Two Beers and a Pretzel

Steve Martin does that line better than I do…

Just in case you didn’t know what Oklahoma looks like…

However, I started in Missouri, took a short hop thru Kansas, then into Oklahoma…  The other night I saw Jim Greeninger in concert after spending an extra day in Branson.

The guitar in the background of that picture is what he calls his ’50 ft guitar’.  He has an individual pickup for each string – all separately amplified.  He spread 6 amplified speakers across the stage left to right (low to high strings).  You had to sit about 1/2 way back in the theater, but having the sound spread across the stage was amazing.

He also had a really cool folding travel guitar for sale, but it was well more than I was willing to pay.  He did let me play it, and it was surprisingly rich and balanced…  much nicer than the 2/3 or 3/4 size travel guitars.

Turns out, Branson got on my nerves a bit – aside from the occasional good act, it’s like a cross of the Lawerence Welk show and religious TV programming where the obviously wealthy family sits in a luxurious set talking to a mass audience like best friends, then asks average people to give them money.  However, the biggest problem in Branson is the exceptionally mediocre food.  For example, I ate at one of the ‘best’ BBQ joints in town, and the pork was a bit chewy, and they used KC Masterpiece sauce.

In Kansas, I found one of the few remaining original bridges on the old route.

There are only a bout 13 miles of Route 66 in Kansas, so I quickly moved into Oklahoma.  The   Rt 66 book I have talks about the grreat scenes along the “old road” which is usually a pre-1930 alignment.  Sometimes it’s worth it…  Sometimes you shouldn’t take a sport sedan down these roads…

Although turning off the traction control and drifting around a few gravel corners was definitely fun!

Oklahoma City has a pretty neat downtown bar district called ‘Bricktown’ – with a canal running between a bunch of revamped warehouses.

Then I swung by the Myriad Botanical Gardens.

…and then to the Memorial for the Oklahoma City bombing.

When you see the parallel monoliths and the shallow reflecting pond between them, it’s very obvious that something sad happened here – even before you see the remnants of the old federal building.  The memorial is inside the old foundation.

To end this post on a happier note – many of the streets in the city have been renamed for famous bands and atheletes from the area…