Oklahoma City – A Jewel in the Plains

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Oklahoma City – A Jewel in the Plains

Posted on April 28, 2010June 12, 2010 by Justin

As we we continued our cruise along I-40, we finally got to the great state of Oklahoma.

As we pulled into Oklahoma City, we had three things on our mind, besides checking into the Cambria Suites: See the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial, see Bricktown, and find something to eat.

We wanted to see the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial first, as we weren’t sure how late it was open, and we wanted to capitalize on the setting sun. We headed off to the memorial, not really knowing what to expect. We’ve both been to any number of memorials from all our time in D.C., but those are not nearly as personal to the community in which it resides as the Oklahoma City bombing.

Not to say that the D.C memorials aren’t TRENDOUSLY personal to those that the events impacted. I remember going to the WWII memorial with my grandfather, who served in both major theatres during his tenure with the Army, and it was truly emotional, for him more than myself, but it was still emotional for me. But this was a memorial built by the people that it directly impacted, and not a memorial built by a piece of legislation to remember and honor those that were involved in something bigger than themselves (like the Vietnam Memorial or the WWI Memorial, or even the Iwo Jima Memorial). The 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon may very well be the same kind of emotion, and the eventual 9/11 Memorial in NY will probably feel the same way, but this was, for us, a new experience.

For whatever reason, the white balance seems to be off in most of my pictures, and I’m sorry. They have almost a sterile feel. It really was an emotional and touching, and I’m bummed the discoloration of the pictures detracts from the somber atmosphere of the memorial. I hope you get the idea, though.

The memorial is really quite large. What used to be 5th Street, where the bomb was parked, is now the reflecting pool above.

Where the federal building was, there is a field of chairs with bronze backs and stone seats on glass pedestals. This gives them the appearance of floating during the daylight and the glow at night. There is one chair for each victim that died in the bombing, and they are arranged in rows for each floor of the building. You’ll notice that in almost every picture, there’s an American flag. They seem to grow like rabbits in the city, peeking out from behind every building.

The chairs also came in two sizes, adult and child-size. I can’t believe I managed to miss a picture of both. It was remarkably tough seeing a long row of child-sized chairs in the second row.

Several buildings besides the target federal building were destroyed in the blast. All of them have been left undeveloped for the memorial. As we walked around the grounds, we came across the Children’s Garden. The artwork was provided by children from around the country as part of their outpouring of support.

One of the adjacent buildings was mildly damaged, but was able to be structurally repaired. Windows were blown out and the exterior wall was damaged by debris. Aside from being structurally shored, the wall still remains in its condition as it did after the blast. This includes some graffiti from a rescue worker involved in the recovery and cleanup efforts.

This tree managed to survive the blast and is known today as the survivor tree. It is actually situated between the above building and the reflecting pool (formerly 5th St.). You can see how close the reflecting pool is if you look to the left.

I took one last picture before we departed the memorial.

As we walked across the street from the memorial, we found a statue of Jesus facing away from the memorial. “How very odd?” There was a plaque that explained St. Joseph’s Cathedral had been almost completely destroyed, and this statue had been erected as a memorial in 1997. The memorial shows Jesus with the caption “And Jesus wept…,” the shortest verse of the King James bible (in reference to the death of his friend Lazarus).

Jesus faces a stone wall with 168 voids; one for each victim that died in the blast.

It was an incredible experience, and we would recommend anyone that remembers the event to go and see what they’ve done with the memorials. They are fabulous testaments to both honor victims of the blast, and resolutely announce the American spirit of perseverance.

From there we headed to Bricktown on Kylie’s and Michelle’s recommendation.

It’s another revitalized part of town with a baseball stadium, movie theatre, and a large handful of independent restaurants; just our kind of place. It’s obvious that the revitalization process is still ongoing, as some buildings are awaiting some kind of refurbishment, and are currently vacant. The town has a great start at building a tremendous downtown experience, though.

Here’s another flag.

A nice little canal splits the neighborhood.

And a pleasant park or two dots the area.

Once again, based on our readers’ recommendations, we planned on going to Nonna’s for dinner. Unfortunately, Nonna’s is closed on Mondays, so we would have to find alternative arrangements. We figured that Cattlemen’s Steakhouse might be a good place to start, since it was another recommendation on the list.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t in Bricktown, and we were starving, so we stopped for a bite to eat at the Bricktown Brewery.

