On our first night out, we ate supper and stayed with friends in Elgin, OK. Elgin is a little town close to the Wichita Mountains, giant granite mounds squeezed out of relatively flat land all around. Because we experienced one delay after another, including a last minute visit to the repair shop, it was after 8 P.M. before we arrived. This did not surprise our friends, the Fants, who are familiar with Mulkey Standard Time (MST).They’re our former neighbors and the first people to greet us when we moved to Lubbock several years ago. It was fun to catch up on each other’s lives and chow down at the Blue Cow Store.

The next morning, we drove to Oklahoma City and watched a bit of the auction at the Oklahoma National Stockyards.  A mini-stadium full of half-reclining cattlemen communicated in winks and nods with a yodeling auctioneer and a seller’s agent while we tried in vain to decipher what characteristics made one cow a better buy than another. We discussed the terms yearling, heifer, bull, steer, castration, wean, feeder, and slaughter to the horror of our teenaged boys.

Downtown, we visited the Capitol. It’s a gorgeous building, despite having an oil derrick in the front yard. There are vigilant gryphons on the outside and a statue by a self-taught Native American senator named Enoch Kelly Haney on top of the dome. The inside is all marble and painted plaster rosettes and stained glass. We got a crash course in Oklahoma history as we toured the art-filled building. Each kid picked a notable Oklahoman for further research, and they’ll present their findings after we set up camp tonight. How much do you know about Jim Thorpe, Will Rogers, John Hope Franklin, Sequoyah, Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher, and Maria Tallchief? Shout out, and we’ll post a biography of your choice.

Next was a visit to the Oklahoma City Memorial. I’ve seen pictures, but they don’t make the same impact as a personal visit. It’s a well-thought-out, serene spot. The big kids spent most of the afternoon asking questions about why the bombing happened; this led to conversations I don’t think we’ve ever tackled about how Americans view government, personal liberty, and protest.

In the evening, we found a campground with a pool, mini-golf, and pizza. Remember that 90’s movie with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman called Far and Away? It starts with Irish immigration and ends with the Oklahoma Land Races. That’s what we watched before bed, and though it may not be 100%  accurate, it’s full of big, memorable images of new Americans’ migration from crowded eastern cities to the promising West. You can see a “Sooner” in action at the very end.

Today, we moved on to Tulsa at a snail’s pace. Even if we were very organized people, I don’t think we could clear out of a campground quickly. There are always ten steps to every task. It’s crowded when eight people are all up and moving around the RV at once, and something is always breaking. The big lesson of RV living is patience, and we will be in the schoolroom working on it for awhile.

Tulsa turns out to be a really cute town with a trendy arts district. We visited the fabulous Woody Guthrie Center, and now we’ll probably be singing his songs for the rest of the trip. We’ve already worn out This Land is Your Land and The Car Song. Tonight our dreams will be full of Oakies, hobos, and Dust Bowl days. Nan, our six-year-old, liked Woody, but she really loved Bob Marley, who was featured in a special exhibit. She’ll be dreaming of Jamaica.

I’ve been posting pictures of our family travels for several years. I love to capture and/or stage a moment of sweetness and light that’s fit to gaze upon with a happy sigh. I wouldn’t dream of posting a photo that hadn’t been cheered up by one of the editing apps on my phone, either; I want to record how vivid the moment really was, and filters help me do it. But like everyone else who struggles with the blessings and curses of social media, I often feel false when I think of all the things viewers will not see when they look at my dolled-up images. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but some important ones are still omitted from my photo stories. I thought writing about our adventures would provide a fuller description of what actually happens when two middle-aged parents, six kids, and a dog roam the country together in an RV.

I just read a great little book by Frederick Buechner called On the Road with the Archangel. It’s a retelling of the apocryphal Book of Tobit, which I’d never heard of, since my Protestant-oriented Bible doesn’t include it. (I started out reading the book to my husband, Brandon, and neither of us was sure what was and wasn’t “apocryphal,” so we wikkied it and took a delightful side trip before we ever got to the story. We found a chart that listed every book included in the Bibles of all the various Christian tribes. I don’t care what anybody says, wikipedia is great, and it is as expansive as the library of Nineveh, as long as your battery holds out.) Anyway, the Book of Tobit and On the Road with the Archangel are set during the Assyrian captivity of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and the stories feature parents, children, a dog, and a journey.  There’s also an angel, sent by God, to aid the other hapless characters. I like reading Buechner because he writes about people with affection; he makes them likable despite their foolishness and frailty and obliviousness of the jaw-dropping kindness God is extending to them.

Based on the chaotic exit we made from Lubbock on our departure day (one week and one day late), we don’t expect to appear any less ridiculous than the folks in Buechner’s book. Like Tobit, we trust “how, though never condoning the shadows that dwell in the human heart, [the Holy One] is forever dispatching angels of light to deal with them mercifully.”