Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas

When we left home, on Thursday, May 8, the weather was quite pleasant, but after passing Waco the sky turned threatening.

And those threatening skies weren't bluffing! We drove for a long time through a pounding rain storm, which began while we were still in Texas and lasted well into Oklahoma.

The rain finally eased up, and our first stop in Oklahoma was at this visitor center/rest stop. I was surprised at how green and forested it was in this southern part of the state.

These are a couple representative views of the Oklahoma countryside, taken through the windows of our moving car. 

We stopped at this view point so I could take a picture, looking down on the tops of acres and acres of trees. 

This is the skyline of Oklahoma City. We passed by the city and spent the night in Edmond. We talked about going back that evening to see the Oklahoma City National Memorial, which honors the victims, survivors, rescuers, and all who were affected by the bombing on April 19, 1995, but by the time we got to our hotel, we were ready to call it a day.

We got a good night's sleep and set off, the next morning, for Overland Park, Kansas, (a suburb of Kansas City) to see the first of our old friends from our college years.

This is Larry. Larry and my college roommate, Chris, got married the same summer as Dan and I - 1969. The four of us were good friends and had a lot of adventures together, including one chaotic camping trip that none of us will ever forgot! During my junior year in college, Chris, Larry, Dan and I shared a house that had been divided into two apartments. They lived in the front apartment, and we lived in the back. We often ate dinner together at one another's place.

In 2002, Chris was killed in a car accident. Larry has since remarried, but his wife was away, visiting family in Texas, the night we were there. We were sorry we didn't get to meet her. But we did have a great visit with Larry, including a scrumptious meal at the Kansas-style BBQ restaurant shown in the picture. The last time we had seen Larry was in 1971, 43 years ago!

After spending the night at Larry's, we took off for Iowa, to visit another old college friend, one of Dan's roommates, Bingse. More about that in my next post.