Day 4: Amarillo and Oklahoma City

4/19/2010

I don't know why, but Texas makes me nervous. I did see a guy with a swastika tattooed on his inner arm, but did not experience any overt racism anywhere personally. Just an eerie feeling came over me. Maybe it was the Fox news blaring in the gas station. Maybe it was the biggest cross in the US roadside attraction. Maybe it was only because this was the first stop on our way to uncharted territory. We didn't spend too much time in Amarillo. Only for a mediocre lunch at Olive Garden, usually a favorite.
We reached Oklahoma City just before we got hungry, but first we had to look for a hotel to touch down. Couldn't find a hostel in the city, so we decided why not just scope out for best prices at hotels/motels in person... probably not the best idea. I mean it was exciting and all to hop out of the car every minute and a half to run into the lobby and ask for the night's rate, if they had wireless internet, and breakfast. We ended up at the America's Best Value Inn, and stayed in a King Smoking room... not the best idea either, but at this point we were willing to pay a budget rate for a budget hotel experience. Next time I promised myself to do more research and reserve ahead of time.

We had dinner in Bricktown at the Old Spaghetti Warehouse, which looked just like the Old Spaghetti Factory, train and bemusing period tin advertisements to boot. Danny needed some better Italian food to redeem our lunch. We walked along the manmade waterway and got heckled by the bouncer at Coyote Ugly to try to get us inside (and dance on the bar, well probably just me and not Danny on the bar), then ended up at Maker's, a cigar bar with a pianist tickling the ivories. I had an Old Fashioned, and Danny a Guinness, and shared a Montecristo. Maker's is touted as "the quiet place in Bricktown" but it's definitely not boring. It's an elegant sort of relaxed feeling in this place. We loved it. After chatting up the pianist, Earl Day we found out was his name, we decided to head back and try to get up early for the breakfast.

Anyone who knows me will say right now, don't kid yourself, Michelle will choose sleep over breakfast... and it's true. Breakfast ended at 9 and Danny was heading out the door at 8:58 to get the last danish on counter. I lay asleep until about 10.