oklahoma city, oklahoma

food walk & community clean-up on august 11 & 12, 2021

about halfway through the walk, chauncey & noah reach oklahoma city, a low-slung, sprawling metropolis smack in the middle of the state, & right on the line where the western reaches of the verdant ozark and ouachita mountains give way to the “big sky” country of the great plains.

we are hosted with great warmth by natalie & jordan, the former of whom coordinates litter clean-ups around the whole city for okc beautiful, & then jodie, a lovely dog foster-mom & research nurse.

at the farmers market, we try our first impromptu clean-up, inviting folks to pick up trash with us by the parking lot, & it’s a huge hit! the following week, we make 40 burritos & hand them out to folks in the downtown area. the next day, we co-host a clean-up event in wheeler park, where a dozen volunteers come together to pick up & document over 2,000 pieces of trash.

the whole while, noah, chauncey, and sian, who comes to visit, are charmed by the robust local art scene. it seems like every neighborhood has some annual festival going on every weekend! we also learn much about the history and contemporary state of property law in oklahoma, which is complicated by the ambiguous legal relationship between the state and the native american tribes — we will dive into this more in an upcoming blog post.