Oklahoma

Year of First Visit – 1993
Point of Entry – Will Rogers Airport (Oklahoma City)

Some people wouldn't count my first two visits to Oklahoma as being legitimate. The first was in Oklahoma City on a flight to Texas and the second was a few days later in Tulsa on a flight home from Texas. We didn't get off either plane.

So even if you dispute our original stake in the Sooner State, they did mark us for further Oklahoma travels. For on that trip to Texas via Oklahoma my wife and I both got our first "real" jobs.

Just a couple months later my wife, my mother-in-law, and I buckled ourselves into the cab of the U-Haul and, car in tow, drove through Oklahoma on our move. That was the first of several trips across the state. I don't remember the name of the town we spent the night in but, like our first stops in the state, we were filled with anticipation of the future.

So you're free to question the legitimacy of my first claim to Oklahoma. That's how it worked for the folks in the state's land rush, too. Like them, I know what I claim and I plan on holding onto it.