We figured we’d try a sampler and have an appetizer and head out to Cattlemen’s. It was what we expected; a brewpub tucked into a fun neighborhood.

We ordered up an appetizer to satisfy the grumbling stomach. We had the Irish nachos.

They looked as good on the menu as they did on the table. They were really good, and I couldn’t keep my hands off them until the Wife got the picture.

They also had four brewed beers on tap, so we tried a sampler.

From left-to-right we had the Copperhead, the Hefeweizen, the Red Brick, and the Blueberry Ale.

The blueberry beer actually had blueberries in it.

The beers were pretty lackluster, if you ask me. The hefeweizen was overpowered with banana and clove flavors and smells overpowered the remainder of the beer, and really made it unenjoyable. The copperhead was true to its description as it was light bodied; remarkably light-bodied. This really didn’t appeal to us, either. The red brick was good, but I don’t generally care for English malt beers. The blueberry was excellent. It was darker than most blueberry beers I’ve had before, which I think added to it tremendously. I would stack it up against any blueberry I’ve ever had, and expect it to be a competitor. Sadly, though, when I go to the corner brewery, I need a solid staple beer (pale ale, golden lager, malty porter, etc.) to bring me back, and the Bricktown Brewery only provided a tasty specialty beer.

Oklahoma City had a lot going for it. Bricktown was nice, and there were clearly other neighborhoods that would have been interesting to explore. There also seemed like there were lots of parks and open space to enjoy. I don’t think I would recommend Oklahoma City as a travel destination of any sort (conventions or business aside), but if you find yourself passing through, you will find that you have a plethora of opportunities to enjoy your spare time.

Little Rock – A Pleasant Surprise and a Friendly Interlude

Posted on April 27, 2010June 12, 2010 by Justin

As we made our way from Nashville through Memphis and Graceland we finally came to Little Rock

As we rolled into Little Rock, we came across a beautiful Pentecostal Church that we tried to photograph at 70 mph.

We made our way to the Peabody Hotel. It was a wonderful little hotel, but I’ll leave that for another post. We didn’t have high expectations for Little Rock, but we were optimistic based on what we’d seen coming into town.

We finally made our way to the Peabody Hotel. I’ll let the Wife tell you about the hotel in a follow-on post, but suffice it to say that it was a great hotel. Once we got checked in, we went out to explore the downtown. The sun was setting, so while the lighting was perfect for pictures, we knew the clock was ticking.

This building really reminded us of Charleston, SC. With its Southern charm and grandeur, it was a cute addition to the downtown area.

We think this is the county courthouse (Pulaski County), but we didn’t come across any signs. It was beautiful, though, and THIS building reminded me of the museum in Dallas, although slightly smaller. The full article is here, if you’re interested.

From here we went toward the waterfront (which is basically behind that tall building in the picture above). It has an area called the River Market, which is very similar to the shops at the Baltimore Inner Harbor, or Station Square in Pittsburgh.

The downtown area was wonderful; like what we expected downtown Memphis to be like, although perhaps a good bit smaller. Like any well-revitalized downtown, there were plenty of shops, things to do, and restaurants.

For a Sunday, the downtown was hoppin’. There were a couple activities going on, including a sizable Latino festival behind (on the water’s side) of the River Market. People were generally friendly, and we enjoyed smelling the sounds and watching the sights. We even came across a novelty-size ATM that was actually just a real ATM.

This was not our hotel, but was a attractive hotel right across the street from the Peabody.

There were horse-drawn carriage rides.

The downtown area had a trolley car, which cost about $0.50-$0.75 to ride. Many of you know we like to try to take new public transportation, but we didn’t have time to master the system, and on a Sunday night, we figured there might be a good chance we would end up stranded outside of town as the system closed early. We opted to stick with the ankle express.

After walking around for some time, we decided to get some dinner. We had dinner at Bosco’s, a local brewpub. I’ll let the Wife tell you about this adventure, too, but our waiter, Brock, was great. Thanks, Brock!

We went home that night, exhausted. We had been to Graceland, driven nearly 500 miles, and enjoyed downtown Little Rock. We got up in the morning, and prepared to go out and see the city, again. Mostly, we wanted to see the Clinton Presidential Library, which is within a long walk (~1 mile, not really that far) of the Peabody Hotel. As we walked, we knew we had to do some blogging, and we needed some breakfast. We popped back into the River Market and swung by the Boulevard Bread Company for a morning bite. Like any good bread and pastry eatery, the food was great, but what was even more pleasant, was the staff.

