Chapter 21: Oklahoma City

Love hurts, love scarsLove wounds and mars

-Everly Brothers

Packing up camp was smoother than ever; everyone knew exactly what needed to be done and was pretty clear on what the order of operations. The only new twist was we had three dogs which added up to too many occupants to fit into the cab of the truck. I briefly contemplated putting sulking Sonya and hitchhiking Matilda in the stalls but couldn’t figure out a way to successfully pull that one off. So - two of the dogs went into a stall with their beds and I devised a rotation plan based on seniority, the pack leader always got priority; Mila rode in the cab first and we’d rotate at each stop.

It was a quiet ride to Oklahoma City, we only had one quick business call to confirm our conference call that evening. I had time to let my thoughts roam and ended up thinking about our growing library; I had checked my library computer at our last rest stop and it was still chugging away downloading the gigabytes of books we’d queued up, that part was working well at least. I’m not a big fan of reading off of a screen so I decided to purchase an ultra-high-speed printer as soon as we reached my new ranch; I would simply print out the books I wanted to read, or more importantly, take with me to read on a hunting excursion.

Sonya sulked and moped the entire drive.

Our rental was at a farm about 30 miles outside of Oklahoma City, it was the full farmstead again with the furnished house available for use. As usual we avoided the house for the most part, it was nice to have the bathroom but easier to follow routine overall. We would be here for three nights. It had been an eight-hour drive to get here so after camp was set up we exercised the animals, did the chores and had our supper. Matilda had made us beef burritos with rice and beans; they were simply amazing and a very nice change. If she was trying to pull her share of the load she was doing a very good job.