El Reno, Oklahoma

Once you cross the Mississippi and head further west along Interstate 40, there’s not much except open prairie and the occasional billboard promising something exciting just a few miles up ahead. “Paintball Arkansas” sounded promising, though I resisted temptation. But headed out of Oklahoma City, I was seduced by billboard after billboard for the Cherokee Trading Post. Authentic Native American Arts and Crafts. Moccasins. Live Buffalo. OK, we have to stop. Sure enough, there was a buffalo, lounging in a grassy pen overlooking the interstate, with a sign reading “Our State Animal.” Across the parking lot is a giant fiberglass Indian, tomahawk in hand, beckoning motorists like myself. There’s a huge mural near the buffalo that depicts the forced relocation of the Cherokees from Georgia and Tennessee to Oklahoma in 1838, known as the “Trail of Tears.” As for the Cherokee Trading Posts (there are more than one), they arrived when a family of gift-store proprietors from Cleveland decided to set up outposts along this trail in the mid-20^th century. I bought a ceramic buffalo Christmas ornament to remind me of the place which, like the Cherokee themselves and the caged buffalo overlooking the freeway, America has passed by.

My Travels with Samantha

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