We asked the young woman behind the counter about how long it would take to walk to the library. That got us into a conversation about blogging (I had the camera slung over my shoulder). As it turns out, she’s a writer and aspiring fashion-designer, and we ended up talking at length about blogging and travel writing, etc. Her name was Katherine Whitworth, and she had just been published in Cornbread Nation 5 for an article she had recently written regarding an historic catfish house just outside of the city. The restaurant was called the Lassis Inn, and knowing that we were foodies focused on local culture, she suggested we make it a waypoint on our journey. You can read her entire article here. It’s interesting.

Well, alas, we spent too much time chatting and blogging, and we ended up having to miss both the catfish house AND the presidential library. We were disappointed in our poor time management, but we figure that’s just a great reason to go back. The town certainly had plenty to offer weekend travelers, and we would definitely recommend it as a regional destination for short getaways, based on our experience there.

Graceland – A Memphis Must

Posted on April 27, 2010June 12, 2010 by Justin

We did not get up particularly early in Nashville. We had plenty of time to get to Little Rock, so we took our time getting up and out. We even had a chance to blog.

The Wife wanted to go to Graceland. It seems like “THE” thing to do in Memphis if you only have a couple hours.

To be honest, when I realized we were going to Graceland, I was more interested in seeing the morbidity of what I envisioned as hordes of visitors demanding to know his REAL whereabouts, insisting he was still alive. Or watching a huge gathering of fans sing terrible renditions of his greatest hits in memoriam of his career.

Now, to be clear, I’m not a fan of Elvis. I evidently don’t know that much about him. His music is from a different era. He died before I was conceived. From my academic perspective, he seems like more of figure for the history books, than a performing spectacle.

After our trip down I-40, we reached Memphis, and then made it out to Graceland. When we got to the ticket gate, it was $10 to park and $30/person to get in.

!?!?!

I was beginning to wonder what the Wife had gotten us into. She appeared a bit sinister.

We paid our fees, and took the shuttle bus to the mansion. It was not like I expected. This phrase, actually, would be the theme of my visit to Graceland.

Named for a previous owner of the estate, Elvis purchased the home and nearly 14 acres in the 1950s for just over $100,000. The house was more modest than I expected from Elvis.

From the ticket office, we took the shuttle across the street to the mansion. It was big, but not huge. Additions had built it up to be several thousands of square feet, but the original house was not cavernous. The basic tour allowed us to walk through the first floor and basement of the home.

As we walked in the house, we were greeted with the living room and dining room. The rooms were mostly in the condition they were in when Elvis died. It was like the house had been preserved as a memorial for those who wished to honor Elvis, and a chronicle for those who never had the opportunity to know about him.

It wasn’t what I expected. You’ll notice that I use this phrase a lot during this post.

I had always thought of Elvis like any other modern “celebrity.” I knew he was raised poor in Tupelo, MS, but I didn’t know that he pledged to provide his parents with a better life when he got older. As he approached super-stardom, and after he purchase Graceland, he made good on his promise. His parents moved into Graceland with him, along with his grandmother. His parents lived on the first floor.

Elvis, however, lived on the top floor, and it was considered his private area. It is also where he died. In memorial of his private solace, visitors are still not allowed upstairs.

The first floor seemed so much like a HOME, rather than some eccentric spectacle. You could imagine a family living there, with a child or two running around. It was so peaceful and… normal. The Wife said made her feel nostalgic; reminding her of her grandparents’ home when she was growing up. I didn’t immediately feel that way, but in hindsight, I don’t think that’s an inaccurate description.

We went to the basement, which was more what I expected from “the king.” One room was outfitted with three TVs after Elvis heard that President Eisenhower was able to watch all three network broadcasts at the same time. This was probably the most interesting room on the tour for me.

He also had a pool room, which had the most ludicrous decor. It was dark, but just look at the illuminated part of the wall.

Then we went back upstairs to see the jungle room. This is widely regarded as the most interesting room in the house by most, but it didn’t quite do it for me. I took several pictures, but it was so dark, none of them came out except a goofy picture of me taking a picture of myself in a mirror.

Then we headed through the back yard to the office Elvis had built for his father, Vernon, who essentially functioned as his manager. He also had two administrative assistants (secretaries at the time).

We crossed the back yard again to check out the trophy room, where Elvis’ awards were kept. Up to this point, the tour had been interesting, and really not what I expected, but this is where it really began to go from, “how quaint,” to “holy crap, this guy was incredible!” Look at this hallway.

