Welcome to OKC - Sonic Has the Best Ice.

We drove into Oklahoma City in the middle of a hot, sultry July.  The heat was in you, on you and generally all around you unless you were somewhere with killer A/C.  Our family of (then) 4 was solidly packed, with our few belongings, into our well-travelled GMC Safari van.  We’d traversed the US from its northwest corner of Seattle, across Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Kansas to finally end our journey in Oklahoma City which we would call home for the next almost-three years.  We had no home (yet) and were booked into the cheapest extended-stay accommodation we could find - My Value Place off the I-44.  My feelings for My Value Place deserve their own post, so I’ll leave that alone for now.

My husband was to be starting school in September and we had to find a cheap house, set it up as best we could on our limited student-visa income, and start our new lives.  Even though we were native English speakers in an English-speaking country, and I had lived in the US before and revisited multiple times, there was still a huge amount of settling in to be done.  And I had seriously underestimated that.

However....

Okies are the friendliest people on the planet (well, of the ones I’ve met so far).

No, seriously.  These people just love everybody, whether they’ve met you or not.  You can be standing in line at Walmart, minding your own business and tuning out the warm conversation of the stranger behind you in line - only to find out that they’re actually talking to YOU.  As if you’re their neighbour.  They often seem genuinely interested in you.  And that’s BEFORE they find out that you’re a foreigner and that you have a cute accent and that you might know Steve Irwin.  Which I don’t.  But there’s no harm in asking, right?  And I’ve been asked.  A lot.

So when they find out that you’re new in town, and that you’ve had the good sense to come to good old Oklahoma (so underrated and amazing - just ask anyone there) - they cannot help you enough with your transition.

“Oh honey!  I’ve always wanted to go to Australia!  You have SUCH a cute accent!  Do you know Steve Irwin?  I just LOVE him!  Now if you need anything just ask.  Where're  you staying?  Okay, so your nearest Walmart Neighborhood Market is going to be about 2 miles away on NW 23rd. Know where that is?  Be sure and visit the National Cowboy Museum.  Bricktown is fun.  And Sonic has the best ice.”

Everybody we met was so helpful and welcoming.  And nearly everybody finished their orientation speech with “And Sonic has the best ice.”  I found this baffling.  I’d never had ice from anywhere recommended to me.  In fact, in Australia, ice from fast-food establishments is eyed with suspicion.  Aussies are sure that ice is a way of cheating us out of a full cup of soft drink, which is possibly true in The Land of Small Cups and No Free Refills. 

However, as we drove around town in that first couple of very hot months, we began to notice that by noon on any given day, outside the Sonic outlets would be a sandwich board reading:  “No ice.  Sold out.”  So eventually, we went and got a drink there to see what the deal was.  I ordered a Route 44 Strawberry Limeade, and....oh....my.....heaven in a cup.  What a delicious, thirst-slaking beverage that is, and I’ll be blowed if that ice - like perfect little mini-meteors - doesn’t make a good thing better.  I got it.  Sonic has the best ice.  It’s true.

Eventually we got our house, got set  up and settled in and before we knew it, we’d weathered our first spring in Tornado Alley and our first year in OKC was up.  New student families began to filter into town over the summer.  I welcomed them, oriented them and made sure they knew that Sonic has the best ice.  Just in case they were wondering.