore.

We arrived in Claremore around 4PM, in the rainstorm. Not that welcome with the old cars, but somewhat of a treat, since we had 'ducked the bullet' for the past 2-3 weeks

After everyone was settled in their rooms, Paul & Dorothy hosted a 'Hospitality' hour. Larry Merhaut bathed his underdash clutch linkage in WD-40 to scare away some squeeks. Later, a couple of us went up to the local market for some re-supplies. While waiting outside a store for Donna, Bob was approached by a local gent, wearing a big smile. They talked about the cars for a bit. He mentioned that the 'Precious Moments Chapel" is a good visit. We all had dinner at the 'Rib Joint" next to the Hotel.

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