Atoka more like matoka

I am typing from the in Oklahoma. O----Klahoma- where the Prius rolls gently down the plain. For now- there are some big black clouds up ahead and I am somewhat concerned that our next stop on the tour may not in fact be Tulsa but Oz. But I am sure that the Munchkins would make a fine BBQed winged monkey.

I am taking a large risk this morning of drinking another large bottle of low-calorie sports drink to try to replenish my precious bodily fluids after yesterday (see prior post). This one does not have sucralose in it, but I am still keeping track of the distances to each rest stop (see prior post). We just passed through the town of Atoka, OK. It was here that we saw the great hope of the democratic party in the region. After seeing this degree of organization, the outcome of the November elections is no longer in doubt at least in OK. We just missed our exit onto the Indian Nation Turnpike, so as I write Chris is turning around in a John Deere parking lot: Sale on Weedeaters! Nice. More in a bit.

Alright, it has been a bit, and now I have more to report. Highlights of the drive:

1. A house that was literally leaning over about 10 degrees. On the front was a sign that said “Beware of Dog.” I am guessing if there had been a doghouse it would have had a sign stating “Beware of House.”
2. Multiple signs along the road warning “Do not drive into Smoke.” Clearly they were not thinking of BBQ pilgrims.
3. Montezuma Creek. I suggested that we stop here to refill our water bottles.
4. Perhaps the highlight: the Tropical Wave Salon. The salon was located along the highway in (I am not making this up) one of those portable sheds you can buy at home supply companies.
5. The Muddy Boggy River. We considered taking a spin but didn’t want to drop the tranny out of our ride.
6. Poor timing on our part- in a few weeks there is a one night only show at the Chocktaw Casino of Chris’ favorite band: AIR SUPPLY!
7. If only we had planned our evenings better we could have stayed in Okmulgee at the Super 9 motel. That is not a typo. The Super 9 was neither super nor a 9.
8. Real Estate alert! A home for sale in central OK. Custom built one level with a kwanset hut welded to the side of the building for extra space. Olive green curtains (or towels) provide lovely window treatments.

[Chris here] OH MAMA you have not lived until you have seen Tulsa, OK. We pulled into the north part of town looking for a place called Elmer’s, but, despite being quite hungry (enough to eat a munchkin), we were saddened to learn that Elmer does not serve food on Sundays. For those of you not paying attention, we really aren’t using a “navigation device” like a GPS, but some printed maps from maps.google and an atlas I purchased for my first interstate move (MT to SEA). So…this was a bit of a hiccup. Thankfully, Larry had printed several possible BBQ places in Tulsa – though we really had no idea how to find them. Josh spotted a coffee shop (Saigon Café) on the way to Elmer’s so we searched it out to see if it had wifi…success! It did!

But it was closed, too. However, we pulled into the parking lot, Josh opened up the laptop and determined that Saigon Café does not turn off their wifi [I know why this is – anyone with a router is deathly afraid that if they turn it off it will never work again]. So, our new distination was a restaurant recommended to us by Larry – the Knotty Pine. This is somewhat nostalgic for us given that there is a Knotty Pine restaurant in Columbia Falls, MT and a finer place you will not find within three blocks. We were somewhat saddened by the fact that the Knotty Pine looked as though it was actually in downtown, in comparison to where we sat – two grown men in a Prius in the parking lot of a coffee shop surfing the web.


Our fears were unfounded. The Knotty Pine restaurant is in perhaps the worst neighborhood of the trip – bombed out industrial warehouses, rusting apartments, and a mid-80s Subaru hatchback adorned with shards of broken mirrors topped with an old pushmower (itself with some sort of indiscernible bling). I felt for a moment that we were driving to Thunderdome. The Knotty Pine is also the first official dive restaurant – a side note: there are many of you who claim that you like dive restaurants, but you typically live in parts of the country that do not have anything that truly qualifies. E.g. there are no real dives in Seattle and if you needed any reminder of that, I would put up the Knotty Pine against anything you could whip out [and it most assuredly does not score the highest on the “dive meter” in Tulsa]. It is Sunday in Tulsa and, like in Utah, any restaurant that can convince employees to work on the weekends typically does great business – particularly a dive. The parking lot was full, but you can see the smokers outside - a combination of metal, cinderblock, and…well…knotty pine. There were also other human smokers outside, like a pregnant woman and her fellow debutants, but, I digress. The layout is “family style” which means a bunch of movable tables and no booths. An old quickstop provides scenery from the tables, which are crowded with advertisements from local businesses [such as one from a funeral home with an image of two people kissing on the beach during sunset…funerals are SO romantic].

The place was full when we entered and packed when we left. Josh kept frantically trying to display his wedding ring; he got so desperate to prove that we were not a gay couple [eating sausage…;) ] that he tried to get me to make out with one of the female patrons.

The patrons.

