Heat blasted my face through the open window, whipping tangles into my ponytail and vaporizing the sweat on my forehead.
Digital numbers showed dark against the bright green car dash display: 97 degrees.
Welcome to June in Oklahoma.
When I first moved to the state, I’m not sure what I expected, but if I’d had any questions about the brutality of summers here, they were answered quickly.
It was 117 degrees – in the shade – the day my family moved in ...a big change from the Great Lakes area where I’d lived for most of my childhood.
My family had to buy sleeping bags rated for use in below freezing temperatures after arriving in Michigan on a camping trip in June 2007, only to find that the lake water was too cold to swim in and the campfire was not enough to keep us warm.
Yet I loved the Great Lakes region. I cherish those memories.
So, for a girl used to needing a jacket year-round, getting out of an air-conditioned car into the clay-hard heat of Oklahoma was quite an adjustment.
Back in Ohio, the idea of 100-degree heat occurring anywhere other than a desert would have been as unbelievable to me as the blood-red clay-enriched water dotting Oklahoma’s pastures.
This was going to be different.
As I got to know Oklahoma, I wasn’t sure I could love this place.
Everything from its r d dirt to rural culture to country music was foreign to me.
Fast forward eight years and I’m driving across Route 66, sipping an ice-cold Sprite, windows down, singing fearlessly as Ed Sheeran blares from the speaker in a beat-up Mazda that’s A/C gave up its ghost years ago.
And it’s 97 degrees outside.
I have grown so used to the sight of red dirt, that I no longer notice it. I’ve come to accept the hot summers and love the
I’ve come to accept the hot summers and love the warm winters – nothing compares to being able to play soccer outside on New Year’s Day in shorts and a t-shirt.
I’ve developed an understanding of country music’s appeal – although I’d pick
Ed Sheeran over it, any day.
And I’ve grown to respect the slower pace and sense of family and community that prevails at social events here.
I miss the glorious fall color of Indiana’s water reservoirs, the beauty of unmarred snowfall, summer sunsets lighting up mountains of clouds, and being able to go outside without sunglasses on.
The Great Lakes region forever holds a special place in my heart, but so does Oklahoma, now.
Growing up in Kansas, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio, I never really felt like I had a home state. And I still don’t.
I don’t share the same fierce loyalty to Oklahoma that many of my friends here have – I’ll never have an opinion on OU vs OSU, for instance – but this state matters to me.
I love this place – even its crazy ridiculous heat.