at a truck stop in joplin, missouri
so really, today is monday– (urgh! tuesday now!) i haven’t written in quite a bit – this’ll be the last combined/fibbed one, i hope. and i’ll just recap our lovely lovely placitas new mexico stay tomorrow (urgh, soon)…!
so let’s pretend it’s last friday, si?
a quick mention of joplin, missouri. poor, sweet joplin. we saw some trees pulled up and snapped in half. also the radio commercials were very intense/weird — advertising stuff but also talking about what it feels like to lose ones house…, and then the digital road side boards giving instructions to the tornado relief volunteer workers – which exit to take and where to go…
….
actually, i think i’ll just post a bunch of photos from stroud, oklahoma and amarillo, texas. stroud was a LOVELY tiny tiny town about an hour or more southwest of tulsa. apparently, i love oklahoma, also. we crossed a sign that said now entering the cherokee nation. AWESOME. and even more awesome.
oklahoma is OK!
we found the best western right off the highway at the stroud exit. and just sitting right out in the open under a HUGE blue sky. attached to the hotel was a sweet, western decor-ed restaurant that we had both that night’s dinner and the next morning’s breakfast. gil got a brisket and i got ribs that we watched the kitchen folk make it all in the smoker stationed near the pool while we swam. it was awesome. that night miss cv friended savannah, who was at the pool with her pa and younger sister. i tossed various toys for the girls to dive for. we were introducing ourselves and cv asked savannah’s pa what his name was. he said david, with such a deep drawl that i could see cv trying to process what it was — . she asked “diver?” no, daaaayved. hmmm. scrunched face. so he tried again…day ved. oh! david! whew.
dinner in stroud, ok
oh man, the culture. it felt really relaxed and down to earth and respectful and interesting. the evening news covered a big election and recount of disputed results. at first we were both confused as to what election would be held right now – it was for the next chief of the cherokee nation. it was exciting, big news and we were totally memorized by the coverage! another item that got some coverage was how much trouble some guy got in for killing a protected alligator/crocodile in an oklahoma river. i can’t remember if it was an alligator or crocodile since i wasn’t paying the most attention at this point, but apparently it really rattled gil. he mentioned it at least twice while we were driving the next day, alarmed that there were alligator/crocodiles in oklahoma. every river we passed he would mutter something about how the heck would one canoe in this area if there are alligator/crocodiles lurking. or he would wonder where they came from and why they were here. then he had me check the map for all the states that bordered oklahoma to assess whether it made sense if they came from a neighbor…arkanasas?? texas? i don’t know, hon. i’m just not sure. so if we move to oklahoma we resolved to just swim in chlorinated pools. …
amarillo swimming buddies
then before we struck out on this trip i assured my pa, and maybe a few other people, that no matter what we were NOT staying in amarillo, texas since the last time we made a road trip similar to this (portland oregon, to southern maine six years ago) we stayed in amarillo and it totally BIT. which i remember quite clearly. but it was the perfect amount of roadtrip time from stroud and the la quinta hotel looked good. so. so you know. against my better judgement we decided to stay an amarillo — and it has changed a LOT is six years. i completely and absolutely eat crow. sorry, amarillo. i didn’t realize how cool you actually are now. looks like a vibrant population and stylie scene. AND our first whataburger to boot! oh. and our texas shaped waffles…
texas waffle
xoxo
coco
