OhhhhKlahoma

Every time I say the world "Oklahoma" I hear the song in my head.  I have passed this affliction on to Kaylee, at least, so that's something.  ;)

The trip here was mostly uneventful.  There was a stiff headwind, so I was trying to stay a little lower. ATC had me go a little higher for traffic and left me up there, but we weren't doing too bad, and the air was smooth, so that was okay. I posted on Facebook, but I got a kick of hearing American Airlines say they were at their limits and weren't sure about going to 35,000', and when ATC asked if I could, I could just say yep.  They didn't end up sending me up there, but it was still funny to me.  Nanny nanny boo boo.  lol

It had been long enough since I was in the Cheyenne that I felt a little sloppy on a couple things, so it's good that I got back in.  There were three of them on board, husband, wife, daughter, and I like that they're back there with no headsets while I listen to music and read a book while cruising on autopilot at 30,000' and monitoring everything.  It's much more relaxing than having people up front with me or listening in on everything.

The fuel prices are over $2/gallon more expensive than at home.  So I loaded up with full fuel at Kokomo, with three little people (and me) and just three bags it was fine, and I saved them a lot of money.  I almost don't need any fuel for the trip home, either, but I took some in order to waive a ramp fee anyway.

The rental car I have is a Kia Soul. It's an interesting looking thing, and that's nice in one way--when you go somewhere like a mall, and exit the doors and start looking around, it sticks out and is much easier to find than the typical grey/white Nissan.  This one is what I called "Gumby blue".  It's almost identical to the blue on the bottom of Gumby.  It looks black, and I thought it was black, until the light hit it just right, and I realized it's a shimmery dark blue.

I went to the mall yesterday, in search of a nice shirt to wear.  One that isn't a t-shirt but isn't a super dressy shirt.  This is such a nightmare, and it shouldn't be.  For one thing, everything is either long sleeves now because Fall is coming, but hello, it's still 90 degrees outside, or sleeveless, which, c'mon, I'm 45 and have flabby upper arms right now.  I just want a short sleeved shirt.   I walked through that whole mall, and again, it's just overwhelming.  Other people are all "I get to go shopping and try on lots of stuff and hit all these stores and yay!" and I'm all "Oh Lord, it's overwhelming, all the people, all the stores, I don't see anything I'd wear, I don't know what to put together, and I can't stand it."

Worst of all are the people. The place was packed out, which I found out was because it was "Tax Free Weekend". Well, that's kind of cool.  Anything you buy this weekend is tax free. I have no idea why, but I ran with it.  But it was packed.  And everywhere I went, the workers were all over everybody.  Walk down the main pathway, and all the vendors in the middle of the aisle are handing me products, one girl said "You beautiful!  Such a beautiful girl!" trying to get me to stop at her booth.  Another chased me down for awhile to give me a moisturizer.  Now THAT I probably looked like I really needed.  ;)  Make-up people were trying to get me to do a make-over (also probably needed) and perfume people wanted to spray me.  When I was walking through every single shop looking for shirts, every section I went into went the same "How are you? What's your name?  My name is xxxx.  What are you looking for?  Would you like me to set up a dressing room for you?"  AAAARGH. Every. Single. Time.  Walking around Dillards there were 6 different sections/salespeople who all said the same script just wandering from one place to another.  When I did buy something at one, they wanted to know the name of the lady helping me.  Well, I don't remember, as I've been what I could only call "accosted" by about a dozen people throwing their names at me in the last half hour.  This shopping thing is hard enough.  Oh how I wish you could try on things with online shopping.  Have it zipped to your house at light speed like Star Trek, try it on, and buy it or zip it back.  And if there's a virtual woman with it asking you questions, I could shut it off.

BUT, one great thing and one nice thing was at that mall.  I had just happened to carry my iPad in with me.  I bring it to read while I eat, and I didn't want to leave it in the car.  So I'm walking along and I see this large, white and glass section of the mall with a giant apple on it.  I'm looking at an Apple store.  My iPad has had a problem for months where it refuses to update the iOS, saying it can't verify the update as I'm not on the internet. Except I AM on the internet.  Wifi, 3G, it didn't matter, it wouldn't do it.  So I've known that soon that would be a problem as it's already 2 or 3 operating systems behind.  So I walk into this store, and I have to tell you, I'm really impressed.  There are 3-4 people with iPads at the front doors.  They ask your problem, look it over, and give you an appointment time guess.  You leave.  They text you and say they're ready for you, and you can either put them off for 30 minutes by texting back a "2", or cancel by texting "1", or show up.  I show up, and they check me in, including what I'm wearing.  I wait a few minutes, a woman walks up and says "Are you Laura?"  I am, and she fixes my problem in 20 minutes flat including giving me the newest update.  They are rotating people through there, solving problems, as fast and as efficiently as I've ever seen anything done.  The writing down what they're wearing so the people can find you easily is much more brilliant than paging a name, etc.  So that was great.  I was super pleased, and it was totally free of charge.  We don't have one close to us, and I'd never done that before, but I have to say, that was super well done.

