Yet another trip to my wondrous home state has come and gone. I will say, though, that it was the best trip home that I've had in a very long time. To all of those out there with whom I would have loved to meet during my all-too-brief stay, I sincerely apologize; our 9 days there were incredibly crazy-busy. We got in on Friday the 29th, driving all day. Weather was pretty bad our first few days there. Oklahoma has been receiving a substantial amount of rain. In fact, I heard on July 4th that at that point, the state was a mere 3 inches short of its ANNUAL average rainfall total. The unpredictability of the weather made making plans for anything very difficult. Saturday and Sunday we made the rounds of all the Tulsa-based family, and even saw some of my Oklahoma City relatives, as well, who stopped by on the way back from the lake.
Monday and most of Tuesday I was busy working with Dad. I usually help him out with his customers for at least one day on every trip. This helps my future goals of building the business with him and also helps cover costs for the trip. Mom and Dad put us up and feed us for pretty much the whole time we're down there, so I figure I can help out some and maybe that offsets the costs a little bit. Heidi and I usually pay for a few things, but it's still at least 90-10 with my parents covering the bulk of it. I helped Dad by doing some user awareness seminars at a client's workplace; seems they have some trouble with folks surfing to places they shouldn't and doing things they shouldn't online, like using up bandwidth listening to Internet radio. Nothing against Internet radio, mind you, but it does use a lot of bandwidth if you get a bunch of people listening at once, and Dad's client doesn't have a very big connection to the Internet that could absorb the traffic.
Wednesday was the 4th, of course, and we drove out to Lake Tenkiller to have a day at the lake with my mom's family. It turned out to be one of the best days I've had in a long time. I took the kids out on my uncle's Waverunner, spending most of my day on the thing in the process. I also went out on my cousin's boat, and went water-skiing for the first time in probably 15 years. We swam a lot, and the water was great. Even with all the rain, the lake was only about 5 feet above normal. There was a great fireworks display that night, a beautiful end to a great day. My hands, arms, and legs were sore for the rest of the week, but it was worth it.
Thursday we had an off-day, something we hadn't really had to that point, so we rested a little bit. We slept in for the first time all week. I took Heidi on the Tulsa portion of the Chris Mallow tour, in which I showed her all of my old houses, schools, and haunts. As she is from Colorado, Heidi had presented her past places to me quite some time back, but I had not had the opportunity to reciprocate. My friend Chong was in town and so he came over and we had dinner, then went out to the casino that night. That was a great night; I finished the night at the tables with a 4-of-a-kind, winning over $300 on that one hand. I was down at that point, but it put me way up. The gambling overall was good too; in three trips (two with Heidi, one with Chong), I didn't leave down in any of those, and finished the week with a tidy profit of around $130. Any time you can leave the casino ahead is good.
Friday I took Heidi, Mom, and the kids on the Oklahoma City-area portion of the Chris Mallow tour. We went all around Shawnee, Dale, McLoud, OKC, Moore, and Norman. I showed her my old elementary school in Dale; the fields where I learned to play baseball; our old Shawnee house, which is the first house I remember at all, really, since we moved there when I was 4; my grandparents' old house in Shawnee, where they lived for 25 years and where I spent a lot of my non-school time when I was a kid; the infamous "Grand Duke" house...long story there that I'll tell some other time; and my great-grandma's old house in Moore. We ended with a spin around Norman, where we drove by Norman Regional Hospital, where my daughter Katie was born. We drove around OU a little bit; it's changed a lot since my time there. In fact, the apartments my ex-wife and I lived in when my daughter was born have been torn down and new ones have been built in their place. They were owned by the university, so I suppose I shouldn't be too astonished.
Saturday was our full day there, and so we took it easy a little bit. We slept in again, and we had our regular shooting engagement that day, out at the Kannady ranch. (See my report from January for more details on this location.) Chong, who is a big shooter, went out with us. We even have some video, and I'll try to post it when I get an opportunity. It's hilarious. We also swam that day and went out to dinner with my grandma and grandpa, but mostly we spent our day getting things packed back up for Sunday's journey back to Denver.
Generally, we swam, we had lots of fun, we got to visit lots of family and show off our new little guy (which was the primary reason we were there, anyway). We ate at all the places we needed to eat, like Ron's Hamburgers, Rib Crib, Taco Bueno, and Braum's. We got to soak in the ambiance of Oklahoma. It was just a wonderful trip. It's always great to go home.
Thanks for reading along.
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