Waking up in Clayton, New Mexico, we stocked up on snacks and water ahead of today's hike.

Of course we also stopped at the Union County Courthouse. This is the oldest county courthouse in continuous use in New Mexico, having been built in 1909.

We drove north from Clayton and rode parallel to the state line. After about 40 minutes, we finally cut east and Isy was able to check off another new state: Oklahoma!

I made sure to pick up supplies back in Clayton as I heard that the tiny village of Kenton only has services sometimes. Sure enough, we found the Kenton Mercantile closed and between owners. One of the 17 people who live here must've left or had enough of the general store business.

I'm glad the mercantile was photogenic though, as this was actually a county courthouse for one year following Cimarron County's formation in 1907, to the point that Boise City won the vote for county seat in 1908.

We had enough supplies, so there wasn't any real reason for us to get out of the car in Kenton, but this was one of those prototypical, well-worn villages out in the Great Plains that I love.

When you add in some ruins, we were both happy that our route took us through Kenton.

I had intel on Kenton prior to this day because it's the last town of any significance before you pass through the grasslands up to Black Mesa State Park, home to Oklahoma's highpoint (Black Mesa).

Parking at a gate that kept our vehicle from official state park roads, we now had an 8.6 mi (13.8 km) hike ahead of us. With the temp headed up to 82°F (28°C) on this late April day, we had plenty of water/Gatorade and also tried to get somewhat of an early start - except it was already 10am and hot, so we would need to focus our energy on staying hydrated. The only shade on this trail comes if you want to crouch down beside one of the short trees.

I was excited about Black Mesa as it's in the difficulty four category, with other fun highpoints like Minnesota & South Dakota. The person who created these state highpoint difficulty categories created the list entirely based on elevation gain and distance, and Black Mesa finds itself here almost entirely because of trail distance.

We were now tackling most of the measly 775-ft (236m) gain of the Black Mesa Trail, as we left behind the grasslands and climbed a rough road up to the top. Here at the edge of our flat-topped land mass, the views were great over the other mesas of New Mexico & Colorado.

Once the incline stopped, we were up on Black Mesa and it would have been impossible to determine the highpoint without a trail or surveying equipment. Thankfully a trail exists and we plodded westward, towards the highest point of Oklahoma here at the western edge of the state.

Along the way Isy mentioned how much she'd like to see a rattlesnake and I hollered at her to not put that out into the world. She explained that she meant from a safe distance, but I didn't want any jinxes.

A large obelisk marks the summit of Oklahoma. We made it! State highpoint #24 for me and oh so close to being halfway done.

Time to celebrate with a sub made for a big boss!

We ended up under 400 metres from New Mexico, after driving a big buttonhook over to the Black Mesa Trail and then meandering out into this arid landscape.

The hike back to the car was uneventful, although we were running slightly hot over the last mile. I was concerned about Isy's hydration as she just wanted to get back to the car, while I wanted to stop and photograph birds.

Once at the car, I noticed the road kept going and theoretically would bring us up to Colorado in a couple of minutes. I wondered about doing this just to bump up the number of states on this trip, but then Isy mentioned her friend who's a huge Avalanche fan and would love a rock from Colorado.

I'm not sure why I didn't take any pictures of the tree-lined creeks or the dusty hill we ended up at, but Baca County was on the north side of the road and we were able to grab a Colorado rock to bring back to The Rock.

It was now 230pm and we had a seven-hour drive to Tulsa ahead of tomorrow morning's flight.

In this spot, I figured the best course of action was to tack on another 45 minutes to visit some remote county courthouses down here in southwestern Kansas. Another factor that made this a no brainer, was that Isy had never been to Kansas and she'd now get another new state today!

The county seat of Morton County, Elkhart, is so close to the state line that some of the town's buildings are located in Oklahoma. This was still over an hour's drive from Black Mesa State Park though, because of the lack of direct highways and interstates in this neck of the woods.

Anyway, the Morton County Courthouse was constructed in 1963 after the county seat was moved from Richfield. It's in Richfield than an impressive structure was built in 1889, but after that structure burnt down in 1950, county offices were forced into an old machine shop.

Inexplicably, I didn't do my research and didn't realize that the old county courthouse/machine shop still stands in Richfield to this day! I'm an idiot!

I took pictures of birds at a nearby playground, Isy enjoyed the purple trees, and together we meandered about and like two people who didn't have six hours of driving ahead of them. I wasn't in any hurry to get this over with and return to more explored areas like Tulsa (or gasp, Newfoundland!)

Just outside of Hugoton, about 30 minutes from Elkhart, I pulled over at the sight of this grain elevator. I didn't know what to expect from driving across northern Oklahoma this evening, but I knew we were headed towards bigger cities and country less stark. I had to breathe in the vast emptiness of the Great Plains as much as I could because this portion of the trip was just about over. Isy fell asleep soon after and for some reason, I let her sleep instead of stopping at the county courthouses in Hugoton and Liberal.

Entering back into Oklahoma, I once again had a chance to breathe in the landscape as we needed to stop for gas. I knew we had to keep it moving, so I took the outside pump just so I could stare off into the distance and squeeze out a bit more of this empty land I love so much. I thought about how this must be what people feel when they gas up in Banff or that Esso in Flower's Cove where you can see the ocean.

Settling in to actually tackling the drive to Tulsa, there wasn't an interstate out here, but rather a highway that kept a reasonable speed limit through much of its course. While I was worried we might immediately return to areas that looked like Indiana or Illinois, the landscape actually remained pretty interesting with rolling arid hills, oak trees and the occasional abandoned farmhouse. Oklahoma's never been that high on my list of states ranked, but I was enjoying this drive very much and as a result, Oklahoma was moving up ahead of the likes of Georgia and Iowa.

I did take a few minutes to snap a couple pictures of this farmhouse located between the villages of May and Slapout.

As we were driving along, on some backroad in an area of Oklahoma I'd never visited, Isy asked how far we were from Canada if we headed due north.

"From the border or from a major city."

"Let's go major city."

"Okay, give me a minute. Hmmm. I'd say, we're about, 16 hours from Brandon."

Isy then picked up the GPS and asked if I minded if she fact-checked me.

Of course not :)

Fort Supply was another town along the way that looked interesting and made me wish we had more time.

Eventually the highway became less rural and we left behind my beloved Great Plains for the woodlands of central Oklahoma. The only interesting thing was finally visiting Oklahoma's ninth most populous city of Enid, where we had Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers. It was one of those American chains with over the top burgers and portion sizes, but I found it to be good for what it was. I would take it over Hardee's, that's for sure.

We drove right past Tulsa and over to the airport area. Arriving around midnight, there may have been an argument for finding some gazebo or park bench to pack our stuff ahead of our 530am flight, but there was a dirt cheap motel and it just made packing and napping easier.

I nerd out about visiting new American airports, so one of the things I was excited for on this trip was flying through all four of Albany, Panama City Beach, Tulsa and St. Louis for the first time.

After only sleeping from 2am to 255am, I can't say my excitement for Tulsa International Airport remained as feverish this morning.

I still managed to appreciate that they had interesting sports team memorabilia up though!

The OKC Thunder? Neat! You don't get that in Deer Lake!

We had a two hour connection in St. Louis and do you want to know how tired I was? I skipped the St. Louis Blues airport restaurant to go sleep at the gate for our next flight. Smh.

Isy said there were times when I was snoring as I hugged my luggage into a makeshift pillow, haha.

More to come? Of course! It's not like we were getting on the Tulsa to Deer Lake flight!

More to come.