Across Country Trip: Day 4

Day 4

Driving across times zones is strange. I have always flown so it hits fast. You are all time screwed up. But Driving. Driving, is different. You don't really realize that you have passed the time zones and your body doesn't really recognize it. I couldn't sleep the night before and then had a really really difficult time waking up this morning. It didn't hit me until later that it was due to the fact that I was now 2 hours ahead of California time... making me awake at night and tired in the morning.

Nate and I met up around 10:30am filled the car tank with gas on base and headed for Oklahoma. The border is only about 20 minutes or so from Wichita Falls. There wasn't much out there, but it was beautiful. There were miles and miles of green country side with the random farm here and there.

We pulled over on the side of the highway to take pictures and walk around in the middle of the road. That's right, the highway was so dead that we were able to pull over and walk around for 5 or 10 minutes with not one single car going by. We even found a CD on the side of the road- it ended up being a bad rap CD.

View from where we stopped on the side of the road in Oklahoma

Then we drove though a city called Cement. Yes, Cement, Oklahoma. Well.... it was as exciting as watching cement dry. But it was nice to stop and take a few pictures.

The proud city of Cement

It was getting closer to lunch time and we decided to stop along the highway and look for something native to Oklahoma (AKA some country cooking). We ended up at the Cracker Barrel right outside Oklahoma city off Cornell St. It was one of the best experiences of my life. Not only was it a cute shop with old style rocking chairs outside on the porch, but it had a restaurant full of country cooking. The menu was full of gravy's, potato's, read meat, fired okra and sweet tea. The waitress, named Margie, brought us my first taste of sweet tea. Although it was tasty I must admit it was wayyyyy too sweet for me. But you never know until you try. I squeezed some lemons in it and it was perfect. We asked what Margie recommended and she gave us all kinds of ideas. I ended up having beef stew, potato casserole and fried apples. Nate had pot roast, green beans and mashed potato's and corn bread. It was all fantastic!!!! The food was incredible and very savory. When we were getting ready to go we asked Margie about what to do in the City and she sat there and drew us a whole map and lists of places to go! She was so kind and got such a kick out of us the way we got a kick out of her. It was a great experience! I have never felt such hospitality.

My first Sweet Tea

Beef Stew, Potato Casserole, Fried Okra and Corn Bread

First thing we saw in Oklahoma City was the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. It was incredibly touching! The memorial is of two main walls one with the time 9:01 and one with the time 9:03 and the space in between is supposed to represent 9:02 the time that the bomb went off. There are chairs that represent the 169 people that died; the small chairs representing the children that died and the bigger ones for the adults. There is also "The Tree of Hope" which is the only tree that lasted through the bombing and all the after affects. We went into the museum and spent about 2 hours walking though hearing stories, reading news paper clippings and looking at the architecture. It was a great museum. People went to great lengths to put it together and they did an amazing job. I hope to be half the person some of those people are.

Oklahoma Bomb Memorial - the space that represents 9:02

Oklahoma Bombing Memorial

Chairs that represent the 169 people that died

After we finished at the Memorial we walked around a bit before heading to "Bricktown". Bricktown is a great little neighborhood and the place to be. Its where the ball park is and a little river walk and great restaurants and bars. The parking attendant recommended a Cajun Restaurant by the name of Bourbon Street Cafe. Our waiter Travis was great! We tried some local alcohol beverages that were good and sweet. Then we tried fried Alligator!! YUMMY!! It tasted just like chicken.... seriously I don't think I would have noticed a difference. I ate some Salmon and Nate had some seafood pasta and it was great!! Travis recommended we get a beer from a pub called Taps Werks. They had well over a 100 beers on tap!! I didn't like the beers they recommended, but the atmosphere was worth going to again!

Bricktown Baseball Stadium

There were all kinds of Buffalo in Bricktown

Fried Alligator

On the road hope all we could talk about was how wonderful Oklahoma City and people were. We were both greatly impressed and it was a wonderful day I will never forget.