Wichita Mountain Blues

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Oklahoma has mountains, in case you didn't know... 

 
 

I finally got the chance to do an overnight stay on a video trip! I actually booked two separate jobs for the Army base at Ft. Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma. When they scheduled back to back shoots, I knew I could stay down there and play around in the Wichita Mountains and shoot some footage-something that I've always wanted to do.

The Wichita Mountains aren't big. They've been worn down over many millennia. One of my favorite things about Oklahoma is the varied geography. There are many places that, if someone just dropped you there and asked you to name what state you were in, you wouldn't be able to name where you were. The Wichita Mountains are one of those places. It feels like the idyllic Old West from a Hollywood movie. There are buffalo but they are a bit camera shy. The prairie dogs, who are not camera shy, have their own turnout and you can park right next to them. I didn't get the chance to go that far into the reserve, but I will in a later visit.

The drive up Mount Scott is amazing. There are several turnouts on the way up. The view from the top is a wonderful change of pace from the rolling hills and plains of Central Oklahoma. Again, the rock formations, wild flowers, and cacti make it feel more like the Southwest than the plains. 

When you're done exploring the Wichitas, head up to Meers for a hamburger and check out the seismographs. Believe it or not, Oklahoma is seismically active.

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Patrick Kirk

No one knows the exact day Patrick Kirk was born, because he was carried into town by a pack of wild coyotes, but the end of March seems to have some consensus built around it. The townsfolk hadn’t much need for a coyote-raised wild boy seein’ as they already had a town idiot. So, they set Patrick off with the next traveling circus that rolled through town. It was there that the young boy learned of books and math and writing and other cultural offerings from Martha, the kindly old bearded lady, and her husband, Harold, the world’s tallest midget. In between shows, he would explore each new town, never having the chance to make friends with children his age, mostly because they didn’t speak coyote… However, it was on one such trek in his later teen years that Patrick happened upon a small cinema playing an engagement of Major League II. From then on, he knew that he must dedicate his life to motion pictures. The members of the circus were sad to see him go, some angry calling cinema ‘beneath them’, but Patrick took his leave and headed off to university to study the filmic arts. Over nearly half a decade of study, Patrick learned from notables such as Fritz Kiersch, director of Children of the Corn, and Gray Fredrickson, producer of the Godfather Trilogy. Patrick has worked locally in the Oklahoma City market as a grip, camera operator, and editor. He has directed a number of short films and commercial projects and aspires to do more. When not in the editing suite or on set, Patrick can be found relaxing at local sporting events or playing a round of golf. He is particularly fond of poker and has been known to frequent the local casinos. Patrick also experiments with cooking and can make a mean batch of tacos. Among things he still would like to accomplish, Patrick hopes to fly to the moon one day and get into an old fashioned pistols at dawn duel; preferably both at the same time.