OKC

“Oklahoma City? What’s in Oklahoma City?”

These are the words that somehow stumbled out of my mouth when I was asked if I had any interest in making the journey.

I was quickly informed that the Oklahoma City (OKC for short) has one of, if not the, largest collections of Chihuly glass in the world. I’ve seen some Chihuly glass, and it’s pretty amazing, so I said, “Sure, let’s go.”

I think I was more excited about making a road trip with our friends Darryl and Winjie than I was to see the Chihuly, but I figured the glass would be fun too. I really wasn’t expecting much more that a fun time with some good friends, and the chance to see some Chihuly glass…but it turned out to be better than I expected.

First things first, the Chihuly glass was incredible. I am officially a fan. Not that I’m going to be buying any to decorate my home any time soon, but seeing this huge exhibit and watching a video showing the incredible process each piece goes through has made me think twice about buying some...you know, when we win the lotto and all.

We also went to the National Memorial of the Oklahoma City bombing. I was both very impressed and deeply moved. I’ve written before the closed head injury and my emotions, and this was really hard for me to make it through. I mean if you cry at Tide commercials, something like this puts you through the ringer.

The memorial, inside and out, is wonderfully done. It walks you through the day and you leave with a true understanding of what this did to the community and how the community pulled together to overcome such a horrible time in its history.

I must admit, I never really understood the whole empty chair sculpture thing out on the lawn. I thought it looked good, especially lit up at night, but now I understand…it makes sense.

I gave up trying to put into words here how seeing it made it all make sense, because nothing I wrote seemed to do it justice. Visit if you have the chance and I think you’ll see what I mean.

And last but not least, we went to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. We had been told by Melissa’s mother that it was a good museum and worth seeing. I went along simply because I didn’t think it would kill me. However, I was pleasantly surprised. There was a whole section devoted to John Wayne, Buck Rogers and all the old movie cowboys. Not to mention, the all the great guns they had on display. Overall, the museum was fun. Well, except for when Darryl and I were forced to dress up like cowboys for a picture. I’ll post a picture of the two roughriders in western garb as soon as I get one from Darryl.


Now for the food:

I didn’t want to go to Oklahoma City and eat at places I could eat at in Dallas. Chili’s, On the Border, or places like that. I wanted to experience some real OKC cuisine. And experience it we did!

There’s a place downtown that Melissa and Winjie knew all about called, Bricktown. Bricktown is a kind of downtown revitalization thing, I think. While we weren’t all that impressed with what Bricktown had to offer in the way of Friday night entertainment, it does have a fun micro-brewery called Tap Werks, and Tap Werks has good food, cold beer and a fun atmosphere.

We also ate a fun place called Shorty Small’s. It’s a BBQ and burger kind of joint that was also rich in OKC flavor and tradition. It was good, but the BBQ sandwich, while good, couldn’t hold a candle to Peggy Sue BBQ here in Dallas. This is a fact that I decided against sharing with our waitress. However, their blackberry cobbler was more than a wee-bit tasty.

Saturday night, we went out to the lake, and sadly I don’t even know which lake it was. It was one of those lakes with lots of water. We went just to go see the sunset and sit and talk. We went to a restaurant/bar called Pearl’s Lakeside, had some more to eat, and sat outside by the water and listened to a band called 2AM. They were good enough that we even bought one of their CD's.

Get this; we even closed down the place! I know what you’re thinking, “Man, they are some party animals!” However, I should probably tell you that last call was at 11:00PM and not 2:00AM.

What can I say – It’s Oklahoma.

Sunday morning we had breakfast at a place called The Classen Grill. It was another old time, been there for over 50 years kind of OKC institution, and it was good too.

I have to thank Winjie for doing all the restaurant research. She somehow found our about all these great places and she even had directions and maps to boot!

So should you go to Oklahoma City for your next vacation? I’m not sure it has all the makings for full-blown vacation, because after a couple of days I was ready to hit the road.

But next time you’ve got a weekend to burn, give OKC try, you may just enjoy yourself…I know I did.