Vegas Episode 3: Where the Wind Comes Sweeping Down the Plains and Joe Tries to Shush Me

Thanks in large part to Isabel (the only person in the entire multi-trillion dollar airline industry capable of getting us on a flight to Vegas this century),  Joe and I found ourselves on a plane to Tulsa Monday morning.  Where we'd fly to Dallas. And somehow end up in Vegas. Theoretically.

Luckily, I had enough Enquirer, People, and Star magazines to see me around the world 7 times over.  If anyone is interested in the real reason behind the J-Lo Divorce or dramatic Leann Rimes weight loss, I'm your gal - a true embarrassment to English majors everywhere.  You'd think I'd be catching up on new canonized works?  Sha. Not when there is a Hudson's News at the airport. Plus, all of these publications clearly embrace the universal themes characteristic of great literature: love, lust, betrayal and suffering. And the bonus is they also have celebrity cellulite pictures and super easy crossword puzzles!

Joe kept rolling his eyes and declining whenever I offered him a magazine, but he never stopped reading over my shoulder.  Annoying.

Before I could even say "Penny Marshall has a brain tumor?" we had landed. Off to the nearest airport bar!  Joe got grumpy when I wouldn't stop singing Oklahoma! musical tunes as we pulled our luggage through the terminal.  I mean, how could you not? I made a couple of Grapes of Wrath references while I was at it, but I wasn't 100% sure if I was remembering the story correctly. Were they from Oklahoma?  Or was it Iowa?  Idaho? Joe humored me at this point, simply relieved I wasn't singing anymore.

For reference of Joe's mood yesterday, see previous page's photo. It pretty much sums up how he looked when we took off. Yet after one very expensive beer at the airport bar, Joe transformed:

Who is this smiling man and where's my real husband?

Not to be outdone, I ordered my own drink and had to take the picture myself as Joe kept telling me I was acting like a Japanese tourist. I took it as a compliment:

I think our bar bill for 2 drinks with tip was in the neighborhood of $27.00.  And no, I don't have Ectrodactyly (lobster claw syndrome)...it's just a weird angle of my hand.

Going on a few hours sleep, no food, and a couple of big beers, Joe and I decided to explore Tulsa.  The part of Tulsa that didn't require us to re-enter airport security that is.  What we found was amazing. The people that worked at the airport were really really nice. Nobody swore. Nobody pushed. Nobody seemed angry. We started discussing retiring there. We talked to people about real estate. We even visited the gift shop:

Very moderately priced t-shirts in Tulsa.  The guy working the register smiled, which only confused us.

In a few short hours, we had fallen in love with Tulsa. We didn't want to leave, except Joe was starting to get hungry and wanted to head to Dallas for some Texas barbecue.  We bid farewell and agreed that no matter what happened over the course of the next few hours and days...

We'll always have Tulsa.