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<\/a><\/p>\nFeel free to make your own arch comment.<\/p>\n
ZING!<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Tulsa.<\/p>\n
Ten years or so back, I used to fly here quite regularly for work. I’ve been back a few times since, running the Route 66 marathon, catching up with a lawyer friend of mine, and stopping at a local chain restaurant for a burger and shake.<\/p>\n
As I type this, I should’ve tried to grab lunch with Jim. Next time.<\/p>\n
And as I type this, I DID make it to Braum’s…<\/p>\n
After that early “calorie busting\/loading” lunch for tomorrow’s race, I headed out to Arkansas.\u00a0 I must have missed a turn as I was expecting to get on the Will Rogers Turnpike to head East… and maybe that’s a good thing as I was on the ALT road that runs kinda parallel and crisscrosses the turnpike a few times.\u00a0 Each entry warned of “exact coins only” and I was low on change.\u00a0 Bills and credit cards I was flush with, and I wasn’t sure how the toll pass system works here at the moment.\u00a0 Usually I find the car rental companies and the toll roads are in cahoots and charge all sorts of “convenience fees” for the electronic or cashless systems that are springing up.\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n Normally on the turnpike I would have stopped in Vinita, OK, home to the (now only possibly) World’s Largest McDonald’s<\/a>.\u00a0 It was a must-do pilgrimage for me many, many time in the early 2000s.\u00a0 Sometimes people exaggerate their storytelling details saying things like, “I’ve been there a million times” or maybe just “I’ve done that five times…”\u00a0 But I feel confident that back when I was commuting from Tulsa to Miami, OK, I was at that McDonald’s rest stop no less than 11 times, be it for gas, food, to cry, to get a soda, or to take a phone call on my even-at-that-time-antiquated Virgin Mobile Pay As You Go phone.\u00a0 That was a tough job and there are a lot of bad memories tied up in that gig.\u00a0 Maybe it’s for the best I gave that place a miss this trip.<\/p>\n And had I not taken the proverbial “back roads” I never would have stopped at this convenience store.\u00a0 How is this not a national chain?\u00a0 Maybe it is.<\/p>\n I should note that the Locust Grove High School football team are the Pirates<\/a>.\u00a0 Clear eye [sic], full booty, always plunder.<\/p>\n Oh, and for the team photo, they posed on a tank.\u00a0 Although I think they green screen composited the football field.\u00a0 It looks fake but maybe they just rolled a tank onto the 50 yard line.\u00a0 Pirates fight to uphold free trade by breaking the law!<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n The Hogeye Marathon Expo was held at the Northwest Arkansas Convention Center… which really was just a big ballroom attached to a Holiday Inn.<\/p>\n All in all, a fairly low key affair.\u00a0 I did kinda like the back of the tee-shirts for sale but if I didn’t buy a caricature of Sir Walter Raleigh last week, I wasn’t going to spend $15 on this:<\/p>\n And yet:<\/p>\n Swine-y. ***<\/p>\n Confronted with a free afternoon, I checked my Roadside America to do list and was unimpressed with the tiny church<\/a> (they recommended going on Sunday — by Sunday I’ll be in Phoenix).\u00a0 But I was suitably intrigued by Land of Terra<\/a>, an outdoor art installation that sounded like it might sit nicely next to Steve and my trip to Santa Fe’s Meow Wolf<\/a>.<\/p>\n Besides, it was 26 miles from the convention center and that distance seemed too much of a coincidence to ignore…<\/p>\n I’ll let the pictures MOSTLY do the talking…<\/p>\n Traffic is a universal problem.\u00a0 Even in the Land of Terra, we’re barely moving.<\/p>\n The Pig and I:<\/p>\n And now for stray shots from around the garden.\u00a0 Some might work better full screen so remember you can click on a thumbnail and see a bigger image.\u00a0 But be warned: once you see these, you cannot UNSEE them.<\/p>\n Some statuary sayings…<\/p>\n At one point I was trying to take a photo and the camera spun around to selfie-mode.\u00a0 Here’s me channeling my inner Annie Leibovitz … and failing to get the shot.<\/p>\n Lost in the Labyrinth.\u00a0 Eventually I just walked over the stones to get to the center.\u00a0 I don’t believe in the no-maze scenario.<\/p>\n Arriving at my hotel, I noticed a brochure that I felt obligated to pick up.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n <\/a><\/a><\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nHow I love you, how I love!
\nMy dear ol’ Swine-y Tee.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/a> <\/a><\/a> <\/a><\/a> <\/a><\/a>\u00a0<\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n
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