Monday, July 16, 2012

Oklahoma Trail Days 4-5: Oklahoma City

We left Little Rock early on some day that I can't remember because I have completely lost track of what day it is. Arkansas is a really beautiful state; it's very flat and untouched. Before we left AR, we hit up one more BBQ place. Rick's Ribs & BBQ was in a building that definitely used to be a Hardee's but was converted into a sit-down restaurant. Despite the waitress calling me darlin' 3 times and calling Luke hon' several more, we had a really enjoyable experience. I thought it was no comparison to Central in Memphis, but Luke liked it a lot being as he got 2 kinds of meat on his sandwich: pork loin and pulled pork, seen here:

Our next stop was Oklahoma City. We intended to spend the night here after going to the OKC Redhawks game. They are the AAA affiliate of the Astros. This was definitely the best AAA stadium I've seen so far (which is a lot...). The stadium is located in Bricktown, and they've built a really cool plaza outside with statues of lots of the greats.



 We were also really impressed with the ballpark food at this place. Not only was it different than your typical hamburger, hotdog, etc, but it was cheap, even for Minor League. First we tried the Italian cheesesteak, which was a cheesesteak with mozzarella and marinara. AWESOME. 
This photo doesn't really do it justice because the delicious add ons are on the bottom.

We were then bewildered to find a speciality hotdog stand with bizarre things like a hotdog topped with pulled pork or MACARONI AND CHEESE. Turn up your nose in disgust if you may, but the mac and cheese dog was awesome. I like to think of it as a slightly more sophisticated version of a childhood favorite of mac and cheese with cut-up hotdogs. 



As per the usual with Minor League Baseball, we got really cheap, really good seats. We had so much fun at this game (even though the Redhawks lost) that we decided to spend the next day in OKC and come back for another game the next day. 



On Sunday morning (I figured out what day it was!), we found a local church. It was really energetic and responsive, and my first experience of a church such as this. The band had at least 40 people on all kinds of instruments (read: steel drum and blues guitar). There was one point where we were both expecting to hear people speak in tongues at any moment. Despite that, it was rejuvenating to hear the Word. We hit up the outlet mall in OKC on Sunday too, and I have a feeling I'll be making a couple of trips there while we're here. For lunch, we went to Toby Keith's I Love This Bar! It was really cool inside; there were benches made out of truck gates, saddle disco balls, among other things. It just got even better when we discovered that active duty military get a free cheeseburger, fries, and drink at this place! Toby Keith is a wonderful supported of the troops.






After lunch, we got from frozen custard per my dad's recommendation at Freddy's Frozen Custard, and it was perfect for a 100 degree day. We headed back to Bricktown for another Redhawks game. The game was almost empty, so our $4 lawn seats (military discount, holla!) turned into 15th row behind home plate. As we were walking the stadium, Luke volunteered us to participate in a game, Order Up, during the third inning. Basically, the mascot was flipping burgers (bean bags) over his head to me to catch on a tray and then flip over my head to Luke to catch. We were competing against another couple, and we certainly annihilated them, winning 2 XL Redhawks tees. The coolest part was waiting in the visitors dugout, and I got an unclose view of Nick Green, who Braves fans will remember from just a few years ago. More helmet ice cream was also involved in this game, as well. We really loved Oklahoma City, and we'll definitely be coming back here in 2 weekends for more Redhawks games! 

Action shot of my burger flipping' skillz










1 comment:

  1. i love this post. it makes me wish i was your child so I can have bbq and helmet ice cream!!

    ReplyDelete