Heart of America: Day 4 and Day 5

On day 4 of this chapter, I left Dallas and headed up to Durant, OK where my cousin is a math professor at the university there. It was nice to see him and his wife and they were nice enough to let me stay at their house for a couple of nights. On the first day I was at their house, my cousin gave me a tour of the university campus, his garden, and Lake Texoma. He has a lot of different vegetables in his garden including cucumbers, okra, tomatoes, green beans, and rhubarb. With all of the vegetables from his garden, he and his wife make a lot of different homemade food items including pickles, relish, jams, and wine. Lake Texoma is a large reservoir on the boarder of Texas and Oklahoma. It was interesting to see the flood planes since the the lake's water level fluctuates dramatically over the course of the year (and year-to-year).

The next day, my cousin and I got up early and drove to his secret blackberry location. This secret location is a farmer's field where a fire had come through and burnt some of the farm equipment in the field. After the fire, birds congregated around the destroyed equipment and blackberries grew and spread all over the field. My cousin befriended the farmer and now picks blackberries religiously during the summer to use eat throughout the year and make into wine. There were more blackberries than any small group of people can pick. We picked over 3 gallons of berries in just under 4 hours. In addition to the blackberries, I also left with scratches and splinters on my arms and hands from the blackberry canes -  a small price to pay for the berries. After picking, we had burgers and hot dogs with my cousin's neighbor. Their neighbor had a endless supply of fascinating stories throughout his travels.