Hypnotized At Seventeen

Yes, we are back from our trip. We extended it one more day by staying the night in Wichita at one of our favorite hotels -- the Hotel at Old Town. Highly recommended if you're ever up that way.

The highlight of the day in Wichita belonged to SGK. I hunted up a rock shop for her - or as it is known in the trade, a lapidary supply - and she nearly went into hysteria. She found real-life speicmens of all the minerals she had been reading about and they were 90% off to boot as the store was closing after 25 years. Overwhelmed, she could hardly contain herself as she browsed shelf after shelf of rocks and gems of varying sizes, shapes, and lusters. And, she would add, striations and cleavages. I'm not sure what those are, but she was rattling off the Mohs scales numbers and alternate names of everything. Oh, and toxicity. Yeah, she really wanted this glass-encased orange and yellow stone called orpiment. I've never heard of it, but it apparently emits a cyanide residue if you handle it. So, of course I bought it. What kind of father would I be if I didn't buy my ardent little petrologist (geologists study the earth, dad!) a poisonous rock? As long as she discovers a gold mine, diamond vein, or huge deposit of oil, I'll consider it money well spent.

One downer for the trip is that I learned Quik Trip is in a collusion deal as I suspected. A clerk at one of the stores told us. It's with Love's Country Store of all the g**amn places. Which would you rather have: a cheerful, friendly staff offering an exponential range of delicious refreshing beverages in a glowing red and white building beckoning you like your favorite grandmother telling you to, "come into the light..." or a rundown, dirty yellow and red hole-in-the wall with overpriced bottles of Coke sold to you by a haggard clerk who obviously resents having to work there? Quik Trip has been one of the Top 100 Places to Work in America for six years in a row; Love's has a tacky 1970's hand-drawn-by-the-founder's-three-year-old-granddaughter logo of cascading red, yellow, and orange hearts.

I'll bet I find out that Culver's is in collusion with Braum's. Why else would a quick check of their locations map reveal a crescent-shaped arc around the Oklahoma City market? Once again, we lose out. Braum's hasn't updated its stores or image in, what, 20 years? The stores all look tired and beat and they haven't had a new item on the menu since Reagan was in office. Culver's has 10 kinds of frozen custard, reubens, Philly cheesesteaks, something called a Butterburger (aka Myocardial Infarction In A Sack), turkey melts, and their kid's meals actually have a character, Scoopie, associated with them. Oh, and free wifi. Braum's has hamburgers and fries, ice cream and yogurt. I don't hate Braum's - it's just 'OK' - but it's not Culver's. This is probably unfair because I don't know for a fact that there is a deal there, but it's obvious something is up.

Why do I care about this? Why should you care about this? See, this is what the founding fathers meant when they forbade collusion -- inevitably, people in a certain market will be oppressed by a lousy c-store chain, a lack of Mr. Pibb, and grungy dairy stores and that violates their right to the pursuit of happiness.

Other random facts, observations, and reflections from the trip:

When we went into Cero's Candies in Wichita, we did meet a bubbly and friendly person who seemed to rise in defiance of my opinion of personality-deprived Kansans. You get someone like that in a room with YHWH and you will get 'the story'. We did. She's from Tulsa. The streak continues. The candy is really good by the way and you get to see the production line.

The drive through that northwest corner of Missouri on I-35 is one of my most-despised routes. You see it on the map and you think it'll be easy; you zip right in, you zip right out. Like a Love's Country Store, only cleaner. But no, it's not like that. Like it's big ugly step sister, I-44 between Tulsa and St. Louis, that drive is a trip-killer.

I can't drive after lunch anymore. It has nothing to do with eating lunch because I rarely eat lunch on the road, it's just that the warm afternoon sun conks me out now that I'm old. Thank God for rumble strips. Of course since our travel day does not begin until 11:30am and everything closes at 5:00pm, I'm left with little choice but to exceed the speed limit with one eye, while the other eye gets a little, well, shuteye.

Next time I travel north of the 40th Parallel, I have to remember to bring a black eye mask. The sun comes up at like 4:30am up there and once I wake up, I can't get back to sleep. Since we don't start activities until 11:30, that's seven freakin' hours - practically a whole work day - I have to find something to do in a motel room.

I've always heard Wal-mart had for some reason singled us (ie Oklahoma) out for Anschluss decades ago when they began their aim of world domination. And while it's still debated whether they destroyed small-town America, my observations upon rolling through the upper midwest like we just did reveals that they have not been successful at destroying everything. There are still small downtowns wholly intact all across that region that have not been relegated to antique shops and crafters' malls. Not so our little state.

Despite my distrust of corporations, I really enjoyed the Spam Museum in Austin, MN and was reminded of how much I love Kellogg's Cereal City in Battle Crick, MI. Now, if the Oklahoma City revered its past as much as these corps do their products...

That's enough. Thanks for reading this far...