by laura beth

We made a really quick trip through Oklahoma, stopping first at a tiny roadside chapel on a muddy county road just outside of Dickson. Apparently built by a man as a memorial to his deceased sons, the chapel has two short rows of tiny pews, an altar with a Bible, and stained glass windows. When you walk in and shut the door, a generator starts, and hymns play. It was so tiny, I could hardly take a photo in side of it, but it was really precious and worth the out-of-the-way drive.

Then it was on to Oklahoma City and the Oklahoma City National Memorial. The memorial was definitely one of the best I've seen, primarily due to its simplicity. We didn't go into the museum. I'm not usually a big fan of memorial, for personal reasons that I won't share here so as not to offend anyone, but I did think this one was nice. While we were there, we noted that although Oklahoma City is a large city, the downtown area really closes up shop early. At seven o'clock on a Sunday evening there was no traffic for miles around. Not a single moving vehicle. It really felt like a small town.

We drove on to historic Guthrie, Oklahoma, hoping to have a drink at the Blue Belle Saloon, the oldest bar in Oklahoma, where Tom Mix tended bar in the early 1900's. But it was closed for the evening. Apparently, however, it is the place to be according to this site! After driving the brick-paved streets and admiring the beautiful brick architecture, we slept in the Walmart parking lot. The next morning we visited a couple of old graves. One belonged to Bill Doolin, founder of the Wild Bunch and member of the Dalton Gang. The other belongs to Elmer McCurdy. Elmer was an outlaw and train robber who was shot and killed in Oklahoma. After a serious of strange events, his mummified body was found at a Long Beach California amusement park, and eventually returned to Oklahoma in the 1970's. He is buried next to Bill Doolin in the Boot Hill section of Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie. Read about Elmer here.

We left Guthrie and headed for Kansas, hugged on the highway by cornfields as far as the eye could see. Although we didn't spend more than a couple of days in Oklahoma, I was impressed with its beauty. It wasn't at all what I imagined. The soil is red and the landscape is green, and the towns are quite charming.