MUSINGS FROM THE MIND OF AMANDA

So my new job takes me from Texas to Kansas City, Kansas. These are my field notes from my trip there and back. Brace yourselves.

I’m going to be in Kansas City this week for work but I hate flying…so I drove to Tulsa tonight and I’ll finish the trip tomorrow. 

Here are my thoughts on Oklahoma so far.

I stopped at a gas station a few miles inside Oklahoma.  The t-shirt rack led me to believe OK is teeming with buffalo.  It’s not.  You know what OK is teeming with?  Road construction signs.  E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E.   The construction zones just pop up out of nowhere….one minute the speed limit is 75 and everyone is doing 90 and then it drops to 55 and everybody is still doing 90 but there’s construction signs everywhere.   Texas has lots of them, too, but Texas has a plan.  They pick a section of road, destroy it completely, reroute traffic in 37 new and slightly illegal ways, then park construction equipment everywhere so you at least think they’re gonna work on it.  Not Oklahoma.  They just put up the signs and move on with their lives.  

One good thing is that the speed limit in some places is 80 miles per hour.  Maybe that’s why I didn’t see any buffalo teeming.  They were just blurs.  Or maybe there were lots of smaller things and I just didn’t see them, because, again, 80 mph and I was the slow one.  I think I saw some deer, but that could been short skinny cows or tall fat goats.  Who knows at 80 mph?

There was also very little traffic between Texas and Tulsa.  My best guess is that everyone is either at a casino (there’s millions of ’em) or hiding in the bushes to see if anybody does slow down for the construction zones so they know where not to put them next time.  I  figure the few cars I saw were either on the way to a casino or on the way to their road cone distribution jobs.   

I also noticed lots of North/South creeks, like North Canadian Creek and South Canadian Creek.  They look more like the North and South Canadian Slightly Damp Drainage Ditches to me, but I’m no geologist…or whatever studies creeks.  

Finally, I noticed lots of neat places in a couple of towns…like a Best Buy and a Shoney’s.  I haven’t seen a Shoney’s in years.  I didn’t stop, however, because my GPS gets very put out with me for deviating from her instructions…like, I can tell she secretly wants to direct me to drive off a bridge, because A, she knows I’m dumb enough to do it, and B, it would be a great story for her to tell around the Computers Run the World support group.  But she can’t do that, because if she kills me, I wouldn’t be alive to buy more Apple products.  It’s tough to be my GPS.

Because there are literally thirty and forty mile stretches of road with nothing to see, I had time today for all these thoughts.  I might have thoughts tomorrow, too, about the remainder of Oklahoma and part of Kansas.  You’ve been warned.  

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Bonus Oklahoma observation:

Because I am a hermit and do not believe in leaving the hotel room after I get there, and because I believe it’s ok to be a little boujee and eat something you don’t get at home, I had Long John Silver’s Door Dashed to my room (I know…I’m so FANCY!)

Here’s the thing.  I ordered “chicken” and received ketchup, as the law requires…but I also got tartar sauce.  Is this some weird Door Dash thing?  Do people in OK eat tartar sauce on their chicken?  The mystery continues.

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It’s only 8:30 and I have thoughts. This is mildly concerning. 

So I’m at a red light in a town with a typically Oklahoman name (Oologah) and I see the 18 wheeler in front of me change lanes. The truck pulling farm equipment behind him does the same. Y’all, there’s a pea hen standing on the corner. I didn’t stop because if she can repel 18 wheelers, she doesn’t need my help. 

A few miles down the road, there was a pond with one Canada goose in it. I didn’t stop because geese are satan’s chickens. 

There have also been flocks of black birds. Ravens? Crows? Goth pigeons? Who knows

Still no Buffalo but now I’m concerned that the vaguely menacing birds have eaten them. The mystery continues

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I JUST SAW SOME BUFFALO!!!!

But there was a heron in the pond next to them. Given what I’ve observed about the unusually assertive birds here, those Buffalo better watch their backs 

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Update – I’m in Kansas. I would best describe Kansas as “what do you mean we’re not in Oklahoma anymore?”

But first, let’s finish Oklahoma. 

First if all, those Buffalo have way more to fear than that heron. Right down the road, there was a herd of parking lot puddle ducks. These are the equivalent of junk yard dogs. I was afraid to stop because they looked like they might try to bum a smoke, and I don’t smoke, so they would’ve called the Canada goose and then all they’d find of me would be my rental car and my shoelaces. Plus my jewelry because the goose would have pawned it to buy smokes for the parking lot puddle ducks. Not worth the risk. This is what sportscasters refer to as “the thrill of victory, the agony of the beak.”

I saw a school with signs that said “Cougars eat healthy” and “tobacco free pumas.” Big cats can’t have any fun in that town. 

This concludes Oklahoma. 

Shortly after crossing the state line into Kansas, I saw a store called “The Dollar Tire Store” and their marquis read “The best place in town to take a leak.”

I can’t make this up. 

I crossed Potato Creek. There were no potatoes and very little creek. 

