"Oklahoma! (Almost by Accident)"

Iconic scenes like this are just one of many good reasons to visit Oklahoma.

OKLAHOMA! (ALMOST BY ACCIDENT)

Until I realized that I had forgotten about Louisiana, I thought that Oklahoma was the only state west of the Mississippi River that I’d never been in.

Now I’ve been in Oklahoma, too, but that’s not what’s important.

I didn’t go to Oklahoma just to see Oklahoma, although it was nice to see. Going there helped me dispel a lot of personal misconceptions about that state—that the whole thing was as level as a tabletop, that it was hot and bone-dry, that it had no real identity because it was so overshadowed by its neighbors, especially Texas and Missouri and Colorado. But it was much more interesting than I had expected. I appreciated its history, even some of its largely flat topography. I thought its residents were mostly friendly folks—a lot of good Midwestern prairie stock, mixed with oilmen and cowboys. There’s a lot of money, still, in Oklahoma.

Custom bootmaker, Ray Dorwart, of Guthrie, is another

good reason to visit Oklahoma.

I liked the streets and stores and statues of Guthrie, Oklahoma’s original capital.



I liked the museums and memorials.

I liked driving on fabled Route 66.

I liked seeing real windmills and stockyards, even real oil pumps and derricks.

I even liked seeing skunks, although I wish they hadn’t all been dead and quite so smelly, and a opossum, even though it, too, was deceased—another victim of highway proximity and heavy traffic—and six whitetail deer, four of which (all in Beavers Bend State Park) were still alive and Bambi-like.

I liked seeing dozens and dozens of soaring, swooping, scanning hawks prowling the grasslands for prey.

I liked revisiting the Big Sky Country I hadn’t really seen since my college days in Montana and one brief pheasant-hunting trip with my father to North Dakota.



I liked seeing white pelicans on Lake Overholser, watching the flashes and hearing the booms of a thunder-and-lightning storm one night and then awakening to an inch and a half of hail-like slush, hiking the dry and rocky ravines of the Skyline Trail in Beavers Bend State Park, visiting with old Kenai Central High School classmate Holly Deitrick in the Tulsa area, spending an hour with custom cowboy boot maker Ray Dorwart, chatting with rickety old Mr. Gerard at the Frontier Drugstore Museum, listening to the backwoods-vernacular musicality of the mother-daughter pair at the convenience store in Antlers, and lunching on an excellent torta with the largely Hispanic crowd at Taqueria Los Comales.

It was a real treat to see a huge flock of white pelicans on Lake Overholser.



And there was plenty more—all packed into 10 full days.

But, as I said, Oklahoma itself was not the goal.

I would not have purchased a United Airlines ticket to Oklahoma City if it hadn’t been for a certain girl who was down there in the midst of nine weeks of training at the Federal Aviation Administration academy. She was the real attraction, more alluring to me than any geography or history lesson the Sooner State had to offer.



Here's the real reason I finally saw Oklahoma.

Together we drove to Broken Bow and Broken Arrow. We dined on crawfish pie and a po’ boy filled with deep-fried catfish. We toured a magnificent botanical garden, watched the whitecaps form on a churning reservoir, and strolled through the stores of Western outfitters. We ate at Crabtown, the Cattleman’s Steakhouse, and the Blue Rooster. We ran along streets and hiked along trails. We felt the stiff Oklahoma winds and crunched over its snow and ice.

More importantly, we communed. We spent time together. And it was wonderful—worth every minute in cramped airplane seating, every airport layover, every bit of jet-lag.

I’d do it again, in a heartbeat, but I don’t need to … because the girl is coming home soon.

The world is full of interesting places—Oklahoma among them, I must say—and I hope to see more of the world. Much more.

But I hope to see even more of the girl.

And then, of course, there’s Louisiana….