I dreamt of Vin Diesel, Judy Dench, and being arrested in Canada without my passport.  I awoke and realized my passport is in a box aboard a moving truck somewhere between San Francisco and Maine.  This makes returning from Toronto rather difficult and provides a convenient excuse to revise our route to avoid expensive Canadian hotels.

The Oklahoma City morning is grey and humid as Erik and I climb into the Element and set out to explore this midwestern gem.  The tourist brochure in our room recommends four attractions:  Oklahoma City Federal Building Memorial, Bricktown, the Stockyards and a climbing gym inside what was once a grain elevator.

Oklahoma City is filled with businesses named for their owners. Every store, car dealer and restaurant includes the name of the proprietor(ess). As a general rule, you should only use your name for a business if you have a cool name.  Oklahoma violates this rule constantly:  Shmeklers Used Autos, Joes Convenience Store II, JB's Industrial Rubber Company.  Are there no hip corporate branding firms in Oklahoma? 

Our first stop is at Joe's Glass Repair.  Struck by a violent pebble, the windshield of the Element sports a lovely divot.  A grizzled Oklahoman sets to work fixing my windshield while his tubby counterpart points to Wynonna Judd on television and says:  "She used to be such a perty gurl.  Then she went and got all fat." 

Bricktown was once a thriving district - about sixty years ago.  In a fury of civic pride, Oklahoma City set to renovating this sad section by adding a ball park, a canal with water taxis, restaurants and bars.  The old factories now sport new facades and the district is lovely and very quiet.  In fact, most of Oklahoma City is very quiet.  Silent.  Without life.

After lunch (fifteen minutes) and exploring Bricktown (5 minutes), we are nearly ready to move on to the Federal Building Memorial.  Then, across the vast expanse of lawn (ten feet), I spy a buffalo.  A photo opportunity in the making, I insist Erik take a picture.  While I pose, I see another buffalo across the street.  I insist Erik take another photograph.  Buffalo begin appearing on street corner after street corner and I force Erik to follow me for blocks recording images.  Each time we believe we have found the last buffalo, another appears.  We begin calling them "Buffali" (the plural of buffalo).  There are so many buffali we grow weary from chasing them and surrender to the herd.  This is more fun than paying $7 to see the Western Cowboy Art Museum or the Quarter Horse Memorial. 

We cannot leave Oklahoma City without visiting the Federal Building Memorial.  I admit, I don't know much about heterosexuals, but I am relatively certain the straight folk of this country could use a little lesson in grieving.  When queer people die, we throw big parties, elaborate funerals, scatter the ashes and move on.  Straight people build giant, gaudy, and very expensive memorials which take up valuable real estate.  Like the Washington Monument which is little more than a good view of D.C., this memorial will lose importance and impact as the decades sweep by.  I'd recommend we knock this thing to the ground, host a gonzo, screaming, crying, messy party and then build a nice new office building.  Grief is best experienced in passing rather than wallowing. 

Across the street from the official memorial is the Catholic Memorial.  This features a statue of Jesus holding his head as if to say:  "I sleep in just one day and see what happens?!"  Jesus, oddly, is dressed in a bathrobe with embroidered cuffs. 

Two sites down, two to go.

Erik has the map and we start searching for the Stockyards.  Stockyards are giant pens where cattle are stored until slaughtered.  Oklahoma City boasts the world's largest stockyards.  The oldest restaurant in the city is purportedly next to the stockyards so you can eat a cow while watching cows.  We drive (thirty minutes), search (twenty minutes), wander (fifteen minutes) and cannot find the Stockyards.  We do find lots of empty, worn warehouses, decrepit rail sidings and a sign for syphilis.  We never find the stockyards.

The last site on the list is the climbing gym inside a grain elevator.  I hold a profound fear of heights.  I do not like any place I can't jump from and survive without a parachute.  We veto the climbing gym and head back for a afternoon by the pool before a night of fabulous Oklahoma City bar hopping.  This is Gay Pride weekend in Oklahoma City and we anticipate a full evening of corn-fed, humidity roasted, midwestern farm boys in Wranglers and embroidered shirts.

Tomorrow, we move on to St. Louis...
 

Friendly buffalo	Coca-cola buffalo
Charging buffalo	Mauled by a buffalo
Groping a buffalo	Stop and smell the buffalo
Straddle a buffalo	Buffalo and mobile phone
George W Buffalo	Butting heads with a buffalo
Spotted buffalo	Patriotic kitsch buffalo
Licking buffalo	Sleeping buffalo
Hip Hop Buffalo	Spare change buffalo
Buffalovis	Billboard Buffalo
Great White Buffalo	Buffalo shit
Catholic Memorial	Syphilis billboard

Road Trip 2004 : Day 8 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Miles to Date:  1,798 Join the Road Trip 2004 Email List... [More]

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