Rev. Erudite Redneck, B.S., B.S., M.A., M.Div.

Sounds like a trip for you two crazy kids. I'd have nothin' to do with it, other than the truck stop, which is more for notstalgia than a buffalo steak supper.

The Cherokee Trading Post and Truck stop was a regular stop for the Teditor clan, especially considering we made at least four, if not more, passes along that route when we were Texans and Louisianans from 1975-1988. We'd hit the gas station (then convenience store) for a potty break, a drink and Corn Nuts. As far as my memory can recall, we only ate at the restaurant once in my lifetime.

Even now, if I'm exiting off I-40 on my way through Geary and Watonga and all points then along the Northwest Passage, I stop for Corn Nuts. Consider for the last few months of my tenure at the ol' job in OKC, I dated a woman (who is now my wife) who lived in the Oklahoma Panhandle, so I stopped for Corn Nuts once or twice a month. :-)
 

sounds like a great day. have a great time.

Jeannie Diane
 

How many calendars, if you go by William Least Heat Moon's calendar ratings for truck stops (from his book Blue Highways)?
 

We went with Jake's Rib in Chickasha, and saved a bunch of drivin'. Spent, ahem, a couple of hours, ahem, in a Chickasaw casino, too.
 

Jake's be a good choice.
 

OK, you spent a couple of hours. Are you going to confess to the amount of money, and whether you ended up or down?

We are surrounded by casinos here. Seems like hunnerds of 'em with all the tribes we have assembled here. The people I work with seem to think they were all built just for them. They've all got the sickness.
 

I ain't tellin. :-)
 

Trixie said: re. Indian Casinos
"The people I work with seem to think they were all built just for them." They were Trixie, they were.

I think Indian casinos, like the return of all the buffalo herds, is a delayed effect of Wovoka's prophecy of the Ghost Dance.

The Prophecy: If you dance the Ghost Dance then a wave of the earth will come across the land. The Indian, while dancing, will rise up and over the wave, but the white man will flee from it and be pulled under the earth. After the wave passes the goods and wealth, untouched by the wave, that the white man left behind will belong to the Indian. Behind the wave the buffalo will return in numbers as before. The white man will be gone from the land and it will belong to the Indian once again.
Of course the Ghost Dancers hoped it would happen in their time, in a wink of an eye. All messianic movements hope that. It is just taking a little longer than they first thought. Even so, the Ghost Dance is still quitely danced (within the round dance)and the songs still sung even today. It did not die at Wounded knee.

Look, I see the wave coming.
 

Isn't that kind of like jumping up in an elevator headed down? Right now there are only two people here in the newsroom with me, and they are both talking about their favorite slot machines. Unbelievable how much time people can spend talking about patterns and how often machines reset and the sounds and lights when you hit.

Just think what would happen if they put that effort, time and money into teaching kids to read or building houses for the poor. Hm.
 

My home town, Wichita, Kansas was founded on the site of one of Jesse Chisolm's trading posts. They have a wonderful outdoor museum there called "Cowtown". If you ever have a chanc e to visit there, I heartily recommend it. I have spent many happy hours touring Old Wichita Cowtown, where you can see a virtual small western town from the 1860's. Thye even have a home once owned by Billy the Kid's mother, (I don't remember if it is original or restored) who was a member of Wichita's town council way back when.
 

Cool. I've been to Wichita a few times, but never get to stay very long. I dang near wenr to work there about 10 years ago, but they couldn't come up with enough money to make up for the fact that Kansas has a state income tax and Texas, where I was livin' at the time, doedn't!