Things are getting a little more under control at our house.  We still miss being on vacation but are gelling back into our non-vacation roles.  The fridge is now stocked and we are almost through the laundry pile.

Continuing my road trip reflections . . . . I last left us in Memphis, Tennessee.

Day Three: Memphis, Tennessee to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The next morning we slept in a bit and missed breakfast.  It was July 4^th but unfortunately we were not in the most celebratory of moods.   The previous evening, my 2-year old brought my iPhone into the bathtub and submerged it underwater!  I quickly rescued it and thought it was OK and used it that evening.  I charged it overnight and discovered in the morning that the water appeared to have fried some of the circuits and destroyed it!

After a testy morning, we hit the road for Little Rock, Arkansas.  Even though July 4^th is one of the bigger holidays of the year, the majority of cities and towns we drove through were doing little if anything to celebrate it.  The fact that July 4^th was on a Sunday this year and we were driving largely through the Bible Belt didn’t help matters any.

Downtown Little Rock was relatively quiet.  We walked along President Clinton Avenue downtown, which was surprisingly more like Oregon than a southern state.  I don’t recall hearing a single southern accent among the locals we met.  Many of the shops had signs indicating their dedication to environmentalism and holistic healing.  We ate at a vegetarian café and visited a museum called the Discovery Center which is a hands-on children’s museum focused on science, history and other educational activities.

We drove on through Arkansas.  It was a hot day and the afternoon sun made me a bit sleepy.  I missed quite a bit of Arkansas as a result.  I awoke when we pulled in to  Fort Smith, Arkansas, which curiously is more western than southern.  This was the first point in the country where we noticed cowboy hats and pickup trucks.  It was a little after 5 and nearly everything had closed for the evening but we wandered around the grounds of the Fort Smith National Historic Site (a historic jail and courthouse).

On the grounds there, we were surprised to see the first of several tech-savvy signs from the National Park Service we would encounter on our journey.  This sign asked you to download an application for your iPhone to scan the barcode and have your cell phone play a recorded message.  We didn’t have time to test this out but I give credit to the park service for embracing technology!  These types of innovations will not only make historic sites come alive for more visitors but also save the expense of printing brochures and signs and allow the Park Service to update the information more frequently.

With our 4-year old craving “white rice” yet again, we found a small Thai restaurant outside of town.  The restaurant was packed with customers and the food was excellent!  Who would have thought you can find a mean Pad Thai in Arkansas!

We drove on into Oklahoma.  Oklahoma is primarily known for being the Indian territory (or at least where many Native Americans were forced to live).  As you drive along the highway, signs indicate the boundaries of various tribal areas.  The number of tribes represented was surprising.  Each tribe generally has a visitors area where they sell pottery, blankets, jewelry and other distinctive tribal art and sometimes offer a casino as well.  You could have an incredible cultural experience stopping to visit each tribe.  Unfortunately, we had to get to Oklahoma City in time for the fireworks that evening and didn’t have time to stop.

We pressed on to Oklahoma City where we arrived just in time to see the fireworks from the rooftop of the parking garage near our hotel.  It felt characteristically American to watch the fireworks among hundreds of families and their pickup trucks.  Our girls loved the fireworks and would ask to see them again every night for the next several days.

There was a cute moment in the elevator in the parking garage where a college-aged man with a nose ring and tattoos bonded with a 6-year old girl standing with her mother over their T-shirt choices.  Hers said, “Oklahoma Girls Rule!”  His said, “Nobody Beats Oklahoma Women.”

Our hotel, The Skirvin Hilton, is a beautiful historic building with well-appointed rooms.  One of the interesting ideas from the hotel was their choice of bedding.  Since the history of the hotel is an important part of its appeal, the hotel had special blankets printed with the story of the hotel written on them that were placed at the foot of each bed.

Day Four: Oklahoma City to Albuquerque, New Mexico

We awoke the next day and decided to explore Oklahoma City for a bit before leaving.  Oklahoma City was quite a surprise to me.  I was expecting a very small town and Oklahoma City is really quite a big city.  There appears to be lots of business being transacted there and the downtown has large multistory buildings.

We stopped at the memorial site for the Oklahoma City bombing.  The memorial is very well done and as impressive as any I have seen in Washington.  The grounds are meticulously tended, particularly with regard to the well-clipped lawn.  The stands of empty chairs are powerful as are the hand painted tiles from children around the country.  Yet even more personal, however, are the impromptu memorials on the chain link fence just in front of the memorial.

Leaving Oklahoma City, we drove on to Amarillo, Texas.  This was the first portion of our journey that was primarily through flat land.  While you would think this would make for relatively uninteresting  sightseeing, we learned to appreciate the variety of skyscapes visible when you can see from one horizon to the other.

Texas has a definite character.  This was my first visit to the state and the first impression that you get is that everything is big and exaggerated in Texas.  Here was the cross for a church.

We ate lunch at the Big Texan Steak Ranch, home of the free 72 oz steak dinner (if you can eat it all in under an hour!).  The steakhouse is in a brightly colored blue and yellow building with an enormous cowboy boot at the front door and a cow statue perched on the roof.  Inside, the décor is over the top western!  Dinner is served at long tables with cow-print tablecloths. The heads of various animals hang on the walls. Wagon wheels are repurposed as chandeliers and all the servers are dressed in cowboy hats, jeans and cowboy boots.

Our steaks were quite good.  (No, we did not try for the 72 oz. dinner!)  If you are still hungry, you can opt for a piece of cake the size of an entire dinner plate or some of their homemade fudge which comes in flavors such as butter pecan, cookies ‘n cream and Butterfinger.  They looked delicious but we were stuffed.

We took the obligatory photo op in their enormously oversized rocking chair.  This is a great marketing idea!  The top of the chair has their website on it so everyone who takes a vacation photo here is spreading the word about the restaurant.

You might be thinking that the Big Texan Steak Ranch is tacky or ridiculous but I will also tell you that the restaurant is enormously successful.  Every table was packed with tourists of every description.  Everyone was having a great time, smiling at the unusual experience. 

On our way out of town, we stopped briefly at the Cadillac Ranch.  What is the Cadillac Ranch?  10 Cadillac automobiles sunk nose first into the desert.  It is a sort of evolving art piece where people are invited to spray paint their own designs on the cars.  I didn’t see any fine art but there were many painters in progress writing their names on the cars.

This was one of our longest travel days of the journey so far.  We continued on into New Mexico. 

The landscape quickly became more dry and mountainous. 

We arrived at our hotel just in time for dinner.  We walked a short distance into the town square in Old Town which is beautifully designed with a park in the center and shops circling it.  The buildings were all in classic southwest style, with adobe, wooden beams and accents of bright turquoise. We ate on the patio at a wonderful Mexican restaurant. We knew we were getting authentic food when the chips and salsa arrived and the (presumably mild) salsa was about 10 times spicier than what they serve here in D.C.

After dinner, we took a short stroll and retired to the hotel for a good night’s rest.

Next time: Further west we go.  Please share in the comments your own favorite road trip memories or impressions of the southwestern U.S.