I saw a coyote that appeared to have been hit by a car….but maybe that’s just what the assault birds want us to think. 

I’m still waiting for a call from the Oklahoma tourism board to offer me a job as a travel writer. Until then, on we go!

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Since I’m sure you’ve all been breathlessly waiting for a final update on the first part of my trip, here are a few thoughts to wrap up.  I’m sure I’ll have many more thoughts on Friday, when I drive straight through from KC to Lufkin.  I’m sure lots of people will have thoughts before it’s all over.

So, given my experiences in Oklahoma, I’ve come to a conclusion.  The Sooners were not trying to get IN, they were trying to get out and were unfortunately facing the wrong way, so when the jumped out of OK, the government was offended and gave them land so they’d have to stay in OK, thus giving rise to what appears to be a state population of 12.  

People in Texas are friendly, aggressively so.  For example, if we let you into traffic and you don’t give us the little courtesy wave, we’re allowed by law to chase you down and spit on you.  This is a real problem considering how many Texas are into chewing tobacco or snuff.   The only way you’re exempt from this rule is if your tires are bigger than the other person’s, or you have an actual deer (in season of course!!) that you’ve “harvested” in the vehicle.  (We don’t shoot deer anymore, we “harvest” them because one sounds so much better than the other, except to the deer.). I digress.

People in OK are helpful…aggressively so.  I stopped in some little town with a lot of vowels in its name for water this morning, and some ice for my giant cup, but I am that level of cool.  I spilled some of the ice on the floor by the register.  Before I could even finish apologizing, the cashier had a broom and dustpan and was cleaning it up.  I got the feeling she was a little disappointed that I didn’t spill MORE, so she could really be helpful.  She was also working two cash registers at once so she could help twice as many people.  And she’d been at work since three a.m.  

I haven’t seen any law enforcement since I left Texas.  Well, until I went to the KC Walmart, where I saw at least three armed police officers wandering the store.  Between that and the fact that every single item of makeup was locked up, I began to be concerned.  I purchased my caffeine and booked it.  

I noticed that even the GPS was bored.  For a while it would say “Go straight for 96 miles.”  Honest, that was a real thing.  Then randomly, it would tell me to continue straight and then count down….700 ft, 500 ft, 250 ft, 100 ft, 20 ft, and then just switch back to telling me to drive straight for eleventy seven miles.  I guess once we ran out of lakes for it to fantasize about running me into, it had to amuse itself some other way.

That’s all I have for now – I can’t promise I won’t have more thoughts in the next few days, although I do try to avoid that.   Like I said, I’m driving something like 625 miles on Friday.  Alone.  With a GPS that secretly wants to kill me.  But hey, it makes for a good story. 

Thank you all for playing along.  When I get rich, I’m buying every one of you a taco.

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Hello, travel fans! I am eight hours from home in a piddly town named Chanute. And I have thoughts. 

Thus far, I have seen hawks, vultures, a heron, a flock of sheep and two Sasquatches. I suppose they could be fake, but I didn’t see them when I drove through Monday, so draw your own conclusions. 

The fields appear to be covered in purple flowers. I did not stop to investigate because most important, I didn’t want to make the GPS mad. Also, it’s raining and I don’t know what they do to field trespassers in Kansas. Probably set up gladiator style fights with the Sasquatch. 

I suspect the fields aren’t really covered in flowers. I think they’re painted. It’s so boring, the farmers spray paint their fields. Gives ‘em something to do, plus they get to sniff paint. I base this theory on the fact that I passed through a town the size of an armpit that had a traffic circle and a sign advertising tourist attractions. The only thing listed was Dairy Queen. They will have a busy weekend. Rained a lot and now they have to repaint the fields.

No Buffalo yet, but I remain ever vigilant

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I am trapped in Henryetta, Oklahoma. There was a wreck on the main road and even the GPS was like, “ I don’t know, man. This is crazy.” It’s not all bad. I saw a store called “House of Overalls.”

So, I never found the buffalo. I did see a very desiccated corpse near where the buffalo were Monday. The remains were the size and color of a deer. Naturally, being an environmentalist (I often observe the environment from the air conditioned seats of my giant SUV), i was concerned. After much scientific pondering, I think you will agree that I have arrived at the only logical, scientific, factual conclusion:

The chupacabra have migrated north into Oklahoma and have eaten the buffalo. 

Lock up your goats, Okies…this is not a drill 

In addition to being a scientist, I am a student of pop culture and human nature. While avoiding the methed-out 18 wheelers, I thought about the Smokey and the Bandit movies. (The first and second only. We don’t talk about the third one.). Do you suppose  Cletus “the Snowman” ever thought about running that truck right into that Thunderbird?  I mean, here’s Bandit, zooming around the countryside being popular and outsmarting the cops and picking up women….and here’s the Snowman, pilling the load figuratively AND literally, and he doesn’t even get his name in the movie title. 

I’m sure I’ll have many more thoughts as profound as these.  I’m only halfway home