Oklahoma Blows. Blow-klahoma. Burma Shave.

The short and sweet of Kansas was replaced by the looonnggg and indifference of Oklahoma

Beth: “This is the kind of place that would be really hard to come home to”

We are not really sure what to say about Oklahoma. Kelly came up with the perfect analogy, though.

Kelly: I don't even know where to begin - perhaps with apologies to anyone who has lived, currently lives in, or has even mild affection for Oklahoma. Because we will not be kind.

Oklahoma is a non-entity... it's as if they built a state and no one came. They had everything they are supposed to have, as if they bought a kit or something. A big lake resort area with some cheesy bars and quaint looking hotels. But no one was there. Farms and stretches of highway crammed with grocery stores and Wal-Mart and pizza joints. But no one was there. A city! A great capital city with tall buildings and sprawling messy suburbs and a little touristy areas complete with horse drawn carraiges and Hooters! But no one was there. Rush hour on a Thursday night in Oklahoma City was about as trafficy and boisterous as Kirkwood Highway (for the Delaware context; let's say Route 9 in Framingham for the Boston-savvy) at 8 am on a Saturday morning - sure, there were other cars and people, etc. but it was sparse.

I was reminded of when my Dad decided he was going to build a model train set when I was a teenager. He bought all the materials and made a little landscape, and friends and family heard about Dad's new interest in trains, and so bought him all of these little buildings to populate his new domain - schools, stores, houses, etc. We kind of took them out of the boxes and put them down randomly, intending to fill it all in and plan out little towns later on when the tracks were laid. But Dad lost interest, and it just kind of sat there, somewhat ignored. That's Blowklahoma. With apologies to my parents, I'd rather live in Jersey, hands down.

Beth:
If you’ve never been to Oklahoma, don’t.

You do not need to visit this state (Kelly: The Anchovy Pizza principle is suspended - you are exempt from 'seeing for yourself' - take our word for it. Don't go.)

We were lucky enough to find FREE camping in one of the State Parks and it was actually a secluded, woodsy area right next to a creek. We heard lots of wildlife at night and a raccoon came dangerously close to us. While we were there we decided it was high time to watch Thelma & Louise.

Once again we woke up to the sound of schizophrenic birds that seem to congregate around our tent wherever we go. It was early, but we could already tell it was going to be a scorcher of a day. It was nearing 90 while we had our breakfast (our Coleman one burner stove was on the fritz and we finally managed to light it! Yeah!). After we enjoyed our home-cooked meal we knew that it was time to install our NEW Scrolling Marquee license plate. Before we uninstalled the “broken” one we tried the new remote and lo and behold, the new remote worked on the old license plate! We started entering our new messages immediately. The first message was “We’re gettin’ our kicks!!!” followed by “Don’t mess with Texas!” (in high hopes of crossing the state line and getting the heck out of OK!). The wicked sun was too much for us and we needed to start moving, so we figured we could add a few more messages later. We packed up camp and started on the road. We had one goal in mind: Get us out of here!!! On the road we happened upon something that to us East Coast girls seemed highly unusual. Riding right along side the highway was a typical looking teenage boy riding his horse while talking on his cell phone. I do believe he looked at us strangely as we pulled over and took a picture of him.

Teenage Drivers.

It was about this time that I believe, looking back, that the working remote for the license plate must have fallen out of the car. It has been three days and we haven’t been able to find it. We are permanently “Getting’ our kicks!!!”, which is at least better than the previous “Your word on the street”.

A few points of interest along Route 66… (please note, the words "few" and "interest" are being used in their most generous sense)

The Famous Blue Whale - an abandoned picnic park and swimming hole.

Inside the belly of the whale

A Route 66 Concrete Plant or Grain Elevator. Blowklahoma.

Is this an oil rig? We followed signs to "Oklahoma's First Oil Rig" and drove about a half hour into nowhere to find no site of any oil rig, original or otherwise. We eventually found ourselves back on Route 66 about 4 miles down the road.
Blowklahoma.

The Dust Bowl, indeed. See what the farm tractors throw up?

Oklahoma was really getting on our nerves at this point. We were hoping that Tulsa and Oklahoma City would have more to offer. They had bigger buildings, but it was the same emptiness and melancholy as the rural areas. We were totally freaked out by the lack of traffic during rush our in the capital of the state. Where were all the Okies? I guess they realized that there was a world out there and they up and left for California. Route 66 was more frustrating than ever so we decided it was time to just jump onto the interstate and head for Texas. This was I-40; the largest highway in the state. The road conditions were so bad that we thought we must have a flat tire. We actually pulled the car over to check! Luckily (?) we did not have a flat and kept heading west. We decided that maybe we didn’t give Oklahoma enough time. It was getting late and there didn’t seem to be any campgrounds nearby, so we sucked it up and chose the least shady of the three cheap motels in Clinton. We thought about shelling out the extra bucks to sleep in a motel that claimed “Elvis slept here”, but they didn’t have wireless internet.

What about the Pink Ladies?
"Oilfield workers please use these two washers for greasers only"

In the morning we planned to give Oklahoma a second chance. Running low on clean clothes and wanting to give Oklahoma a fresh start, we decided to stop by a laundromat. Everything seemed to go well and having just taken showers and washed our hair, we were feeling mighty fine. Clinton actually had a Route 66 themed mini-golf course. This sounded like it would be right up our alley. We had been talking about playing mini-golf at some point and this seemed to be just perfect. Well, Oklahoma stayed true to its reputation that it built up inside of us because the mini-golf was closed (Kelly: I actually made sure to drive by the night before to make sure that the mini-golf was still in operation before committing to stay here. It was open - people were golfing. Just not when we wanted to go. The one quasi-interesting kitchy attraction that we had hoped would redeem the state. Blowklahoma).

Route 66 Golf Course. Closed. Blowklahoma.

There was one last stop to make before we were, (I never thought I would say this, but) safe inside Texas. We stopped by the Oklahoma Route 66 Museum. It was excellent. The employees were pleasant and the museum was informative and fun. It left us with a slightly better feeling, but it didn’t quite justify the rest of the state.

Yay!? Texas!