If you can�t move Mountains, fly over them--Justin Hayward
Will this road of life lead me to someone���.. who sees the World in a grain of sand--Blake, Hayward and Lodge.
Dec 9: I still haven�t caught up on all the interviews that preceded this, and I�m beginning to think a couple might have gotten away from all of us. I�m glad I�m doing these shows anyway, as Oklahoma is pretty special for me for Christmas, the same as Hawaii. Usually I don�t travel during the winter, but I�m making an exception this time.
I hate flying with a passion ( rock n roll!), but it does cut down on travel time. I reserved a ticket back in August to fly into OKC, as my initial idea was to land and visit with my cousin who lives there, then proceed to the Moody shows. The earlier you buy the ticket, the cheaper it is. I had never flown Frontier, so this was also something new. My family was kind enough to drop me off at the air porter. The trip over was uneventful. I rolled Godzilla over and checked him through, full of all sorts of things I probably wouldn�t need. (a funny thing happened this trip, someone actually came up and asked me where I got my luggage, with the rollers. What door has that guy been behind?)
SEA-TAC is a nice airport, I always enjoy a bit of lay over here. This time I found a watering hole close to my gate that resembled Sir Henry Raffles� bar in Singapore, and sat there watching people and sipping a tall cold brew. I had on my Moody Blues watch (from Birmingham) and suddenly realized it�s a bit like the Golden Compass. There�s a thought. The book has been out a while, I wonder if there was a connection. As usual, I was nervous about "not having the right things" or indeed about leaving a bag behind. It must be nice to be a Moody Blue, you usually have someone coming along behind scooping up things you forget. I did have a hamburger leap out of my bag on the plane, and I still think the little twitter fart next to me nabbed it. There she sat on the plane, demurely inhaling a juicy burger. With onions, and I went mad with the smell, starving to death. Luckily they ran late in Denver, so I was able to find lunch. Man I get grumpy if I don�t eat on time, even if it�s a little bit.
Frontier has really nice planes, paint wise. The one we boarded for Denver had a huge stag painted on the tail, as well as on the cunards that tipped up at the wing�s end, just imagine, Bambi (Harry Potter�s dad) was on my plane�s tail. I felt well guarded by a patronus indeed. We flew over mountains that looked remarkably like Martian landscapes, red rocks. There was some "buck and wing" (pardon the puns) movement on the way over the Hump, and I clutched the seats with every dip. Oh goodie, then I get to do this again in a new plane, on into OKC. The weather channel said snow, storms�.. Can�t it hold off �til I get there? Yeah mostly I flew ahead of the bad weather, but�..
Security in Denver had some good ol� boy stopped and they were digging through his luggage (he was a beat up ol� drunk, but otherwise looked harmless) and some young dudes in hunter cammie were also getting held on their luggage. Security was at a high level. Glad I didn�t bring any booze with me this time. All the business travelers were wearing cowboy hats. I love that about the West, cowboy hats are considered formal wear here.
Flying in the next plane was like meeting an old friend. Back in my Navy days, I used to work on four engine�d versions of the next bird we rode, we struggled out onto the cold cold tarmac, and boarded the thing. Two nice big hefty solid prop engines, mounted "over wing". We all strapped in, and off we went again with a surge of mighty vanes. Yeah it bumped and boogied too, and once the stewardess gasped, falling into and clutching the seat next to mine. Behind me was a mother and a little girl, and when I did a few "yee haws" with the dips, the kid (four years old) started laughing. "This is fun" she said. "Yes, isn�t it?" said the stewardess, with the most sincere smile on her face, and an edge of terror the kid didn�t get. Mum was dead silent, along with the rest of the plane. Hey just like taking a P3 into cross winds in Adak. No hu hu. "This plane is actually more safe than a jet" I commented as I rolled with the dips, and indeed it was, the stewardess even agreed. It�s just that you get stuck at certain altitudes with the sort of fuel it takes to fly those planes, and can�t fly over the turbulence. Gotta go through them!
We flew over "crop circles" in Kansas, round watered circles within measured squares, as far as the eye could see, like a brown and grey quilt. Seeing things from the air is just fascinating. The prop arches turned and made a faery circle in the sky, a blurring glowing circle.
As we entered airspace over Oklahoma, the sun dropped and you could see Christmas, and porch lights coming on all over. The snow blew, and below you could see a funny fog nimbus around all the lights, where the snow flakes were flying. All the Who�s were asnooze in their nice warm homes, and here I was flying in on a big cold plane, not having any idea where I would stay that night.
--Woody Guthrie
Landed at OKC ( it was a dark and stormy night), debarked without incident, and hitched a ride with the shuttle driver to the Alamo rental north of the airport. The driver was a nice fellow, and I was the only rider (people roll it up and go to bed early in OK), we talked about OU in the play offs all the way down the street. Rented the car, finally found it, wandering around that cold miserable parking lot, slush starting to come down. Idiots still speeding on the roads. I did have some map quests, and found the right freeway going North. After a drive through the toolies, I found where Cousin Joe lived (he wasn�t answering the phone, in bed I presume already) so I got a room nearby at the Hampton in Edmond, it was NICE (I recommend the Hampton) great hot tub/pool room, free Internet. Sometimes overpriced hotels do have a pay off in having good spas, and good kiosks. The Microtel didn�t, and the Crowne Center had the gonads to charge for Internet. This Hampton had a Route 66 theme, as Edmond is right on Hwy 66 (a road I traveled often in my youth).
Did a lot of resting and relaxing�� thinking. Hot tubbing. Outside the pool room I could see ghostly weed shadows blowing in the snow and wind, beads of dew formed over the pool on the glass, leaves brushed the moonlight, flying under scudding torn clouds. Fragile patterns drizzling down the walls dripping sullenly into the pool. Once I got in the rack, I woke up in the middle of the night, and turned on Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What a way to start my vacation! UGH. Actually I didn�t watch much telly this trip, but rather than sleaze around the Winstar when I got there, I picked up a Narnia movie and happily watched that in lieu of gambling. We all have our priorities when it comes to amusement.
Dec 10: Cousin Joe never called back (he�s totally excused, because it was finals week, and he has little ones too), so the next morning I mushed off toward Tulsa. I took "the long way" through Okmulgee, as I wanted to see our new tribal complex, and check into school money. They weren�t much help on the money (no free rides here) but I did spend a good afternoon with our librarian digging into the historical record, found some things I didn�t know about my maternal great great grandmother. No time to see the museum. By this time I had connected via cell with Y. and Renee (Moody pals I had met on line), and was looking forward to meeting them, and of course, having a nice Mexican dinner.
>>> Chapter Two: Dec 10: Dinner with a member of the crew