After my hometown in Portugal, Stillwater, OK, is the place where I have lived the longest. Coming here 25 years after I saw it first does feel a bit strange. There is so much space and, especially now that more people are working from home and school is less full, it feels really bare. The city has developed more toward the west side, so the east part of town feels aged and half-abandoned.
In front of the Post Office downtown, the grass has not been maintained, so I wonder if the city has been cutting back on services to make up for lost tax revenue due to the pandemic. I have made quite a few purchases, so my ex-father-in-law says that for sure the economy will recover after my visit.
I drove to Oklahoma City this afternoon and, to be on the safe side, I turned on the GPS on my phone. I don't know what is wrong with OKC, but the Maps app on the iPhone was constantly changing routes and trying to send me to the strangest places: first it told me to go through I-35, then it told me to exit on Memorial, after which it tried to send me to I-35 again. I finally just gave up on it.
One of the consequences of having lived in so many places is that you tend to forget directions over time. I even forgot how far everything was. OKC is 70 miles away and it is common to drive that far just for work or, like I did, to have dinner with a friend. Many people gripe at Facebook, but I have to say that it has allowed me to stay in touch with or even find many of my old friends, like today's dinner date, who I had not seen in over 20 years.
Hurricane Sally finally made landfall. The hotel where I was supposed to stay had minimal damage, but the front door got knocked down by the strong winds. The pier that had been recently rebuilt and was to be inaugurated yesterday was severely damage, with half of it breaking off. Tropical storm Vicky has been named, so the next storm to form will be called Alpha.
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