Day 4 – Try a plate of Rocky Mountain Oysters

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A…. what? It was only a matter of time. I had to do it. Anyway, backto the travel diary. This morning we drove through the city of… whatever the hell Oklahoma City is the city of. Beef? Cattle? More cities where no people are outside in the middle of the day? Anyway, Erin picked up a lovely santa outfit she hopes to wear at Burning Man. After, we went to the Oklahoma City bombing memorial, which was very well done and could probably teach New York and their petty squabbling over memorial size a thing or two. We then went to the Stockyards, which are the largest in the world, and are great. The blocks surrounding it are chock full of stores of cowboy attire, beef, and horse saddles. Not a touristy, fake area. It’s real, practical stuff for people actually working on ranches. It was awesome. A cowboy named ‘Boots’ gave us the skinny on cattle auctions, which were not taking place, unfortunately. We got lunch, and oh my God, I never knew a hamburger could be so good as the one I got at the Cattleman’s Café. Lucky Burger be damned!

Next up we plowed through sevearl hours of flat Oklahoma and Texan prarie. A quick phone call to our resident geek Mariah informed us that the soil is red in that area because of the large amount of iron in it. It oxidizes once it reaches the air. That’s a science lesson for you, kids.

Then we went to what is possibly the awesomest restaurant in Northern Texas, the Big Texan. It’s famous for it’s 72 oz steak, which if you can consume in one hour, is free. There’s a little table set up in the middle with a timer behind it waiting for the next fool to try. The record, by the way, is 9 ½ minutes. That’s 4 ½ pounds of meat there. They also had a shooting gallery. And slot machine. I could have lived there. Oh, and by the way, the steak? Amazing. Words cannot describe. Perhaps there are some good things that come out of Texas.

Past Amarillo, on the side of the Interstate, is the Cadillac Ranch, where one guy decided to paint and half-bury 10 Cadillacs in the ground. No real reason. No sign for it. They’re just there, easy to miss, painted pink this month in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness. It was great. I think if I ever buy a lot of land, I’m going to put up a random sculpture out of….old laptops. Just because. And then my lawn will become a tourist attraction.

What is equally awesome in Texas is being able to see a storm coming from 15 miles away. It came upon us slowly, and was enormous. Dad, that’s probably the closest I’ll come to the tornadoes you wanted me to get caught in. There was no wind, but lighting just lit up the sky, and with a sky this size, that’s saying a lot.

I managed to drag Erin and Adina out last night to the bar that the 'locals' go to. The streets of Tucumcari, New Mexico were empty, and doubts were low. Luckily, we managed to find this kick-ass friendly bar that I'm pretty sure was the only spot in town, and made friends with all the townies. We met not one, but two people who had lived in New York for several years. Our conversations would go like this

Us: Oh, we're from New York
Waitress/Patron: Oh my god, I miss it so much! I used to work on 33rd and Park, there's no place like New York. Take me with you!
Erin: I'll have another drink (drowns her sorrows)

They were nice though, and had interesting accents, and mapped out routes for us to take today. Which we'll be departing on, real soon, so goodbye for now.