Saturday, November 13, 2010

Ooooklahoma where the winds go sweepin down the plain! (Part 2)

So Allison and I started the second day of our road trip to Oklahoma off early in the morn. We packed up our stuff and went to Starbucks for me and Sonic for Allison. When we were leaving Sonic, a bigger vehicle started backing up. Allison didn't see them right away, and they did not make any attempt at stopping. I started to panic, so I just pointed and grunted to get Allison's attention. She screamed and then honked continuously at them. They had a huge dent near their bumper, so it was obvious that they have had issues with this "not looking where they're going" sort of thing before. Luckily there was no collision and we were able to continue on our journey. After we had been driving for a little bit, we came to the realization that we were going to run into a toll booth. Crap. Neither of us had any cash or change on us. So we pulled up to the booth and Allison politely told the lady our situation. She said we could pay in pennies or with a check. It makes no sense to me why you should be able to pay with a check but not a credit card. Anywho, a check was the only solution. So Allison had to write a check for $1.15. Sad, I know. The lady informed us that we would have to pay another toll in a few more miles. So I began the desperate search for change. We were both completely frantic. Luckily I was able to find enough change in Allison's purse. But then when we got to the toll booth, for some reason it didn't work and we just had to drive away. We didn't have any more change and there was a huge line of cars behind us.
With all that craziness behind us, we headed to Red Rock Canyon. On the country road to the canyon, we saw a sign that read a little something like this, "Don't pick up any hitchikers in this area because they could be possible escaped inmates." Praise the Lord that we didn't pick up any hitchhikers like Allison wanted. Then when we got to the canyon we were pleasantly surprised by the scenic drive through all the trees with beautiful autumn leaves. We got out and walked around the park. At one point we looked up and saw a family walking on a rock higher up. Allison wanted to go up there and started walking in that direction. I thought she was expecting me to scale that giant rock to get to the top. There was no way. So I said to Allison, "There is no way we can get up there. I mean there are kids up there. There is no way that they climbed up that. There must be another way to get up." Allison stared at me with a bewildered look and then said, "Why don't we just take the stairs?" I didn't understand, but I looked over to where she was pointing and sure enough there were some stairs. I don't know how I didn't see them, and I felt like a dummie. I tried to make an excuse about how I didn't see them because they were covered in leaves, but it was too late. I already had made an idiot of myself. So we climbed the stairs and started exploring on the rocks and through the trees. Later on, we started out on another trail. There was a sign that said stay on the trail. I started taking pictures off to the side, when all of a sudden I heard Allison yelp, "Becky!" I looked over and saw that one of her feet was completely submerged in mud. Never go off the trail: lesson learned. She was able to pull her foot out of the mud, but it made this suction-like gurgling noise. Her shoe and the bottom of her pants were completely soaked with mud. We had fun hiking and climbing trees. We came across an old man and his grandson. Allison, being the social person she is, carried on a polite conversation with the old man. Me, being the shy unsocial hermit that I am, just stood there and had a staring contest with the little boy. We then left the canyon and headed to some Indian trading posts. They were legit. They had a teepee, buffalo, totem pole, etc. It was better than my dreams. I was not happy with the shirts available for purchase, so we decided to just stop at the next one. At the second one, I found a wonderful Indian wolf shirt that I just had to buy. Then we stopped at Lucille's Roadhouse to eat. It was an adorable little diner that touched our hearts. Allison bought a tshirt from there, so that she would always remember Lucille and her wonderful food. We stopped in Shamrock real quick, but then before we knew it we were back in good old Canyon. Once we got settled back in, we watched 7  Brides for 7 Brothers, a lumberjack musical. It was a perfect finish to a monumental road trip weekend.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Ooooklahoma where the winds go sweepin down the plain! (Part 1)

So last Thursday night, my friend Allison and I decided last minute that we would take a road trip to Oklahoma that upcoming weekend. We both did some research about things we could go see. She was totally pumped about this road trip because she had never been to Oklahoma before. Many people had told her that Oklahoma was boring and that there's nothing to do there. Allison Post did not want to believe this, and she wanted to prove them wrong by having a great time in Oklahoma. While on this trip, she thought it would be fun if we slept in the car, took showers at truck stops and picked up a hitchhiker. I knew right away that this was going to be a legendary road trip.
We woke up early Friday morning to hit the road. We ate at the caf before we left. While we were there, we witnessed a guy who was still drunk from the night before. How classy. We then packed up the car and started our drive. Allison really wanted to take a picture with the "Welcome to Oklahoma!" sign. It's hard to miss this sign but somehow we did. Along the way, we saw another Oklahoma sign, but we didn't see it in time to get off the highway. So we decided it was important enough to turn around and try to get back to it. We somehow ended up right where we got off, and decided to just try and catch it on the drive back.
We stopped in a small town called Sayre. We parked and took some pictures. People driving by stared and waved at us, and truck drivers honked at us. It was awkward, for real. We had fun walking around the town and looking in a Christmas store. We got back on the road and drove all the way to Oklahoma City. We went to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. It was quite a delightful experience. It had the coolest Cowboy and Indian stuff, and there was a beautiful outdoor garden. They also had a little town in there called Prosperity Junction that was quite quaint. There was a little chapel and schoolhouse. There was a guard in there, that tipped his cowboy hat at us and said, "Evening ladies." We decided right then and there that  Prosperity Junction was the place for us.
We then went to Toby Keith's restaurant in Bricktown. Even though we were so tired and almost fell asleep at the table, we enjoyed a good hamburger and as usual ate too much. We decided to walk around Bricktown after our big lunch. Bricktown had such a great atmosphere, especially with the canals and plethora of brick buildings. We found a part of town near the train tracks where there was Indian mural and some buffalo statues. We had fun attempting to take a few jumping pictures, too. We then tried to find one of the trolleys that drive around downtown. We sat on a bench and waited for like 15 minutes. We occupied our time by talking like we were British and saying things like, "Hello trolley people!" We were acting like eager beavers and we had our quarters ready to pay. Then when the trolley finally got there, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the trolley was free. Some of the other passengers were quite interesting. One was a homeless man, who kept acting like he was shooting stuff. It was quite entertaining. We however didn't know how to alert the driver when we wanted to get off. Luckily we were watching the homeless man, who got off before us and we saw that he pulled a cord when it got to his stop. It's sad that we had to learn this from a crazy homeless man.
Then when we got back on the road, it was around 5 and the traffic was pretty bad. We both heard a noise that sounded like a flat tire. So Allison pulled over and I got out to check the tires. None of the tires were flat and everything was fine till we tried to get back on the highway. There were so many cars that it was impossible to find an opening to merge. So we sat on the shoulder of the road for 15 minutes waiting. And we waited, and waited. Finally we were able to get back on the road and then we headed to POPS on Route 66. It had a big coke bottle sculpture thing outside that was really cool. They had a ton of different flavors of sodas, and it made it very difficult to decide on just one. We took our sodas to go and headed to Stillwater where we would be staying with Allison's friend. It was pretty chill after that, but we were completely exhausted. It was quite a fun-packed day, but there was even more excitement to come the next day.