Ooooooooooklahoma......

Leaving Tulsa was hard, not only leaving such a fabulous house (and cute dog) but it feels like there was more to see (and eat and drink....) BUT onwards... The overwhelming feeling of the endless small towns we passed through from Tulsa is one of sadness. These tiny towns, many of them now cut off from the main road and the thundering lorries are empty, closed, shut. Houses boarded up and dilapidated with gardens growing out through walls and shattered windows, town squares with nothing but bail bond shops, loan sales, lawyers and pawn shops and a succession of ‘foreclosure’ signs. Poverty, the collapse of people’s lives and dreams, lack of work, lack of aspiration, lack of future...both sad and depressing. There is God, lots of God, so so many churches, what starts out as a fun game spotting the churches with crazy names, actually becomes monotonous as we realise that’s all there is in some places, no shops, no schools, no work (certainly no bars - this really is Bible Belt country) just churches. Stroud, Depew, Davenport, Arcadia...all the same. Bypassed by the Interstate and the railway, the banks taking back their houses, no work other than perhaps in the liquor store, you can really understand why Trump, with his promises of ‘making America great again’ has made it big here. So far from big towns, so far from some where like New York...it’s just very sad. Pretty, but sad.

In Chandler, we pass what looks like a warehouse, with HUGE classic signs outside that are amazing, so we stop to take pictures and a chap comes out and rather than bellowing at us to get off his land, he invites us in and shows us around. This dream that he and his brother are creating of an entertainment centre, HUGE, with diner, massive bowling alley, bar, crazy golf, laser tag, all against this backdrop of immaculate original Route 66 memorabilia. It’s just astounding, hugely ambitious (there was just him and a mate, who was asleep after lunch working on it) and such an exciting dream....it it works out, it will be great for this tiny nothing town, it will provide employment and fun and an opportunity for community that the church is the only thing offering right now, but again I came away feeling sad. He told us that the banks weren’t helping at all so they were doing it entirely alone, financing it entirely alone - terrifying as it’s a HUGE undertaking....in the middle of nowhere.

We decide to skip Oklahoma City, which in retrospect we shouldn’t have. These bigger towns on the route are circled by massive ring roads that are seemingly impenetrable you can circle the town without seeing any of it at all, like the M25 circling Canterbury.... is we decide to stop for the night just outside in El Reno, sounds great, was crap. Hotel was crap and yet still expensive, nothing to eat (we had to dice with death crossing junctions of what felt like the M6 to get to a crappy steakhouse) now he to go and just more closed shops. Hey ho....you learn.. It did provide Sam with an opportunity for a hair cut in a tiny town barbers, worth it alone for the chap telling him of how he used to work for the railroad, but now the only trains that stop in the town and sand trucks for the fracking...

We decide it’s time...push on through.... get out of Oklahoma. I am keen to get into the desert into the land of the LARGE... into Texas!