I've been many places in my life: Alaska, Rome, London, Dublin, New York, San Francisco. Yet for this post I chose Oklahoma. Why? Because the story of how I ended up in Oklahoma is far more entertaining than the stories that got me to those other cities.
In fall of 2005, my friend Michelle was beginning a PhD program in Stanford, CA. She asked me t make the road trip with her to CA, but I was unable to because I had just started a new teaching job in New Orleans. Fortunately for both of us, a little rainstorm named Katrina ruined both of our expectations for what the future would hold. Her house was under 12 ft. of water and my job was temporarily over.
So with all of those happy good feelings going on, we packed up and hit the road, bound to make this the trip of a lifetime! We decided to pull the "Katrina card" everywhere we went. And it worked! We got all sorts of great discounts!
During the many hours of idle car ride chit chat, we got to talking about states that we have been to. Neither of us had been to Oklahoma. So while staying overnight in some teeny town in TX about 30 miles outside of OK, we decided to remedy that. We asked the hotel clerk if she had any recommendations on what we could do once we crossed the OK state line, and she looked at us as if we were nuts. She seemed to believe there was no reason to ever cross that state line (because there was so much to do in the piss ant town we were staying in???) So, we trekked it out on our own.
Ultimately, we crossed the state line, took a few pictures, found a bar to eat some dinner in, learned a few random facts about an obscure bowling hero, and drove back. It was one hell of an adventure. But, now we can both say we've been to Oklahoma!
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