Although I promised that this would not be a travel blog, the periods in my life when I have time to travel correlate quite nicely with the the periods in my life when I have time to reflect and share with the internet. But, as we all know, correlation does NOT imply causation (not necessarily something I learned in stats class, really just a phrase I've heard many people use and eventually adopted into my own vernacular but believe nonetheless), so I refuse to imply that my writing only results from travel. But, alas, here we are with a post about an experience of travel.

Some context: I ended my finals on Wednesday, and then proceeded to pack up all of my belongings (with a quick trip to a favorite donut shop in Kentucky with some pals) until 3:30 am. I then awoke at 6:30 that morning to finish packing and jumped in the car with my friends Annalise and Cannon in order to traverse the country via car. After hitting Memphis, Cabot, and Fayetteville, Arkansas (where we received personal tours of both the Kappa Kappa Gamma and Chi Omega sorority houses estates), we found ourselves in Oklahoma City.

OKC was exactly what I expected out of a midwestern city. It was small and industrial and the buildings were mostly brown. We stayed in a neighborhood not too far from downtown in an adorable home surrounded by other adorable midwestern homes that housed an array of yo pros ("young professionals" for those of you not hip enough to vibe with my trendy vernacular) who worked in the city and families full of kids who rode their bikes around the neighborhood until their parents called them in for dinner and elderly couples who had lived in the same home for more years than most people on this planet have been alive. There was a simple honesty about the whole scenario that was so distinctly midwestern.

OKC was fine, but the real delight I experienced on this stop was our visit to Omega. Omega is a small town (read: dirt road that used to have a post office) about an hour outside of The Big City. More importantly, Omega is the home of my dear friend Garrett. We arrived on his farm after driving for miles and miles of flat nothing to the tune of Wide Open Spaces by our dear Dixie Chicks.

We got to hang out with Garrett and his family for a little while and then we headed out into the great unknown. As we drove, Garrett pointed out who lived in each house (the few that did appear every few miles) and explained the relationship between the two grain elevators that we passed. (Every family only used one, but the two weren't really in competition. It was a loyalty thing. His family used theirs because that's what they've always done but the two companies would help each other out when they were in a fix.)

At one point, we pulled into a driveway and got out of the car so Cannon could fulfill her dream of taking a selfie with a cow and Annalise, while making eye contact with the singular bull in the pen, dared to step over to the other side of the fence. (I, with my general dislike of animals, stayed safely away from this charade and right by the side of 6'3" Garrett who could easily protect me if this experiment went awry.) We drove down the single dirt road of downtown Omega (pictured below) and the local Lomega High School that educates all of the children grades 7-12 from both Omega and the neighboring town of Loyal, churning out about 20 graduates each year from these combined communities.

Garrett then drove us to Kingfisher, the adjacent town where he attended high school and church, and that houses the grocery store, movie theater, and the 5-7 (depending on how many are open at any given point in time) restaurants hungry families can choose from when they're out on the town. Kingfisher also happens to be the birthplace of Sam Walton, so we had to stop at the shrine dedicated to him inside the local Walmart.

After returning to the farm from the hustle and bustle of Kingfisher, Garrett showed us how to drive a tractor and introduced us to the combine. His face lit up as he explained the intricacies of its operating system, how amazed he was by everything that was included and how it all worked together. He recounted childhood memories of watching the combine fill up with wheat as he sat on the armrest of his dad's seat and laughed at me as I "popped the clutch" while trying to put the tractor in reverse.

Garrett was SO in his element and it was beautiful to experience his home and his life alongside him and getting a taste of where he came from helped me understand and appreciate him more as my friend. There is truly nothing I would have rather done during my time in Oklahoma than visit Omega.

We could have explored OKC and toured museums and eaten at restaurants recommended to us on TripAdvisor. And we did a bit of that. But no art collective or hip coffee shop could have introduced us to the local culture like a tour of the Kingfisher Walmart or a drive through the field on the white tractor Garrett has described as "a part of him".

Places can be pretty cool, but in my experience, it's the people that define them. I can honestly say that my afternoon in Omega with Garrett was significantly more joyful than a day I spent wandering around Paris by myself. (That trip also included a sketchy Airbnb and an aggressive moshpit of churchgoers, but that's a story for another day. Not exactly your typical Paris experience, so I understand the comparison isn't exactly fair. But this is my corner of the internet so I will do what I want.)

So that's it from me and the Oklahomies. Stay tuned for more updates, they will (ideally) be coming.