Oooooooooklahoma

On Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, my dad and I took a 24 hour road trip from Denver to Jennings, OK to the Hallett Motor Raceway to pick up an engine. We left Denver around 6:15 am, and I was back home and in my bed the following morning at 5:00 am. We stopped in Oakley, KS, home of the World's Largest Prairie Dog for gas and lunch. Their sign is huge.

We ate here:

They had fantastic french fries, crispy and yummy! My dad reviewed the fried chicken, and said that it is delicious and not all greasy inside. If you find yourself in Oakley, KS, I recommend a stop there!

Then we were ready to get back on the road. The gas station implores that we drive safely:

My first driving shift over, I settled in as navigator and got some knitting time. Here you can see my Jaywalker sock enjoying Wichita:

As we got to the merging of I-135 and I-35, we were required to stop and pay a toll. This wonderful tollbooth operator was happy to pose with Sock:

We soon made our way into Oklahoma, and stopped again for fuel in Braman, OK, just south of the Kansas border. I was able to purchase a pack of nail files to get rid of a yarn snagging fingernail burr that had been bothering me for miles. They offered this:

The next leg of our journey was fairly short and uneventful, but I realized that Oklahoma seemed to be the land of slow, dead things in the road. We came across armadillos, tortoises, and other various roadkill. In fact, at one point we went by a lucky tortoise who had almost made it, and saw him cross into safety as we passed. I had no idea that OK had a big tortoise population. I apparently also enjoy typing tortoise. We made it to the track and looked for Terry & the Pirates:

After our greetings, we prepared to transfer the engine from their truck to ours, when a torrential downpour began. We were lucky enough to make it in time for the dinner that had been prepared for the BMW racers at the track for the weekend. The grumpiest lady in Oklahoma* served us our food, and while we ate, the rain subsided. (I'm sure the grumpiest lady in Oklahoma is so grumpy because she gets to deal with visiting racers who can probably be a little rowdy sometimes.) We went back to the truck and the guys started moving parts:

I took this time to take some pictures:



I then "asked" some of the folks to pose with Sock.






We left the track around 7:30 or so (CST), and headed back home. That drive was pretty uneventful, picture wise, due to getting tired, frequent driver changes, and napping. There was some rather heavy fog through western Kansas and eastern Colorado, but we made it.

Here are our final trip stats:


Overall, I'd call the trip a success! I got in some fun bonding time with my dad, got to check Oklahoma off of my list of states, and made people hold my sock.