This is only one half of the hall. The other side of the hall was just as decorated and impressive. Elvis held, effectively, every significant musical record during his life. The tour alleged he has sold over 1 Billion records worldwide. 1 Billion. Burgers is one things for McDonald’s. There’s a good chance in a year, I’m going to buy 5-10 burgers from McDonald’s. But there’s no way I’m going to buy 5-10 Elvis records in a year. Even if I WERE a fan, I might buy 1? 1 Billion worldwide. That’s incredible.

From the trophy hall, we walked into an area that held costumes from his acting career.

These are the kinds of outfits I always imagined Elvis wearing. Yet, when you hear the interviews about his life, and you see the house, they somehow seem appropriate for him; and not outlandish. He performed live in the early part of his career, along with being drafted and serving in the military. He met his wife, Pricilla, while serving. Then he moved to films. He performed in 31 films in 13 years. Do the math. That’s almost 2.5 movies per year, for 13 years! During this time, he really didn’t perform live.

It also had a section about the charity he provided. Aside from providing for his family, he frequently paid off debts or purchased homes for those in need. One section had a large picture frame, filled with cashed checks given as charity to people around him.

It was here that I really began to see him as a whole person. Here he was, this huge, mega-star, and yet he was a personal philanthropist, prominent American, and wonderful son. He didn’t invent rock and roll, but he made it relevant to so many strata of society. He appealed to the poor, because of his roots growing up. He appealed young people because of his sex appeal. He appealed to older audiences because of his wholesome family values. And his attitude and personality fueled the juggernaut that was his career, making him otherwise unstoppable in international markets. I liked him because he seemed so genuine. I had always imagined him as being a huge personality, which was really just an act. Graceland, though, showed that he really WAS the person on stage; a huge presence, and indeed, a bit eccentric.

Then we headed out to the racquetball court. Yes, he had a racquetball court built on the property. Today, though, its basically the trophy annex, because the one building wasn’t big enough.

Holy crap. Is this the RIAA’s warehouse? Or did the warehouse vomit all over Graceland?

This is also where the tour showed his “Aloha from Hawaii” performance. Brought to the world “via satellite,” the performance was seen by over 1.5 Billion people worldwide, and more Americans than the moon landing. 1.5 Billion people! Today, 30 years later, that’s still 5 times the entire population of the United States. He was so beloved by the world. I have tried to come up with a modern-day comparison, but haven’t been able to, yet. Maybe Princess Diana?

As we left the trophy annex (my term, not theirs), we passed the pasture where there’s still horses kept on the property.

They were gorgeous. We thought of our friend Kindell, who rides horses.

Then we made our way to the gravesite. Once again, not what I expected. I assumed that there were hordes of people that simply sat and mourned his loss, day in and day out. It was quiet and somber, which I expected. I didn’t expect it to be quite so touching, though. He was laid to rest along with his parents and grandmother. There was also a marker memorializing his brother, who is buried in Mississippi.

It was generally a pretty understated grave. People had laid flowers on the grave. You’ll notice a teddy bear, also.

At the base of the grave marker, you’ll notice the lightning bolt, with the initials “TCB”. If you look back to the “3 TV room,” you’ll notice the same lightning bolt on the wall, along with the TCB. It stood for “Taking Care of Business in a Flash,” which was Elvis’ motto. Otherwise, though, it was a life-size grave for a larger than life personality.

The only thing that stood out as being particularly flashy was the eternal flame, located at the head of the grave marker. As we rounded the corner to catch the shuttle back to the parking lot, we noticed this sign. We thought it was pretty cool.

It was a pretty quiet ride back to parking lot. I was amazed at how much of a global impact Elvis had. I hadn’t seen any protesters demanding to know the truth about Elvis’ death. I hadn’t seen anyone sobbing over his death. I had just seen people, remembering someone that had a tremendous impact, like a president or an astronaut.

We made the obligatory stop by the gift shop, where I got a shooter glass (I try to get a shooter glass anywhere I go), and the Wife picked up an Elvis Pez dispenser.

It was a wonderful experience, and one that I would recommend to anyone heading through Memphis. If you are an Elvis fan, you’ll love remembering him. If you’re not an Elvis fan, you’ll enjoy learning about him.

Long live the King.