We very much wished we could have documented them more properly, but we felt that we already stood out too much. We were the only out of state plates in the restaurant parking lot, after all. Most of the patrons had clearly just come from church, though attire was quite varied. Next to us was an enormous table with around twenty adults and, in a piece of Americana I have not experienced since my early years, a kids table with four youngins. Let me give you a sample cast list of the restaurant:

An enormous white man [400 lbs., easy], white shirt [half untucked], suspenders, full beard, bluetooth earpiece [did not take out for lunch]
Large white woman [unaffiliated with previous]; almost larger dark hair; ½ inch think makeup; black and white dress; severe resemblance to Ethel Merman or actress in “Black Hole Sun” video
Two Native American men, long black hair, ate dinner without saying a word to each other, but stared intensely at other patrons
Tall white man [at least 6 ½ feet tall], belly, pinstripe pants, suspenders, pressed white shirt – clearly the leader of the clan at the large table – perhaps an alderman
Large person [upon further review, adult white female], reddish-blonde buzzcut, money-taker as no one else in the restaurant was allowed to handle money.
Twenty-something white male, hat with local feed company, shirt that said “Paddle faster, I hear banjos”
Young white girl, eyebrow piercing, tight gray shirt that foreshadowing a pudgy future

There were obviously others, but these are good enough.

The food was, on the whole, below average, sadly. Part of this may be due to the fact that we are entering a different style of BBQ as we move north [though we are still in the Confederacy…well…Oklahoma wasn’t a state until 1913, but pretty sure they would have sided with the South] – the deep south is more focused on the taste of the meat, KC-style is more about the sauce. That said, we ordered a combo plate and split it [with Josh extolling the waitress about how much he loved “hot chicks with big hooters” to inoculate against any same-sex misperception]. The combo plate includes: ribs, ham, pulled pork, brisket, sausage, and bologna with two sides (we ordered two more): cole slaw, potato salad, and beans. The best part of the meal was the potato salad – though heavy, it had by far the most flavor of any we’ve had on the trip. The pulled pork was fairly juicy despite an absence of sauce (we were served two sizeable cups with our trays, so we were not without) and the sausage was pretty good [salty, which we liked, a bit like hillshire farm about which we were ambivalent]. The ribs were passable – the ends were tough and chewy; like the rest of the meats, there was almost not smoke flavor. The cole slaw was about average – not like the Blue Moon but nowhere near Big D’s or, the reigning champion, Bill Spoon’s. The real stinkers were the brisket [very, very dry, like a flavorless beef jerkey] and the beans. The beans [still giving me trouble as I write this] were thick, goopy, and sweet enough to make Dennis the Menace sick. Speaking of sweet, the sweet tea was really bad – bad tea flavor and the wrong amount of sugar [but I don’t know whether this was too much or too little].

One last thing: bologna tasted exactly like bologna. So, naturally, it was awful.

We are about to enter Missouri [the existence of which Grandpa Simpson refuses to acknowledge].

Our thanks to everyone who has written comments – it lets us know that there are some people reading about this trek. Special thanks to Dale for his continued emails about good BBQ places and to Mike for taking the time to direct us in Memphis. Onward to Kansas City! [this is sort of like a cattle drive – Big D to KC]

[Josh here] We have just finished dinner at Gates and Sons BBQ in Kansas City MO. There was not a lot to relate between the last writing and this post with the exception of Gates. For a good hour in the car I got Koski to read me radiology board exam recall questions (oh yes, I am taking a board exam in a few weeks). That was loads of fun for both of us, but now I can claim to have been semi-productive. On to the meat of the matter:

Gates is a BBQ shrine. There is no other way to put it. We of course found the original location (there are now 6 in the area). Famous for the welcome of “Hi, Can I Help You?” in that great drawl, it did not disappoint. I personally thought that although it came down to personal preference in many respects, Gates is my favorite rib thus far. Koski prefers Dreamland, but what can you do. It is a toss up in many ways. The rest of the meal was OK- good potato salad with more sour pickly flavor than many others. The slaw was creamy, but not on a level with Bill Spoon’s. Pasta salad was a bit bland. The other unique aspect to the meal was the beverage of choice. I saw a bottle labeled with the Gates logo containing a red liquid that looked not unlike transmission fluid (I know what this looks like as I had a car once that required a bottle of fluid every time I drove it so that it could leak out onto the road on the way). It was simply called Gates Red Soda Water. Imagine taking a whole bag of Jolly Rancher watermelon flavored candies and melting them into a bottle. Then adding an extra cup of sugar for good measure. That is what it was like. It is a good thing neither of us are diabetic as we would still be convulsing on the floor of Gates right now. Instead we are at a coffee shop downtown (without WiFi) with a DMC DeLorean parked out front. I had to stop Koski from jumping in and trying to go back to the future.

Now we are headed out of town to stay with Mike’s parents in Lone Jack MO. I am guessing that they might not have WiFi either, so we are going to try to stop outside a random hotel lobby on the way to make this post. Wish us luck. Tomorrow is a LONG day.