The nice thing--when I got tired of the walking and the assault on my senses from people and workers, I went to the movie theater there.  She asked what seat I wanted, and told me my options, and I was like "huh?"  I picked a seat and it was $14.  Ouch!  But I go inside, and it's those big comfy reclining puffy chairs, with space and room and ahhhh.  I watched "Dunkirk".  That was not a relaxing movie, and it was slightly strange, and I can't decide if I liked it or not, but I think so. The British and French were trapped at the sea by the Germans, waiting for a miracle.  The storyline followed a few different folks.  Three Spitfire pilots (my favorite part of course), a civilian boat captain and his son, and one British and one French soldier trying to survive.  It was intense.  A lot of people died in some fairly gross ways.  People dropping all around the soldiers.  Enemy planes strafing and bombing sitting duck soldiers and ships.  Drowning, fire, bullets, bombs.  War.  It was pretty intense, and they used a lot of intense music to go with it. 

If you don't want spoilers on the movie, don't read this paragraph.  The whole movie had minimal talking, was mostly just action, telling a story with pictures more than dialoge.  My favorite part was that while it was a little understated, they did a nice job showing heroism in war in some pretty normal people.  When Britain decided not to send a bunch of destroyers to Dunkirk, that they'd lost that battle, they sent a call out to civilian boaters to go help collect something like 400,000 stranded soldiers.  The soldiers were lined up on a beach getting bombed, the boats were getting bombed.  The admiral of the Navy and the whatever in charge of the Army were on a dock watching their men trapped, and they knew it was a likelihood that all their men would die, because the British 'government' was deserting them.  One of the best parts of the movie was when they tied that one civilian boat captain to the storyline, as he came up over the horizon, along with, you suddenly see, a myriad of his civilian friends, just normal people come to rescue their own soldiers, a few at a time per boat.  A huge cheer went up from all over that was pretty awesome. The majority of the story was two soldiers trying to survive, and every time they went somewhere or did something, everyone around them died and they almost did.  It was pretty tense.  The Spitfire pilots only had enough gas for so long.  They were taking out the enemy aircraft attacking the soldiers on the ground, as they could, and their orders were to go back home to refuel.  Two were shot down, one survived and was picked up by a civialian boater and then helped pull soldiers into boats.  The third fought until he was low on fuel, and then turned around to go home to refuel.  Behind him he could see an enemy bomber lining up on a large boat full of surviving soldiers.  You  see him staring at his fuel, staring at the bomber, staring at his fuel, and finally, knowing he was going to go down, turning around and going after the bomber.  He shoots the bomber down, saving all those lives, and then runs out of gas.  This part gets a little unrealistic. Apparently a Spitfire can glide forever and ever. And ever. But it was a neat part of the story.  As he's gliding down, another enemy fighter lines up on the dock and a whole giant pack of soldiers.  You see the fighter come screaming down, aiming at them all. The admiral closes his eyes and waits to die...and then the out of gas Spitfire takes out that one last fighter on his way down, saving all those people too. Spitfire glides forever down the beach (no idea why he didn't land next to his own people) and lands safely, only to be taken as a German POW.  You see the plane burning as the pilot is taken away.  But minus the huge glide path of a fuel-starved Spitfire, it was a pretty neat sequence, and I enjoyed.  And now you don't have to watch it because you know how it ends.  ;)

After the movie I went to a late dinner. I thought I was at a steakhouse, it said steakhouse, but it was a hippy millienium steakhouse that only served one steak, and it had weird stuff on it.  Everything on the menu was..."wilted greens" and man, I don't know, weird stuff.  I ended up trying the mesquite roasted duck.  The duck was fine.  The rest of the stuff with it was pretty weird.  But hey, I tried something new.  Tonight will be a real steakhouse.  I am in Oklahoma (OOOOHklahoma) for heaven's sake, they have to have steak around here...

So now on to the rest of today.  Calling the FBO to fuel up, texting a friend about borrowing something, planning on possibly running over to Dallas, TX for an hour if he ends up needing that, etc...