Day 20: Oklahoma City, OK

Yesterday I left Dallas, TX for a short three and a half hour drive to Oklahoma City, OK. Along the way, I stopped at the G.W. Exotic Animal Memorial Park. I got to see lots of really neat animals: lions, tigers, bears (insert joke here), buffalo, donkeys, cheetahs, chimps, and the Capuchin monkey from Night at the Museum. I even got to play with a two month old tiger cub. That was awesome! I paid a bit extra to get a guided tour and learned that lots of the animals at the park were rescues; the stories were heartbreaking including 14 tigers left on the side of a hot summer road in a very tiny horse trailer. Many had amputations, and two died. Fortunately, the animals at the park seemed to be treated and looked after well.

Upon arriving in Oklahoma City I got to hang out with Rob Sullivan and his two year old daughter for a few hours and do laundry. We chatted about Wordpress and Umbraco, played with toys, and ate Tex-Mex. I ordered off-menu and had tostonies (fried plantain), empanadas, yucca, and rice and beans. Some of those items I haven’t had in 14 years. Yum!

Tonight I got to share Visual Studio Tips with folks from the Oklahoma City Developers Group. It was a small but well engaged crowd, and after my session we spent another 30 minutes or more talking about other topics including T4, community, and speaking. That made the $200 I paid for them to have a venue totally worth it! Afterwards a few folks and I headed nearby for some food (including BACON!) and continued the great discussions. If you’re a speaker, you should come check out Oklahoma City some time.

Also, I’m over the halfway point for this trip in miles and days. w00t! Seattle here I come (slowly)!

A monkey. The hands and feet on this guy were amazing: long fingers and toes.	Parrots
A bear. It was 100F outside, so the animals were all about staying still and as cool as possible.	A fox.
A bear and a (gorilla?) hanging out through the wire cages.	A lion.
Two newborn baby buffalo.	A newborn camel.
A lion.	This tiger has the right idea to keep cool.
This is not at all common. In the wild tigers are very much loners. Given the captivity upbringing that didn’t teach them that, these tigers are catching a nap together.	Another lion. Their roar is so deep and guttural; super impressive in person!
Another soaking tiger.	I got to play with the two month old tiger cub on the right a bit, what a thrill! The guy on the left is three weeks old but is getting over a cold so I couldn’t touch him.
Two (coyotes?)	A lion chilling in it’s cabin.
Sign in Rob’s office. Super geeky!	Rob and I decided that if we could build this and get a full rotation from the pieces, we could fix the Gulf oil crisis.
Habitat for Toymanity: we built a tower.	Me wearing her “programming glasses” as they’re called. She wasn’t too thrilled.

Tomorrow or Friday, I haven’t decided which yet, I hit the road for a 10-12 hour drive to Fort Collins, CO to speak at the Northern Colorado .NET User Group on Monday about Practical TDD with Visual Studio ALM.

Trip Log:

States Driven: PA, MD, WV, VA, TN, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, AR, TX, OK