Oklahoma, Norman: Cheerful Catching Up

Norman and Oklahoma City were two places in Oklahoma that we wanted to visit, so Kyle could catch up with more of his friends, whom he hadn't seen for a few years. As the two places were only about 20-25 minutes from each other by car, we have chosen to write one journal entry for our visit. The people that we had planned to see in Oklahoma were Marcy and Mike, Yumi and Jeff, and Lisa and Kerry.

Kyle attended university at OU (The University of Oklahoma) from 1993-1997 and, during that time, was on the varsity cheerleading squad. That was where he met Jeff and Marcy; they were on the squad with him in his first year there. Kyle met Yumi during the summer when he taught cheerleading camps for the National Cheerleaders Association (NCA); Jeff and Marcy also taught camps for NCA, and they all worked at the same camps on occasion, sometimes very often.

We jolted awake but then fell asleep again quite soon after the animals had left us alone

Marcy and Kyle went to Bogota, Colombia, to teach a ten day cheerleading camp, during the Christmas holidays one year whilst at OU, to a large competitive cheerleading team there. Yumi and Kyle went to Mexico City, Mexico, for a long weekend during the Spring one year to judge a cheerleading competition. Jeff and Kyle were on the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Opening Ceremonies cheerleading choreography team and they both performed in the ceremonies in July of that year. As you can see, Kyle has been to many exotic places with his cheer pals in Oklahoma, so it was only fitting that he pay a special visit to them during our year travelling around the world.

Even though Jeff and Yumi were good friends during their university years, they didn't start dating until after they both graduated. Now they are married and have two very cute little kids, Jacob and Meya. Marcy started dating Mike after she graduated from OU and they got married a few years ago; they now have a little boy, Griffin, who was also very cute. We haven't mentioned Mike because he was not a cheerleader and probably didn't know the last thing about the sport; it's no wonder that Dan and Mike tended to have conversations together whilst Kyle, Jeff, Yumi and Marcy all talked about cheerleading and what everyone who they had cheered with was doing these days.

Norman was officially the first stop on our five week road trip across the southwest United States, as we worked our way from Arkansas to California, to catch our flight from Los Angeles to a few (many, actually) South Pacific islands. We had left Fort Smith, Arkansas, after saying goodbye to Kyle's dad (Leon) and many other relatives of his. The drive to Norman took just under three hours and we found our way to Jeff's and Yumi's house quite easily. We had planned to stay the first night in Norman at their place and then the second night in Oklahoma City at Marcy's and Mike's house.

When we arrived at their house, Jeff and Yumi had a feast laid out on the countertop bar in their kitchen, and Jeff was in the middle of preparing hamburgers and chicken to be cooked on their backyard barbecue grill. Marcy and Mike were already there and all of the kids were running around the house like crazy; Meya and Griffin were crawling like crazy, actually. As soon as we walked in the door, we were offered a beer and Kyle began to catch up with everyone.

A short while later, Towry and her husband (Adam) came over to have dinner and visit with us for a while; Kyle knew Towry from cheerleading, too, and it was a nice surprise for him to see her when we were there. Jeff did a great job with the food, we both enjoyed a grilled chicken sandwich and some sides. Towry's baby must have had colic because she would not stop crying when they arrived and they ended up spending most of their time upstairs, trying to calm her down. Once they managed to do that, they came downstairs and ate quickly before leaving to take her home for the night.

Once they had left, Marcy and Mike departed a little while later in order to take Griffin home to put him to bed. Then it was the six of us: us with Jeff, Yumi, Jacob and Meya. It was soon time for Jacob and Meya to go to sleep, so baths were had and the kids were put to bed. With all of the kids getting to go to bed at such a decent time, we started getting tired ourselves and went to bed after visiting with Jeff and Yumi for a while. Just before we went to bed, though, Jeff broke out a large box of cheesecake slices from The Cheesecake Factory; we ate some very heavy, but extremely tasty, cheesecake and then drifted off to sleep quite easily.

The next morning, we talked with Jeff and Yumi some more and played with their kids. Jacob loved playing soccer (that's football for the British people reading this, as if you didn't know, haha) and Meya loved trying to stand up to work on her balancing skills - she's no doubt walking by now, since this journal entry is one month late! The day before, we had made last minute plans with Kyle's former boss from the Buckle clothing store in Norman, where he worked during his university days, to have lunch with her and her family, so we said goodbye to Jeff and Yumi for a couple of hours before leaving for lunch.

Lisa and Kerry, her husband, had three kids, but only Mackenzie and Bryce made it to the lunch; Allie was at a sleepover with a friend of hers. Kyle was shocked to see how grown up the two kids were, especially since Mackenzie was born during Kyle's first year at OU! The craziest thing for Kyle was that Mackenzie had just made her middle school cheerleading team and her coach was a guy named OJ, someone whom Kyle had helped coach when he was in high school!

We met them at a new restaurant in Norman called BJ's Grill; the food was really good. We each ordered the same dish that Kerry ordered, an open-faced pot roast sandwich with grilled vegetables on the side. Lisa and Kerry were very kind and bought lunch for us, which really helped with our travel budget this year. Kyle had a great time catching up with them and finding out about Lisa's new job; Dan had fun meeting them and talking with the family, too.

