Each year, around Thanksgiving, I, my wife Kim, and (now) the 3 boys, head due west for the enchanting land of Western Oklahoma.  That sounds a bit like the beginning line of a National Lampoon movie, but such has been the routine (at least for me) for the last 7 years (Kim has been going back since her initial ‘vacation’ East in 1996).  Kim’s entire family is from either the panhandle of Oklahoma, or Southwestern Kansas.  It really is a magical place… and, apparently, they all decided to stay…for some reason.

I don’t really mind the trip.  It usually falls at a time where even the nothingness that is Oklahoma seems like a vacation, and I usually welcome it.  This year was the first trip with the boys, and we decided (our bank account decided) to drive instead of flying, as we normally do.  We decided to take about 3 1/2 days to get out there, not knowing how the boys would do with the monotony of the driving, and not really wanting to do the entire 21 hours straight ourselves.  The boys did great.  Between their ‘discs’ and the truckload of Hot Wheels that they brought with them, they occupied themselves for the vast majority of the trip, with little to no brawling.  PTL.

Being a photographer, and the fact that Kim’s entire family knows I’m a photographer, I usually have a small bit of equipment with me on the trip.  This time, because of some additional projects that got planned for me, I had a bit more.  Not really an issue…I really do like the projects.  I’ll post some of the images from those later.  But, what really interested me this trip was….actually, I should go back a step.  One of the sides of Kim’s family lives outside a town called Keys, Oklahoma, which barely even shows up on Google Maps.  Her grandparents have lived there for over 60 years.   They live in a structure called a quonset.  Never heard of one?  Me either.  Picture a huge, round, grain storage container, roughly 60 feet in diameter.  Cut it in half, and tip the sucker over on it’s side so it forms a dome top.  Well they got one of those, and built a house under it.  While inside, you’d never imagine what the outside looked like.  It looks and feels just like any single-family home anywhere.  Of all of the images I took while we were there, none of them were of this fascinating place.  Nice one.

Anyway, here are some images from AROUND the home, but not of the actual home itself.  Maybe next year…

The place is really one that time has passed by.  There are remnants from their farming past, old vehicles that were ‘some-day’ projects, toys from decades ago (they made them differently then), and an aged earth that is reminiscent of a post-apocalyptic future.  I only scratched the surface this time, but I hope to really document the place next time we visit.  Here is a taste.  Have a great weekend!