Because we were hungry, Toto was online looking for somewhere neat to eat in Little Rock, that might bring her near to a cotton field. She found a neat place. The 42nd President of our great United States, Bill Clinton is from Little Rock, Arkansas. One place that he likes to eat when he is at home is Cotham’s. They are famous (at least in Little Rock) for being the home of the “Hub Cap Burger.” Apparently at the original Cotham’s, which was out in the boonies on stilts over a swamp, there were hub caps all over the walls, and they served the burger on something bigger than a dinner plate as they boasted it was bigger than said dinner plate. Well we went searching for Cotham’s, and low and behold, where the GPS on my Storm said it would be, it was not. There was a whole lot of nothing there, so we GPSed the downtown location (which is the one that President Clinton frequents). We found it pretty easily. And yes, the burger was quite large (and yummy): one pound of hamburger, plus all the fixins, and fries on the side. AND we started with fried dill pickles because we had liked them so much in Nashville. I was only able to eat one quarter of my burger. Josh boasted early on that he would eat the whole thing. He managed to down just over half of it before declaring that he would throw up if he ate any more. Toto ate a quarter of hers as well. We joked that we would be eating them for the next two days (at least Toto and I would be, if ¼ was one meal, then we had three left).
Ever since we got to the south, she has wanted to see cotton fields and tobacco fields. She has been thwarted every time. The original Cotham’s is where the cotton farmers used to go for food. Hence why we went up there looking for it, because she wanted to see the blasted cotton fields.
After eating we caught a glimpse of the capital building, so we went to take a picture of it. It seems that Toto is doing with capital buildings what I am doing with state line signs: taking pictures of every one she comes across. This one looked much the same as many others do: big marble building, big dome roof in the center of it. Wow. Cool. Another capital building. Moving on.
We got on the road and headed west towards Oklahoma. Just outside of Little Rock Josh decided he had to pee really badly. We didn’t realize how serious he was until we got to the next rest stop. Josh jumps out of the car; I am sitting in the front seat messing with my computer; I glance up for no particular reason and part of my brain observes Josh going into the rest room; about two seconds later the rest of my brain recognizes what just happened: in Josh’s hurry to get into the bathroom, he entered the women’s rest room! I yelled, or gasped, or squealed or all three at the same time, I’m not sure, but it got Toto’s attention. “WHAT?!” She exclaims. “JOSH JUST WENT IN THE WOMEN’S!!!! I SWEAR!!!” I proclaimed. I then threw my laptop (and when I say threw, I mean set down) onto the dashboard, rolled my window down, grabbed the camera, hoisted myself onto the sill of the window and poised the camera in ready position for when he came busting out of there. He did not come busting out of there. I thought for sure that there would be a lady in there that would call attention to his error, but I was wrong. Toto thought that the lack of urinals should give him a clue. Nope. A few minutes later (apparently he really had needed to pee) he comes strolling out of there, hears the click of the camera, sees me fall into the car laughing, and says “What?” I yell “YOU WERE IN THE LADIES!!” This is where I messed up. I was too busy dying of laughter and Toto was not able to get the camera to capture his moment of shock that rapidly turned into horror and embarrassment. He whirled around, stared for half a second at the bright blue “Women” with the little lady in the dress, his face contorted into a silent scream, and he whipped around again and bolted for the car, jumped in, and threw himself down on the seat in case anyone had seen what had just transpired. Keep in mind this whole thing (from him walking out to jumping in the car) took place in about four seconds. It was hilarious. I think I cried for two minutes I was laughing so hard.
The next few hours paled in comparison to that.
A little after three that afternoon, ok so more like three thirty, we drove past a sign that said “Checotah 5”. I casually mentioned (as I grabbed for the camera and snapped like four pictures of the sign) that Carrie Underwood is from Checotah, Oklahoma. Toto looked at the gas gauge and decided that we needed gas, so why not fill up in Carrie’s hometown? So we exited the freeway “Where 69 meets 40” and we drove up the “single stop light town.” We got gas, and took 69 down to the 40 and headed west some more.
I was driving after we left Checotah. Toto settled in to do some work on her computer, I put my headphones on and was listening to my audio book (that I haven’t heard much of since we left), and Josh was sleeping in the back seat when all of a sudden the heavens opened up and dumped a million gallons of water on us. If you watched the news on Monday afternoon or night, you probably saw the weather guy on your favorite channel talk about the crazy storm in Oklahoma. Yeah. We were in that. SO when I talk about the nice weather wherever we are now and you Oregon people tell me it’s raining and I should miss it, nope. Not happening. I actually had to pull over and wait until I could see again. Then I drove with the hazard lights on for a few miles. It was kind of scary. When the clouds thinned out just before OKC (Oklahoma City) I was much relieved. We saw four cars between the eastern and western outskirts of OKC that had crashed and been left, I assumed it was from the rain storm. See? Scary.
