Having underestimated our driving time from Hot Springs, Arkansas to Catoosa, Oklahoma to see the big blue whale on Route 66, we were racing the sun to get to the whale before dusk. Actually, there is no true dusk here on the plains, just sunset. In any case, a quick dinner was in order so we decided to try a Sonic drive-in as we’d being seeing Sonics in every town we drove through. With temperatures near 100-degrees, we were feeling like we knew what a Sonic was all about as we drove to the far side to park in the shade. But then we looked like neophytes when the condiment attendant came up to the car and we went to take her entire tray from her thinking it was our dinner. Some dinner that would have been—a 100 mini packets of ketchup, mustard and mayo! So from bath attendants in Hot Springs to condiment attendants at a Sonic somewhere near Oklahoma, we were feeling very well attended on our trip along the girth of the country. That is, until we got to the tollbooths in Oklahoma. We are no strangers to toll booths, being from back east, but one particular tollbooth was like none we had ever encountered. Sure we understand that PikePass holders should receive preferential treatment, get the fast lanes without any encumbrance even if that means that toll payers are sent to a single lane off to the right of the highway. And certainly many toll plazas have an exact change lane, coin only. But this was the first plaza we’d ever seen that not only required exact change, but also had no attendant to make change. Instead there was a dollar bill changer at the toll booth!
With the sun sinking close to the horizon, we attempted to quickly feed a worn bill into the changer machine. No luck; not accepted. I doubled checked for quarters in my purse. Having just put in $3 worth of quarters into parking meters in Hot Springs, I was down to only 3 quarters. One option: drop in the 3 we had and drive on through. Like good citizens wanting to avoid a huge rental car fine, we continued scouring for quarters, the sun sinking lower like a second hand ticking onward. Being in a rush never helps a search. Fortunately no one came up behind us as we frenetically continued searching for one more quarter. Finally a fourth quarter materialized at the bottom of our day bag and we were on our way.
We pulled up the big blue whale just as the soon tipped the horizon—enough light to appreciate what water playground this must have been in its heyday. The whale sports a gaping walk-in mouth, two slides out either side, lots of room for running through and even an upper observatory. To be a kid here when the water was clear would have been a treat on a hot summer day like today. Admiring the ingenuity of the whale playground creator at sunset was a great treat today.
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