Halliburton and Drywall

From Alliance I headed to Canton and picked up some steel at a plant by the name of Timkin. The load was 5 pieces of steel rod 9.5" in diameter and 20 feet long. They were headed to Duncan, Oklahoma. To Halliburton!
Halliburtons actual business, aside from war profiteering, is providing equipment for oil field exploration and extraction. So you can see why a war in the middle east might be in their financial interest. The steel rods, I would imagine, might be used to fashion the shaft for a oil drill.
The company has its origins in Duncan, in the southwest corner of the main body of Oklahoma. I delivered and waited the rest of that friday for a load. Then I got a message from my DM (driver manager) telling me I should just drive up to Oklahoma City for the weekend. I did so, although there was not a whole lot to do there either.
From the Petro on the southeast side of town I walked a few miles to the part of OKC known as "Bricktown." There is a canal, whether it has any purpose, historically or otherwise, I do not know, but now it gives the 16 screen theatre and the Hooters a very nice frontage.
The Bricktown Canal, OKC










As it happens it was St. Patrick's Day weekend and there was a parade. This parade had the feel and audience of a parade in a much smaller municipality, say one of abour 6,000 people rather than half a million. It was charming.
I drank some beers at a few places, The Bricktown Brewery, who made beers that looked good but tasted thin and Tapwerks, a great bar that has over 100 beers on tap. Then I saw Juno, which I liked a lot better than I thought i might. The next day I drank more and watched Bank Job which was not very intriguing which is not great for a bank heist movie.
Southeast OKC

On Monday morning I got a load assignment to drive down to Duke, which is really in the southwest corner of Oklahoma (not far from where i was but kind of a hike from OKC) where I picked up a load of sheetrock (or wall board or gypsum board or drywall or whatever you call it) destined for Sioux City, Iowa.
I don't know why this material has become so popular. If you have ever worked with it (I put drywall up in the laudry room of my parents basement) you know that it is garbage, cheap crappy crap that is terribly difficult to cut accurately and is very fragile (come on, haven't you ever, surprisingly easily, put your fist through a wall?)
I took it to Sioux City where I enjoyed a walk up the Loess Hills to a mall that I remembered from my cross Iowa bike trip and spent the afternoon in a Barnes and Noble and delivered in the morning. The very cold morning. The tarps were stiff and frosty. This cemented my decision to not continue driving into next winter. I really got to get this oven built.