Oklahoma!

Today: Oklahoma, the last state on my trip.  It was only a couple of hundred miles from Wichita to Oklahoma City, and it was a pretty easy drive. Until getting close to the city, that is, when there were all these highways criss-crossing all over the place. Not much fun after weeks in the hinterlands, but between the GPS and me we got here.

My only planned site visit was to the National Cowboy Museum, which Cris suggested, and what an amazing collection – and group of buildings – it has. I spent about 2 hours there and didn’t do much more than scratch the surface. Have you ever seen a buffalo overcoat? How about angora chaps? Or a room filled with drawers of barbed wire? Hackamores? Saddles? Muzzle-loading and breech-loading rifles?


There are paintings, sculptures, and literally tons of exhibits, each with a singular focus: Crow basketry or saddles from the 1860s or rodeo trophies or Indian saddles from 1800. Photos of two sculptures are shown, the first one of Buffalo Bill sculpted in bronze, which is literally just out in the yard. The other one is plaster, entitled The End of the Trail, sculpted in 1915 by James Earle Fraser and the first thing you see when you walk in the door.

It is a fabulous museum, and if you come to Oklahoma City and do not go see it, you will make a huge mistake.

And so the end of the trail for me as well. I've been in 6 states I had never seen before. I've driven close to 3000 miles (admittedly, some of it lost), racking up the most miles in Montana and South Dakota, the least in Idaho (it's only 75 miles across up north).

I could muse a bit here: civility and the speed limit decrease together from north to south out here; lots of highway construction; you couldn’t play the license plate game today; casinos abound; they use air boats on the Platte River; cows still stand under shade trees in the heat.

We live in a beautiful country.

It’s hot in Oklahoma. I’m ready to go home.

I hope you’ve enjoyed a bit of my trip. I did.