Our past couple of days have been pretty smooth.. After a frantic demo at Little Rock Climbing Center in Arkansas, we packed up and drove into the night, pulling into Tulsa at about 1:00 AM, OK. time. 510 athlete Josh Haynes was up to host for the night, ad we crashed out cold under his home wall. Josh and his wife made the move to Tulsa in the last couple years- she teaches glass blowing at a shop downtown.. Awesome stuff. We played around with some molten globs of glass for a bit, and I tried not to cook. It is beyond too hot in there for my particular constitution.

Tulsa took me by surprise, with its proliferation of pubic art, music venues, and plain ‘ol cool feel.. I’d never really been to Oklahoma before, so my preconceptions were nowhere near as colorful as what we found there.

After lunch at a deli in a hip old building down near the railroad tracks, we headed for Oklahma City, and another demo at a gym built into a cluster of silos. Having seen these in the mags here and there, I was again surprised: these things are TALL. Exposed, vertical climbing in the wind is the way on the outside routes, inside the echo bounces around and around the round rooms. Unique, for sure. Packing up, we rolled into the heart of the city with a local posse and downed perfect three dollar burgers and three dollar pints at a right nice pub, followed by a wee stumble to a buddy’s restaurant, just into its first year of business. The classy atmosphere of a well put together joint faded into the background as a local architect challenged us all to the first game of quarters I’ve played in like, fifteen years. Everyone lost, and everyone won. Some girl tried to steal my hoody. We escaped into the quiet part of town, an crashed with a thud at the house of a local optometrist, his wife the gracious hostess, up after midnight to settle us in.

Oklahoma seems to be full of nice, decent folks intent on a good time. “Raised up right”, my mom would say, and I’m really grateful for everyone’s hospitality.

Now on to Amarillo, TX. The Panhandle.... Steaks await.