Oklahoma City

Not the best photo taken from a moving vehicle, but shows a working oil well directly in front of the Oklahoma State Capitol!

Slight change to the trip itinirary. From Denver instead of going straight to San Francisco I have come to Oklahoma City to take up a kind offer from a new friend I met along the way who invited me to go rafting on the Illinois River near Tulsa with her and her friends. I have scrapped the Yosemite National Park segment of the trip (will have to do that next trip) in order to fit it in.

I don't know why, but it seems whenever I have the need to gather all my worldy belongings on my back and walk several miles to the train station or bus station to move on to a new city, it seems thatthe skies open as soon as I set out on my long walk. That has happend at least 3 times on this trip so far. Very annoying. This occured in Denver on Tuesday as I prepared to make my way to Oklahoma City.

I had to travel to Oklahoma City by bus, as an airfare was going to be $200+, and a train would have to go all the way to Chicago to connect before heading down to OKC. I cast my mind back to the last time I travelled by Greyhound bus, it was a few years ago on a relatively short 12-hr hop between Salt Lake City and Denver. I remember swearing that I would never travel by Greyhound ever again, it was so unpleasent. But necessity would make me eat my words. Never again.

Greyhound stations are almost without fail always in the worst part of every city, and even inside they are not nice. I had a couple of hours to kill at the Greyhound station in Denver. There was an obvious pickpocket hanging around. He kept trying to get people's wallets, and he kept failing. 3 people complained about and eventually some security gaurds came over, who were of course armed, and warned him and stopped him from boarding the bus he was ticketed for. Now he was stuck in the station, and he kept trying to pick pockets. Another security gaurd came over, warned him, and let him stay in the station. At no point did anyone ever call the police.

If the station was bad, the bus was no better. I think I was the only grown adult on the bus who knew how to pull my pants up above my ass. There is barely any legroom. The driver keeps stopping for his cigarette breaks every 45 minutes. And it was a 17hour ride to Oklahoma city, with a 2 hour layover in Amarillo, TX in another scummy Greyhound station.

Finally arrived in Oklahoma City. Went to a pool party my host Elyse was running for the youth group she runs, and then stayed up late drinking beer on the porch. The next day went to the Oklahoma City bombing Memorial. (see photos below)

After the memorial, we went to the Oklahoma History Museum, which was really good and included a brilliant exhibit on Oklahoma rock music. I was surprised by how many big name acts have come out of Oklahoma, including Hanson! They are still around and I was able to take these photos of original Hanson instruments:

Zac Hanson's drum

Isaac Hanson's Guitar

Taylor Hanson's Keyboard

Remember, you saw them first on Beggsblog!!

After the History museum, we went to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum where among all the museum exhibits was an amazing art gallery with some really brilliant paintings and sculpture. It wasn't your standard art gallery. These items were priced for up to $100,000 each.

Then I went to a ballgame at Red Brick Ballpark. A minor league game so tickets were only $10, and beers were $1. I didn't have my big camera with me so this is the photo you get:

After the ballgame went out to a bar in the Red Brick district. It was late but still very hot, over 90f outside. Like a lot of places here it seems, the bar's method of combatting the heat was 'misters'. I had never seen such a thing before, but they are like hoses that run along the length of a veranda and spray a light mist over patrons.