On April 19, 1995 the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed by Timothy McVeigh. Toto used to work for Leatherman Tool Group. She had been there about 4 months when the bombing happened. Leatherman actually sent a large number of one of their tools, The PST (Pocket Survival Tool) to the rescue effort. We went to the Oklahoma City Bombing memorial. It was a beautiful place, but it was very sobering. The park encompasses where the Murrah Building was, where two buildings were across fifth street from the Murrah Building, and where fifth street was itself. It is an impressive place. Two huge gateways lead you into the park. These gates each have an inscription on the outside, and on the inside each has a time. The east gate has the time 9:01 on it, representing the moment and innocence before the explosion. The west gate represents the moment after the bomb went off, the moment that everyone was changed forever: 9:03. There is a huge reflecting pool in between the two representing the moment that it all went down. On the south side of the pool is a lawn with 168 empty metal chairs, one for each person killed in the bombing. Nineteen of these chairs are smaller than the rest. These represent the 19 children that were killed in the daycare center of the Murrah Building. There are five chairs that stand at the western most end of the Field of Empty Chairs; these are for the five people who were killed outside of the building, just walking by on the street. There is a large American Elm tree across the pool from the Field, this is the Survivor Tree. Before the bombing, this tree stood exactly where it stands today. A new orchard has been planted around it, consisting of three different types of trees. Each of these has a different meaning, and its placement has meaning as well. They represent the people who flocked to the rescue of OKC. There is a chain link fence on the North West side of the park that is part of the original fence that was erected during the demolition. Almost as soon as it came into existence, it became a site for tokens of love and sadness and remembrance for people who came to grieve and leave things. The designers of the memorial park incorporated a chunk of this fence into the design, so that people can still leave mementos. People leave so many things that they have to be removed frequently, but everything is saved and preserved in the archives of the museum they have there on the site. There is also a space devoted to all the children that reacted after the tragedy. Millions of children from all over the world sent little things to OKC. Someone organized a ceramic tile event where these children painted a ceramic tile and sent it. A bunch of these have been made into a wall in this children’s area. It is very quiet in the middle of the city in this park. As I said before, it was very sobering. I encourage all to go and see this place if you are ever in OKC.
If you want to see more pictures of the park, go to my facebook: www.facebook.com/sean.newberry or go to the website for the memorial: http://www.oklahomacitynationalmemorial.org/
As we left OKC, we had blue skies, for a little while. It started to rain again a little while later, but thankfully it wasn’t as bad as before. It was more of the misty half rain that we Oregonians are super used to. The only bad part about this is that it’s really hard to pass a semi truck on a two laner when you can’t tell if they just turned on their left turn signal or if it is a trick of the light through the misty rain. I panicked a few times and gunned it to get past them. I am not a fan of those things, especially in close quarters like two lane freeways with construction. No bueno!
Our goal was to make it to Amarillo, TX that night. Toto kept asking me if I was still ok to drive. I kept nodding and saying, “Yes Toto, I am fine.” I don’t get super tired when I am listening to my book. I get too into it to get sleepy. It’s not like when you are actually reading and your eyes get tired from the back and forth motion. We made it to Amarillo around half past midnight. Then we were confronted with a new problem: parking. A biker gang had taken up residence under the portico at the hotel so we couldn’t pull in to unload. They were just hanging out there drinking beer and carrying on. And apparently they didn’t ride their bikes there from wherever they came from. They had trucked them in, so all their trucks and trailers were taking up the entire lot. Toto went in to check us in, and on the way back one of them asked her to hang out and have a beer with them. I think Josh was jealous because they didn’t think he looked cool enough to ask to hang out with them. I told him it was because Toto is in their generation and we’re not. That didn’t help. Josh and I went right to bed when we got up to our room. We were beat. I don’t know what his excuse was; he had slept half the day in the back seat. I guess the whole being kept in a constant state of exhaustion for four months and having a cold has really been knocking him on his butt. Toto did have a beer or two that night, but in our hotel room with her two sleeping children and her lap top. No bikers involved.
Playlist
One Republic
Colbie Caillat
Bobby Darin
Love the going into the wrong bathroom episode
ReplyDeletethat is hilarious! I have been reading your blog as you post it even if I don't comment.
I am your only follower that is listed.