More on Oklahoma City

I don't generally consider myself well travelled, however I have been to a few places other than Chicago which is where I was born and have spent my entire life (30+many, years). Oklahoma City is the only place I have ever been, where I can honestly say, I prefer to be home. I am not that far from home and yet this place feels incredibly foreign to me. I could feel it as soon as I landed in the airport. The first thing I noticed was I could not locate a recycle bin! The city is spread out and sprawling and there do not seem to be a lot of accessible public transportation options. No problem, right? At home, most of you know I try to walk or ride my bike most of the time anyway, so I assumed that would be easy enough here. Not so. It was bad enough trying to take a long leisurely walk on a warm sunny 70 degree day let alone today after their version of a "blizzard" with a lot of uncleared snow melting. There are no sidewalks so I had to walk along a four lane highway on an uneven embankment and I either walked through very wet snow or very wet grass where the snow had melted. Now do you know why I posted this picture? I am hoping my shoes will be dry by tomorrow so, well, so I can walk again. Even though my feet, shoes and socks were soaked, the sun was out and the fresh air felt so good. All in all, it was about a 1 1/2 hour walk. I also noticed, for obvious reasons, no one else is ever out on foot or bike. I honestly think this is the only place I have ever noticed something like that. At the hotel where I am staying (Extended Stay), there are still rooms that allow smoking, so the hallway smells like smoke and from what I understand, there is still smoking in the bars in the area. I automatically began to separate my recyclables and when I asked the front desk if they recycle, the response was surprising. Not only do they not recycle, but they did not even know where we could take our own recyclables should we want to take care of this ourselves.

However, all that being said, I do feel very much connected when I am in school at 105 Academy. The environment, the food, my classmates all make me really excited to be here so in a way, it is just as well that Oklahoma City holds very little for me other than what I really am here to focus on, Raw Living Cuisine!