Oklahoma

While we were in Dallas-Fort Worth, we spotted the “Red Earth Native American Festival” in Oklahoma City on the first weekend in June, so thought that we would go. So off we went.


When we arrived in Oklahoma City, we went to the Red Earth Museum to find out all about the festival and see about tickets, only to find out that it had been postponed for two weeks. Seems that their booking of the Convention centre had been cancelled in favour of a political meeting. And they didn’t even refund their deposit! Sad!

We must say something about the roads. I know we seem to be whingeing on, but on the main highway between Dallas-Fort Forth and Oklahoma City, as we entered Oklahoma the road surface just fell apart. We were shaken, stirred; rattled and rolled to badly that Sharman had to slow down to less than 70kph. Now, we can understand that on a minor road, and heaven knows New Zealand is nothing to boast about, but those conditions on a four-lane main route are worthy of a comment.

We stayed in a nice RV Park about 20 km out of Oklahoma City. Must say that their WiFi Internet was far and away the best we have had. Network speeds between 18 and 24 Mbps (by way of reference, typical “broadband” speed in NZ are 0.7 – 1 Mbps) and David was able to download a huge 2.5Gb set of files in less than 3 hours. That’s 2 and a half times the volume of Telecom’s high-usage monthly allowance at home. Now you can see why David says that Telecom are ripping us off and crippling NZ Internet into third-world status.

We have been having all sorts of problems getting e-mail sent. Because we don’t have an ISP, we don’t have anywhere to send out email for delivery. So we have to do the sending / delivery part ourselves. This is something that ‘just happens’ when you connect through an ISP, and something that most companies running their own mail systems have to do. David has been trying several different mail sending programs since we arrived, but each seems to have a different set of issues. Most common is that these sort pf programs are often used by spammers to send their junk, so many of the major email gateways are set to refuse mail from one of these programs. We have finally decided to bite the bullet and install Microsoft’s SMTP Service – the same as is used in many major computer installations. Only found two problems so far: Microsoft’s Hotmail service rejects messages from us because we are using an unregistered IP address (and could therefore be spammers), and there is no real feedback on the success or failure of message delivery. But it is working, and we will just have to live with the limitations. Wayne, if you or Philip at the office want to jump in and suggest a different direction or any pointers on configuration, please feel free.

After Oklahoma City, we continued heading west, running for the hills.

After missing out on the Red Earth Festival, we searched the “What’s On” listings and spotted something that looked like it might be interesting – the ‘Clinton Country Jamboree’, and it was on our way. It runs every second Saturday night at 7:00 pm, and for once, we struck the timing right.

We arrived at this big tin shed next to a truck stop in the middle of nowhere about 10km outside of Clinton (no relation to Bill!) just after 6 and went inside to see about tickets. $7.50 for the show, plus $5.00 for a light dinner. Wow!, what can you say? Back to the RV for a quick shower and change into something more appropriate, and then brave the 40 deg heat back into the cooler hall. Most of the people there were of the more senior type. Shall we say, ‘Youthfully challenged’? 

We chatted to a few people while lining up for dinner, then the show started. The MC was welcoming everybody and all that, and asked if there was anybody here for the first time? Somebody from over the far side yelled out, “Yes, there’s a couple here from New Zealand”, so she had to identify us, and came over to ask us about ourselves. Well, as soon as we answered the first question, our accents got in the way, and there was something for her to latch on to. Boy, did we get a ragging! All in good fun, and everyone had a good laugh – including us.

Then the singing started, and that was great! Good old-fashioned, down home, gospel/country music. There were six in the band, a couple of backing singers, plus some ring-ins, and everybody did a number or two. The guy on fiddle was exceptional and the others were very good too. We loved the camaraderie and the singing. A mention must be made about ‘this big tin shed’. Outwardly it was just an ordinary building. Inside – well, it was totally different. Beautiful old lights hanging everywhere, with flowers intertwining with them. Even the bathroom was completely over filled with flowers and mirrors. Sharman suggested that David take a quick peek in the ladies. Turned out the men’s room was the same. (Now how can I say it was the same? I never went into the Ladies… ) It looked as though Christmas had arrived early in Oklahoma. What a fabulous, memorable night, and a little emotional.

Moving on. If you look at a map, you will see that from Oklahoma, we have to cross through the Texas “Panhandle”, pass Amarillo and cut across the top right-hand corner of New Mexico, and into the south of Colorado.

Is this the way to Amarillo? Yes, it is. But we wonder why you would bother. From what we saw – admittedly superficial, it is pretty tired, run-down, and shabby. The recession seems to have struck hard here, and much of what we saw would fall into the classification of urban slums.

It is still hot, hot, hot. We haven’t made much height yet, but we are getting there.

Next, Into Colorado…