Oklahoma (Ok!) Part 1: The Departure

 

"The open road in the Texas panhandle" by thirdcause is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

We went to go visit my brother and his wife last weekend. 

My brother is one of the many newly minted officers stationed at Ft. Sill. He's been there more than a year, but we've just now been able to get away and visit him. 

 South Texas is a long way from South Oklahoma; even longer when you've got two small children and a baby in tow. This took a fair amount of strategic planning and a LOT of advance prep. 

The first step was to leave as early as humanly possible. We (by packing everything into the van the night before and possibly by a special gift of God's grace) were able to hit the road by 4:30am. Groggy, sleepy kids are way less restless and bored, even if they don't fall back asleep.  

Blankets were positioned at their seats the night before in preparation, and the morning of we took them and their pillows out of their beds and directly into their car seats. No bathroom breaks or even getting shoes or travel clothes on.

 We were able to get a solid three hours of travel in before the kids woke up enough to have to pee. 

The second step was to have pre-planned stops on the route. Some of these were preplanned destinations while others were set aside for once we reached certain milestones with the kids. 

The first of these was a milestone stop: once the kids woke up. Once they were awake enough to get loud and demand breakfast and a bathroom, we pulled over at a state park, got everyone's shoes on, and then took them in to go pee and get  changed out of pajamas. 

We let the kids eat granola bars with peanut butter for breakfast, and play for a few minutes. Nothing too fussy or momentous. 

The next stop was a pre-planned stop with an attached time limit. There's this little restaurant called Mary's Cafe in a tiny town (Strawn, Texas).  It's in the middle of nowhere, but has the best chicken fried steak in the state. This is proclaimed not only by my husband and his professional mentor (who introduced him to the place) but such lauded publications as Texas Highways, Texas Monthly, and The Houston Chronicle. 

They open at 11 in the morning. Chris was determined to get there no later than 11:15. 

We were literally the first customers in the building. 

It was packed to the rafters by the time we left. 

I really liked the place. Despite the rave reviews and abundant publicity, it was very authentically small town. It was a hole in the wall cafe with pictures of the local high school sports teams on the wall, an obviously home designed framed patriotic poster with a watermark still on the image, and this gem on the bathroom door that I found disproportionately amusing...

Mary, the owner, waitresses and evidently is still really involved with day to day business. She was the one who took our order. 

Little Boy declared at the top of his lungs, several times, "THIS IS THE BEST CHICKEN FRIED STEAK IN TEXAS!!" I would have shushed him more, but my mouth was full. 

It was pretty darn good, as were the mashed potatoes (which were probably the best I've ever eaten in a restaurant). Our order also came with a huge bowl (think serving bowl) of gravy. 

Just gravy. Thick, white, well peppered, rich gravy. If we weren't traveling, I would have taken the rest of it home in a to-go box.  

The side salads were literally shredded, slightly brown leaves of iceberg lettuce with some past their prime cucumber slices, but who the heck goes to a place like that to eat salad?! 

Chris and I also got complementary t-shirts from the owner, and she handed the kids pens. I'm not completely sure why. We told Mary we were from the other end of the state and I mentioned Chris has been waxing poetic about the place for two years (which...he has). Maybe she figured it'd be good advertising, or maybe she was just feeling generous. 

Either way, I think it's my new favorite shirt. It's just so gloriously Texan. 

The rumors are true, we as a state are obsessed with ourselves. 

Anyway, we left there (very full, and it was worth it), got gas at the little station next door, and hit the road again. 

Step three really came into its own about this point. The day before we left, I had packed an activity bag for each kid. It contained a couple school books, a library book, some art supplies, and a folder with some worksheets, blank paper, and a map of our route. 

The result was pretty mixed. 

On one hand, both kids really enjoyed having blank paper to draw and write on. They also enjoyed the fact that I had handwriting practice in there. 

The problem was the map. 

Every five minutes, "where are we? What road? Which interstate? What town is next?" 

They enjoyed the map. We did not. 

Complicating things was a call from my brother. He wasn't going to be able to come home from work until after we planned to arrive. We suddenly had an extra couple hours to fill. 

On the upside, it did allow us to stop at the road marker for the ranch originally owned by one of the men who inspired the Lonesome Dove books, Charles Goodnight. 

It isn't an official state marker; I'm assuming because someone who inspired an epic Western saga isn't as concrete as a historical event or significance rooted in fact. Still a neat stopping point. 

The drive wore on, and late afternoon arrived. As I'm pretty sure is the case in most families, everyone (kids and adults) go absolutely stir crazy in the afternoon. We're all irritable and restless, and the kids are all just so much louder than the rest of the day. 

This is not a good state to be in when you're trapped in a car for multiple hours. 

Mercifully, we found a really neat general store to stop at (which we did, because it was either stop or be committed to an insane asylum). 

The inside was one big room that had beautiful old wooden floors and seemed to sell a little of everything, including food (lots of German sausage, as the sign promised, along with some canned goods and a few scant baskets of produce), ranching clothes, ranching equipment, and ammunition. 

Little Girl used the bathroom (which was not only outside but required the use of a key connected to the rubber bladder you usually find in toilet tanks), Bitty Baby stretched her legs, Little Boy did some exploring, and Chris bought a couple snacks and drinks. 

I didn't know honest-to-goodness small town general stores still exist. It was a pleasant surprise.

It wasn't long after that that we arrived in Oklahoma. 

Know how you can tell you're in Oklahoma? 

The gas stations have attached casinos. 

 I peered in through the connecting glass door in the gas station. I beheld two muscular bouncers in black polo shirts and a row of middle aged women and men with locked gazes, staring listlessly at the machines. 

I hate casinos. The one in the small town where I attended college had a little rinky dink one, it was about on par with a strip club as far as how it looked, that always had a full parking lot. Even in the middle of the week. 

After that, it was only a couple more hours of driving before we finally reached our destination. Unfortunately, we still had another hour to kill, so we stopped at a mall which (thanks be to God) had an indoor playground. The kids finally got to move, and Chris and I got to sit still for a moment and not be in a moving vehicle. 

And the  we finally, FINALLY, got to my brother's house.

 Stage one was complete. 

(In our NEXT installment, we meet a bison, a printing press, and a whirlwind tour of life on an army base).