July 13th - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The breakfast bar at our motel had Cheerios and Corn Flakes in addition to donuts, so we had a somewhat more balanced meal in preparation for our morning walk. The starting point was closed Sunday morning, but since we had visited the previous day and had the map of the walk, we could simply park the truck at the parking lot for Myriad Gardens and start the walk from there. The building for Myriad Gardens is a huge glass and steel cylinder laid on its side. This cylinder spans a small pool filled with greenish water, and the whole lot is surrounded by landscaped gardens—they were watering the lawns as we started our walk, perhaps doing it early in the day to reduce evaporation losses.

From the gardens we worked our way north to the memorial which commemorates the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murray Federal Building. The remains of the building have been converted to a small park with a reflecting pool and markers for each of the 156 people killed by Timothy McVeigh, our made-in-the-USA terrorist. Three of those murdered were U.S. Customs Service folks, so Monika and I stopped by the stone engraved with the U.S. Customs insignia and contemplated the reflecting pool for a while before continuing on our way.

The next leg of the walk was what I would call “Mansion Row”. The founder of Oklahoma City built his mansion there first, and then apparently all of the nouveau rich built theirs in the surrounding area. It’s quite a collection of really quite nice, albeit very large, homes and pleasant to walk thru. The neighborhood transitioned to normal middle class homes as we continued north to the old Route 66 where we turned east and walked to the Capitol building.

My official Oklahoma State roadmap had informed me that the Capitol building had finally had its dome completed in 2002, so that was definitely new since I was in Oklahoma from 1970-1972. I should have gone in to see the dome, but I just didn’t think about it, possibly because I was distracted by the oil derrick out front. No kidding, there is a real, functional oil rig in front of the Capitol which pumps oil from directly under the building! The rig, and by implication the Capitol, was clearly labeled as belonging to Phillips 66 oil company, and I though that it was the clearest example of “truth in politics” that I had ever seen. The idea of labeling all of our U.S. Congressmen by which corporate interests they represent seemed to me an idea whose time has come. The Oklahoma Congressmen could wear their “Phillips 66” badges, the Virginia Congressmen could wear their “Big Tobacco” badges, and so forth.

Now you may object that Congressmen are often bought by a variety of interests rather than 1 big company. That is true, but I think if we adapt an idea from the licensing of interstate trucks we could still make it work. The trucks have a sign saying “Apportioned” and then license plates from every state they are registered in. For Congressmen we could just use the phrase “Apportioned” and then the insignias of each major business contributing to their campaigns and slush funds, say 40% Big Oil, 20% Big Tobacco, 10% AMA, 10% Big Drug Companies, 20% Unions, and so forth. It really would be a triumph of “truth in politics” but maybe we’re not quite ready for it yet.

Our route did not take us by the Governor’s Mansion, which I would have liked to see, but it did offer a 3-kilometer extension thru the Oklahoma University Medical Center. This was not a particularly scenic extension and has little or no shade, so unless you want to walk extra distance like we did, we would not recommend it. Our route back to Myriad Gardens passed thru Bricktown, an old section currently being renovated that is anchored by a new baseball stadium (AAA team, I think), and along a river walk. The river walk is similar to San Antonio’s but on a much smaller scale. Still, it was a nice break from the heat and humidity. We were fortunate in having overcast the morning we walked, but you may not be so fortunate. If you do this walk in the summer, we recommend doing this walk as early as possible in the morning and, as always, taking plenty of water.

After climbing back in the truck we headed off to the northeast on Interstate 44 to Tulsa where we shifted over to the old Route 66 for the drive to Vanita, Oklahoma where we rejoined I-44. I really enjoyed the drive on the old Route 66 and only wished I had started it sooner, say from Oklahoma City to Tulsa. Besides all the nostalgia and rural scenery, taking the old Route 66 on this stretch saved me $3.00 in tolls!

We finally fetched up for the night at Miami, Oklahoma, not to be confused with Miami, Ohio, or Miami, Florida, and found an old Route 66 motel, somewhat run down and seedy, that offered a room for $20 less than the new chain motels out by I-44. The hotel had “Deluxe” in the title, but I also saw a sign behind the registration desk to the effect that “No refunds would be given after 15 minutes past the check-in time”! I had never seen a sign like that before and it certainly gave me pause, but the air conditioner in our room worked fine and the ice machine had ice, so we settled in for the night.