OKLAHOMA...such an unexpected favorite of so many of us...

In Norman Oklahoma there is a place called Bricktown...it's comparable to Gateway in Salt Lake City only bigger with a small river winding through with boat rides. A big gathering place for people to hang out. In fact it was the big Harley Davidson rally, with thousands of harley riders down there, quite entertaining, the bikes are awesome.
Because the Timberhouse pictured below had fed us such a big lunch we were not hungry when arriving at our destination. We walked to Bricktown and saw the movie: UP, if you havent already seen it...well its a great summer "must see" movie. Then how could we resist the ice cream next door afterward. we always went to bed exhausted.
The next morning we could sleep in and not board bus for the day until maybe 1:30 (thus meaning that we would arrive back at 11:30 p.m. and sitting in a cold air-conditioned venue all day), however I started whining to Carl, oh please lets stay here today all day and miss the concert and just sleep and shop.
Then we concured that we were here to be apart of this tour experience and were going to finish to the end. Not everyone did this, there were some who stayed there all day...some shopped and some were resting voices and had respiratory illness and required to stay in bed.
I was so glad we didnt give in to the shopping & resting as this turned out to be the VERY BEST RECEIVED CONCERT and this is when we met Lloyd Newell for a picture and a short visit.



The hospitality at the Kansas Timberhouse Restaurant was unbelievable...


Imagine owning two restaurants one each end of town and having 5-6 buses of hungry adults that you need to be prepared for on their schedule! They fed us late lunch the first time and then 2 days later we returned for lunch again.




This concert was so well received, standing ovations like crazy, the cd's had the largest amount sold, something like 23,000.00 of them that night.Even the choir said they could see and hear the crowd. Oklahoma, well, I have never seen anything like it and it really did suprise us. In the buses afterward the choir seemed energized more so than I had seen them after a concert. We love you Oklahoma.

I have privatly journaled some extra stories of the trials that was given to the organizers of this tour of getting this tour into Oklahoma, it had been the one place that was really felt that was needed to be and yet so many obstacles kept getting in the way.

Whats important is that the Lord prevailed and the work was done and it was exceptionally received reminding us really who is in charge.



Here is the Liberty Jail site which is Independence (forgot to post it previously), a visitor center was built around it. Inside the choir was asked to chose a song to sing there, they sang "Praise to the man". I held up just fine, until outside in the bus I called my sister to tell her about how the trip was going actually I was leaving a message...then I broke down and just hung up. Poor thing, she was at girls camp and I was crying and mumbling and she couldn't understand me and thought our father had died. Sorry for the scare sis!

Oklahoma does have beautiful fields and plains, huge farmlands and big open skies with fabulous cloud arrangements. We could not take our eyes off of the scenery as we rode all day and into the night to our next destination Red Rock Amphitheater in Denver Colorado. Just imagine Tuachan in St. George only 10 times bigger.
I will post about that this week and that will finish up the 13 day tour.