Leaving Arkansas, the weather was treacherous.  The sky was black and the rain came down like a carpet bomb attack from the clouds, road construction had the traffic backed up, and it wasn’t looking good.

Then, Clutch’s “Seven Jam” came on my ipod, and the lyrics repeated

Everything gonna be alright,

Everything gonna be alright,

Yeah!

Finally, I came to the exit for I-40 towards Oklahoma City.  As soon as I got off the exit and changed direction due west, the black churning cloud overhead turned into a beautiful lit up blue sky with patches of fluffy white clouds.  I smiled as Clutch continued to play, “Everything gonna be alright…”

I arrived in Oklahoma City to meet my couchsurfing host for the evening, Matt.  I was in a bind because the host who previously accepted me flaked out on me.  Matt came through in the clutch, even though he had only moved in to his new house a week prior, and it was in the middle of remodeling.  Actually, the water wasn’t even running when I got there, but with some diligent effort, Matt had it working in no time.  Lucky thing because I was due for a shower.

Instead of a couch, Matt provided an air mattress for me.

Although it was mostly deflated when I awoke, it was still better than nothing.

I headed into town and stumbled upon the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum.  

At first I didn’t even realize where I was, but after a discussion with a staff member, the gravity of the memorial really pulled me down to earth.

I realized that a friend of mine from college was now living in Oklahoma City, so we met for lunch.  Laura guided me to a burger joint which offered some delicious options that you can even get as sliders if you wanted more than one (which I did 🙂

After lunch, Laura went back to work and I hit the pavement.  I was surprised at the bounty of beautiful architecture in the cityscape.

After walking around a short while, I was scheduled to hit the road to Amarillo, TX.  However, something was telling me to stay in Oklahoma City.  As it turned out, Laura had just joined couchsurfing.org, so I asked her if it was cool for me to crash.  She agreed.  How awesome.  So I walked around a bit and checked out more of the city scape.

Eventually, I headed back to Laura’s house, where she lives with her boyfriend.  They were very gracious in that they invited me to join them for dinner.  After some catching up, we all hit the hay for a bright and early wake up call.

It was finally time to make my way to Amarillo…