It's a wrap

Dustbury, Oklahoma - 4990.0 miles

Note to the Missouri Department of Transportation: Whatever you're doing to Interstate 44, it isn't enough. At best, it's marginally acceptable; in spots, it's an insult to the fellow who invented pavement.

Speaking of I-44, it becomes a series of three turnpikes in Oklahoma, breaking into free status in Tulsa and Oklahoma City. I usually don't bother with them — it's a running gag, albeit true, that I pay more in tolls to New Jersey, fercryingoutloud, than I do to my home state — but I figured I'd sample them today, reasoning that (1) the speed limit is posted 75 mph, which might be interesting and (2) surely Oklahoma's maintenance can't be as haphazard as Missouri's.

Yes, and yes, sort of. We're doing a better job on 44, at least the parts I saw, but not enough for us to yell "We rule!" from the roof of the world's largest McDonald's (near Vinita). And traffic moves at 75-80 mph, though the big rigs struggle to make it up the long (though not so steep) grades in the eastern sections of the state, at which time a blip to 88 or 90 will get past them without enraging the gendarmes. (I saw five troopers in 150 miles, which must be a record, but only one person was actually busted for something.) And to add some symmetry to the Tour, I exited at Vinita to have my last lunch at the same place I had my first lunch: the Braum's on 66.

One weird aspect of these roads: the toll plaza is in the middle. If you exit before then, they catch you for a smaller sum on the offramp; if you arrive at the toll plaza, you pay the full toll for the entire distance, and if you exit before the end of the road, you are entitled to a partial refund. This strikes me as a desperate attempt to get people to use the electronic toll system.

Final toll report: Will Rogers Turnpike, $1.50; Turner Turnpike, $3.50; total $5.00; grand total $12.15.

And yes, I blew my budget, though not by much: the tentative expense report, subject to minor adjustments, declares $2390, 8.6 percent above what I had planned but not enough to make me tear out my hair in despair. A little over 10 percent of that total went for gas. The pertinent statistics:

Total amount of fuel used, in gallons: 168.4
Fuel consumption, in miles per gallon: 29.7
Worst tank, in mpg: 25.2
Best tank, in mpg: 33.5
Fastest speed attained, in miles per hour: 93
Number of emails accumulated: 1,046 (!)
Number of which I actually had some reason to read: 106

The three worst tanks, all below 27.5 mpg, were the ones in which I schlepped along the kids. In fairness, they picked up the tab for those tanks.

Shout-outs to the following:
The Prodigy Group, for putting up with me for yet another year
Choice Hotels, for untangling the mess I made of reservations
Dean Esmay, for justifying a trip all the way to Michigan (and for introducing me to some first-rate folks)
Fritz Schranck, for ditto to Delaware (and for finding me the only gas station in the state)
The Fred First family, for giving me a little taste of heaven in the Blue Ridge
She Who Is Not To Be Named, because, well, just because — and while I meant every word I said, you should have heard the ones I didn't.

So we end on an up note. Almost.

Posted at 7:27 PM to World Tour '03