Next up: Oklahoma

October is always a busy racing season for me. I have noticed that in 2009 and 2010, I ran the most number of races in October. This year will keep that autumn running tradition alive.

Our next stop: Madill, Oklahoma for Alice in Runner-land 10k. For a little education, here's some information you may or may not have known about Oklahoma:

1. The world's first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935.

2. Turner Falls Park in Davis is the oldest park in Oklahoma. Many springs from the world famous Arbuckle Mountains form Honey Creek that cascades down a seventy-seven foot fall to a natural swimming pool making the majestic Turner Falls the largest waterfall in Oklahoma. Might have to check this out!

3. There is an operating oil well on state capitol grounds called Capitol Site No. 1. How weird is that?!

4. Phillip H. Sheridan, George A. Custer and William T. Sherman were the founders of the USA's main artillery fort at Fort Sill.

5. Born in 1879 on a large ranch in the Cherokee Nation near what later would become Oologah, Oklahoma, Will Rogers was first an Indian, a cowboy then a national figure. Will Rogers was a star of Broadway and 71 movies of the 1920s and 1930s, a popular broadcaster and wrote more than 4,000 syndicated newspaper columns.

6. Boise City, Oklahoma was the only city in the United States to be bombed during World War II. On Monday night, July 5, 1943, at approximately 12:30 a.m., a B-17 Bomber based at Dalhart Army Air Base (50 miles to the south of Boise City) dropped six practice bombs on the sleeping town.

7. An Oklahoman, Sylvan Goldman, invented the first shopping cart. think of him next time you see one miles from a Target sitting all alone on a sidewalk.

8. Tahlequah, Oklahoma is the Tribal capital of the Cherokee Nation.

9. Bob Dunn a musician from Beggs invented the first electric guitar 1935.

10. Oklahoma is bordered by six states: Texas to the south and west, Arkansas and Missouri to the east, Kansas to the north and Colorado and New Mexico at the tip of the northwestern Oklahoma panhandle. Do you know which state is bordered by more? (Jeopardy question, come on!)