Wal-Mart and Best Buy were on our list of things to do after lunch, or on our list of places to go, whichever way you want to read it. At Wal-Mart, we bought a car shade for the rental car we had picked up in Fort Smith because the sun heated the inside of the car up quite a bit, and we didn't enjoy burning our backsides on the pleather seats every time we sat down in the car. At Best Buy, we bought a protective bag for the underwater digital camera case that we have been carrying around with us all year. We decided it would be a good thing to protect the case, which we plan on using in the South Pacific when we are there in September.

OU's campus was really beautiful when we walked through it after running our errands at the two stores. School had not started back yet, so campus was empty and quiet. We still enjoyed walking around, though, and admiring all of the changes that had been made since Kyle was a student there. Dan remembered the campus and large football (that's American football for the British people reading this) stadium, which holds over 80,000 people, since he had visited OU with Kyle for a football game back in October 2004. Since that trip, an additional set of upper bleachers and private boxes had been added on the east side of the stadium, increasing the capacity even further!

Norman was a small town and we had seen everything we had wanted to see, so we went back to Jeff's and Yumi's house after making a quick stop to buy gas for the car and to grab a shake from Braum's, to cool off a bit from walking around outside in the heat of the afternoon. We visited again with Jeff and Yumi, and their two kids, before saying goodbye and making our way up to Oklahoma City to see Marcy, Mike and Griffin. Kyle was sad to say goodbye, but he knew that he would see them again next year during NCA's 60th Anniversary reunion party next year, which was not too far in the future.

Driving north on Interstate 35, we were able to see many new businesses and residential areas, plus many more that were in the process of being built. When we arrived at Marcy's and Mike's house, which was very close to the Oklahoma City capitol building, Marcy told us that many people were moving to Oklahoma from the west and east coasts of the US because the property prices were so much lower, and also because Oklahoma City was one of the most central points in the US, making it easy to travel anywhere else in the country.

Marcy and Mike gave us a quick tour of their house and then introduced us to their five cats. Five "indoor" cats, that is; they had a few strays who lived outside their home and ate food that was set out for them. Griffin was all over the place, crawling as fast as we could blink our eyes; we know that he must be walking by now, too. When they asked us what we wanted to do that evening, Kyle suggested that we look at the downtown Oklahoma City area called Bricktown, which had undergone a lot of revitalisation over the past ten years. It was an area that Dan had never been to and Kyle was curious to see the new canals and other points of interest that had been redeveloped.

Walking around Bricktown, we built up our appetites, so Marcy and Mike took us to the Paseo Arts District to have dinner at Galileo Bar and Grill; we sat outside because the weather was quite nice that evening. We ordered some beers and were appalled at the immensely slow service from our waitress; it was on the verge of non-existence. When we finally had some drinks and food in front of us, Griffin also had his dinner, which Marcy had packed. To start, we ate some yummy dips with baked pita chips and grilled shrimp. For our main course, we chose gourmet pizzas that tasted excellent. Marcy and Mike bought our dinner for us, another nice treat from some good friends in Oklahoma!

Back at their house, Mike went to bed because he had to work early the next morning. While Marcy showed Kyle several old cheerleading photos, Dan watched television and played with Griffin and the cats, depending on which was nearest to him at the time. Griffin finally had to go to bed, but we know he enjoyed his (slightly) later evening staying awake and playing with Dan. At that point, we caught a case of the yawns, as did Marcy, and we all called it a night.

During the night, a couple of the cats decided to jump on top of each of us, at different points throughout the evening. We jolted awake but then fell asleep again quite soon after the animals had left us alone. In the morning, there was no stopping Grace, the most flirtatious of the cats, when she decided it was definitely time for both of us to wake up, so she jumped up on Dan, stuck her nose in his face, and then did the same to Kyle, after she knew that Dan was awake.

Since we were leaving Oklahoma that day to go to our next destination (Amarillo, Texas), we wanted to get on the road as soon as we could, but we first went to breakfast with Marcy and Griffin. The first place we checked out was Ingrid's, but that restaurant had stopped serving breakfast two minutes before we arrived. We then went to Classen Grill, a greasy diner (the best kind!) in downtown Oklahoma City; they served breakfast 24 hours a day, so there was no problem getting served there.

The food was standard American breakfast food, but there were some more exotic choices on the menu, too. Kyle fared well with his pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon, but Dan made a mistake choosing the breakfast taquitos, because the meat was not the greatest. He ended up enjoying the meal somewhat, but would have preferred Kyle's plate instead. We can't remember what Marcy ate, but we know that Griffin had eaten a lot of Cheerios cereal, by looking at the floor under his seat when we left the diner; there were hundreds of Cheerio pieces spread around on the carpet.

Marcy drove us back to her house so we could pack our things and hit the road. We said goodbye but, again, it was an easy goodbye because Kyle would be seeing her again in 2008. Mike had left really early that morning and he was kind enough not to wake us up when he left, so we told Marcy to thank him for everything and also to say goodbye to him. Before we knew it, we were on the road to Amarillo to see another couple of Kyle's friends from OU, Jeb and Caroline, and a friend of Kyle's who was in his start group at the company he works for, Jason.