Have You Driven Oklahoma’s Roller Coaster Highway?

If you were to ask most Oklahomans, the roads across our state are sort of a sore subject.

With the exception of I-40 and the southwest stretch of I-44, most of the highways are acceptably passable in the state. The same goes for most of the turnpikes, though residents in the OKC metro are in a constant state of war with the Turnpike Authority over their constant expansion.

It's when you get off the most heavily traveled roads that you realize Oklahoma's roads are in terrible condition. Plenty of folks in any of the small towns can attest to that.

They're old, buckled, potholed, patched, and whithering away to an almost unusable state. It's as if local governments all over the Sooner State are in cahoots with Big Alignment, but those crumbling roads aren't the topic of the day. It's all about Oklahoma's famous road that turns every car into a vomit comet.

Roller Coaster Highway

While I've never heard of it before, it's apparently pretty famous in some parts of the state.

It's along a stretch of county road just north of the sleepy town of Wewoka, Oklahoma, just off OK State Highway 56. The locals have even gone out of their way to mark a waypoint on Google Maps.

As you roll in either direction, it moves up and down and up and down and up and down for a while. Enough to make even frequent travelers a little queasy in their guts.

We're not talking about the good queasy either... but if you're looking for a good queasy drive spot, I do know where you can find perhaps the best example of those in the state, but you're gonna have to drive pretty far out of your way to experience it down in Hollis.

While traveling east on E 1550 Road north of Hollis, the road literally drops out from underneath you as you cross the intersection of N 1750 Road.

Uncle Eddie used to hit this hill doing at least 70 MPH when he'd take all of us kids back out to the family farm. Your stomach will rise up into your throat and settle back to normal a second or two later as you come to the bottom of the hill. It's a ton of really dangerous fun and likely the best example of thrill-riding the country roads in the state.

If you happen to find yourself out and about on the Oklahoma roads anytime soon, you might put a pin in this so at least you can tell people you've experienced it.

Here's a video of someone traveling the Roller Coaster Highway in Wewoka. It's always hard to judge the topography of a landscape through film since cameras usually flatten everything, but it could make for an interesting road trip.