Spur of the Moment

How spontaneous are you?

So began a conversation with Saucy Britches on Wednesday. She had gotten the idea in her head that we would meet up in Las Vegas for the Rockabilly Rave in early October. After doing the math, we decided that it was more than we were willing to spend on a weekend. Just then, an email from Frontier came in. With special last-minute weekend fares. For Oklahoma City. For this weekend.

Now that’s spontaneous.

15,000 frequent flier miles (kudos to Frontier for making it easy to actually use miles), plus a $5 transaction fee later, I had a round-trip e-ticket for my very first-ever trip to Oklahoma.* My friends picked me up at the airport late Friday night, and by Saturday, we were on the road to Lake Eufaula. Our first stop was to a grocery store to pick up vittles for the weekend. Normal enough. The abnormal part was when someone called out my name, and I turned around to see my cousin Margo standing there. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen Margo, and I didn’t realize she was living in OKC. Days later, I am still stunned that she recognized me in such an unusual context. Also, that of all the supermarkets in Oklahoma City, of all hours of the day, of all days of the week, my cousin and I happened to be in the same aisle in the same store at the same time.

Eventually, we made our way up to the lake house, and heard from the folks already there that we had quite neatly missed the morning rain. In fact, the weather was perfect for a couple of tours on the WaveRunner and plenty of splashing around in the lake (including one ill-advised and surprising maneuver that tipped us off of the raft/tube thing) before it was time to shower off and grill up some grub. Nephew Alex set up his kit and impressed us all with his drumming (Really? He’s only been playing for a month?) and his ability to teach Ms. Britches some basics that she managed to grasp with speed. I’m glad that Alex stayed after the “adults” left the lake house, because he was good company at breakfast and he also captained the speedboat around the lake on Sunday morning while Tim re-learned how to water ski, and Ms. Britches and I looked suitably boaty.

The weekend ended all too early, after a pleasant dinner with friends that was capped off by what we were calling Crème Brûlée On Crack, but which the waiter referred to as a Bananagasm. Whatever it was, I’ll take two more. An o’dark thirty flight returned me to Denver in time to drive straight into the office on Monday morning, and all I have left now are my memories. Click on the photo for more.

Ms. Britches’ photos of the weekend are here.

*Full disclosure: I once drove through a small section of the panhandle on the way from New Mexico to Kansas. Black Mesa is beautiful.