It was a nice night in Durant,
Oklahoma. Isn’t that how all horror
movies start out? We used our frequent
flier points for the first time ever to get a free hotel room. Made us feel pretty special. After breakfast we hit the road headed south
for home. Sort of.
First we drove east. Through the booming metropolis of Bokchito,
which is, according to their town sign, “The Biggest Little Town in
Oklahoma.” That was pretty impressive
until we passed Bennington High School in the next town. Home of “The Best Rural School in Oklahoma.” We had no idea our little 30 minute detour
would bring us by such highlights.
Our destination was the Master Works
Dulcimer Shop near Bennington. Why
there? We wanted to reconnect with some
old friends from our South Oaks Baptist Church days in the 80’s, Russell and
Merla Cook. He started out making
hammered dulcimers by hand back when we first met them. Now he has quite the huge operation, with
band saws and machines I don’t even remember the names of, and human beings …
actual employees. He gave us the grand
tour of the facility, and Chris bought some strings for the mountain dulcimer
we have. She also got a book that should
teach her how to play. I almost bought some
kind of thing that hangs around your neck like a guitar, has four strings like
a ukulele, but you only have to use one finger to hold down the strings and
strum. Right up my alley … easy. Maybe next time.
After saying our good-byes, we headed
towards home for real this time. But
that meant backtracking to Durant to get back on the right road. And from there … Oklahoma didn’t seem to want
us to leave. First we had our exit cut
off by the appearance of a fire truck running hot. No problem.
Google Siri quickly gave us an alternate route. Unfortunately, that route was where the fire
truck was headed to help with a pretty bad wreck that had just happened. So we missed that turn as well. Not to worry.
We simply headed back toward Durant again, making a huge circle. We could access our road a different
way. Oops. Turned on the wrong street. We pulled into a driveway and finally made it
to the highway headed back to Texas,
Except then we realized that we needed gas. Yep. Didn’t even have enough to reach the Lone
Star State border. So we pulled over at
a station owned by the Choctaw Nation.
The receipt didn’t print out, however, so I had to go inside to get it. I
think I know why it didn’t print. To get
the receipt inside you have to walk right past the entrance to the casino. It’s all about marketing, you know? We finally got back on the road at about …
yep. Lunchtime. Nope.
Not eating in Durant, Oklahoma.
We made it as far as the Cracker Barrel in
Sherman, Texas. It was difficult,
however, to drive right past the gigantic head on the side of the road in
Denison. Big ol’ head of Dwight
Eisenhower. He was born there. But Cracker Barrel. This one was stuck somewhere in the 90’s. Everything seemed so … old. I ordered my fried chicken livers, and then
Chris made her usual order. Chicken
fried chicken. But horror of all
horrors. Cracker Barrel is “no longer
serving chicken fried chicken … ever again.”
That’s what we were told. Even
the manager came and told us it was true.
It took Chris a while to recover, but she finally settled on a chef’s
salad.
The rest of the trip home was rather
uneventful, unless you count the traffic slowdowns near Dallas and
Houston. We did stop in LaMarque to say
hi to those grandkids. As a bonus,
Cailyn happened to be spending the night with them, so we got to see her as
well. It was good to get home, though. We could watch the Astros game on a screen
larger than my iPhone …
John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that
they may have life, and have it to the full.”
Father, thank you for the chance to see
Russell and Merla again. And thanks for the
surprising pockets of beauty we uncovered in Oklahoma. Amen.
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