Two Tennessee Towns

Posted on April 26, 2010June 12, 2010 by Justin

As we cruised from Charlotte to Nashville, we remembered that a rockslide had closed I-40 between Asheville and Knoxville. The resulting detour would take us up I-26 to I-81 South, where we would re-engage I-40 West to continue our journey. We were certain there was probably a shorter detour available, but we weren’t in any kind of a hurry, and the detour would surely be well-marked, so we decided to take the prescribed detour.

Well, we didn’t have any problems following the detour, but we would not say that it was particularly well-marked. Several times we wondered if we were still going the right way, or if we had missed a turn. Fortunately, we had not.

On our way up I-26, we came across a beautiful view of the mountains, and a scenic overlook. We stopped for a few pictures.

As we continued on, it wasn’t long before we received positive feedback that we were moving along in our cross country cruise.

On Bec’s suggestion, we stopped in Knoxville to see the Sunsphere. Built as the centerpiece for the 1982 World’s Fair, the Sunsphere is a huge monolith in an otherwise unremarkable town. Don’t get me wrong, the city, which still has a population shy of 200,000 people (according to Wikipedia), has a quaint edge to it. It actually reminded me of a very large Lynchburg, VA, if you have ever had the opportunity to see the very, very, very subtle quaintness of Lynchburg.

During a The Simpsons episode in the late 1990s, Bart and some friends acquire a car, and make their way to Knoxville to enjoy the Sunsphere. When they arrive, however, they find the Sunsphere has been turned into a wig store, and has been renamed the Wigsphere. Not so, however, when we arrived! The Sunsphere, in all its ridiculous glory still stood, a tribute to the Sun and global energy (the theme of the World’s Fair in 1982). 266 feet tall, with the ball being 75 feet in diameter. The glass is coated with gold dust to give it the gold luster.

We took the FREE elevator ride to the observation deck (we expected to have to pay). For free, it was a “must-do.’” I would have been willing to pay as much as $4-5 for the trip, in hindsight. It was a nice view, but it’s really not all that high, and the gold dust really distorts the color of the view.

We came back down and took a couple more pictures, and departed the quaint downtown of Knoxville, on our way to Nashville.

As we departed Knoxville, we were getting hungry. We had passed a Krystal on our way into town, and I realized I hadn’t had a Krystal in almost 8 years. The Wife had NEVER had a Krystal, so we decided to indulge in some fast food, something we generally try to avoid, and find ourselves a Krystal. We also agreed that if we passed any more remarkably-unique fast food locations, that we would give them a shot, despite our reservations.

Our cashier, Juanita, was as old as the hills and as sweet as a bowl of cherries. We ordered up a handful of Krystals and went on our way.

We were rolling toward Nashville. Actually, we were headed “just outside Nashville,” as the Wife proclaimed, to our hotel. When we arrived, we found that our hotel was roughly 20 miles from downtown, in the neighboring suburb of Franklin. Our Aloft hotel was interesting, and will be the subject of a follow-on post. It was just too interesting (not to build it up to much; it’s just a hotel) to not get its own post.

We checked in, got unpacked, and decided to head out to Opryland. It seemed like the thing to do in Nashville, when one only has a couple hours to spare. As we walked across the parking lot for our car, we looked West, and saw looming storm clouds. These clouds were the remnants of the weather cells that caused all the damage in Mississippi, and they looked mean.

We got in the car and headed up to Opryland. The weather did indeed find us, on the highway, and the torrential rains kept our speed low. It was severe to say the least.

We finally arrived at Opryland about 30 minutes later to find the Grand Ole Opry House (the new one, as we understand it, the original is in downtown Nashville).

Opryland has its own little complex/campus of buildings. It’s well-themed and very quaint (there’s that word again) to walk around. We even found that guns are prohibited on the campus, regardless of permit. We tried to figure out what it meant that the permit part had to be explicitly stated.

alt="IMG_8344" src="http://hungrywanderers.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/img_8344_thumb.jpg" width="640" height="427" /> I took a couple pictures while the Wife checked out the gift shop.

A little wind would have made this one a great picture.

We managed to escape any rain, also, while we walked around and took pictures, which was probably a good thing for the health of the camera. By this time, we were getting hungry (it was almost 9 pm CDT, and our bodies were still on EDT), so we headed over for some dinner at the Caney Fork Fish Camp.

The next morning we would be heading to Memphis and on to Little Rock. Check back to see how Day 2 fared.

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Oklahoma City – A Jewel in the Plains

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