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The plan is going to be a little bit off until I get to Key West. Today I drove through Oklahoma, Kansas, and stopped in Columbia, MO.

For the first meal of the day I stopped in Oklahoma City at Cimarron Steak House. The place was really enormous to the point where they had wagons hanging from the ceiling. The waiter was very friendly, however, I ordered a medium rare steak and I got a probably medium well done one instead. I’m not one to whine and send things back to the kitchen, and the reality was that the steak was pretty good even if it was cooked a little too much, but I think a nice juicy medium rare steak would have been much better

After eating I headed over to the location where the Alfred P Murrah building once stood before the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. I imagine that in a few years there will be permanent memorials like this in New York and Shanksville, PA for 9/11 (I think the Pentagon memorial is complete). The street where the bomb detonated has been replaced with a reflecting pool with two large gates displaying 9:01, the moment before the blast and 9:03, the moment afterwards. In the area where the actual building once stood are empty chairs for each victim. I was a bit surprised after over 14 years how many people were visiting on a rainy Sunday afternoon, but certainly people still remember.

I headed back north to Kansas and stopped for a quick bite to eat at Sirloin Stockade in Ottawa, KS. This is a chain that has a few dozen locations across several of the plains states and offers a buffet that you pay for by the pound. For the price that actually works out really well. I loaded up on ribs and it cost be about $4, but I think that the ribs at Cruiser’s Cafe 66 were better.

I ended the day in Columbia, Missouri and Foodio54 recommended that I eat at Sophia’s, so I did. I ordered the Ravioli Aragosta, which is ravioli with shrimp and lobster and it was just fantastic. The ravioli was served with a mushroom sauce with tomatoes (which I sometimes don’t like, but this was good). The restaurant was pretty classy, which was surprising for a college town On that note, being a Buckeye fan from Ohio I was horrified to see a giant yellow “M” on one of the overpasses, Missouri or not it was offensive

Tags: Big Road Trip