Blake Shelton was finishing up his 23rd season on THE VOICE and decided to get back to his roots of touring and playing country music. He was kicking off his "BACK TO THE HONKY TONK" tour in his hometown of Oklahoma City. Sylvia and I had front row seats to the event!

We had a short, direct flight from San Antonio to Oklahoma City where we rented a car from Budget. We got turned around a little bit heading out of the airport but then found our way to the luxurious Omni hotel downtown chosen for it's proximity to the Paycom Center where the concert was being held. The first picture (above), Sylvia took as we flew above the clouds from San Antonio. The hotel photo was actually taken at night after the concert when it looked the most picturesque with the neon lighting. The picture to the right shows the Paycom Center from our room window. It was literally right across the street!

Sylvia took these photos during our 3 day stay. It shows the beautiful decor of the inside lobby.

The pictures below were taken also at different times during our stay and show some of the sights around the hotel both during the daytime and nighttime. That huge "feather" structure was beautiful and the pictures hardly do it justice.

We arrived at the hotel at about 7 p.m. Since it had been about 7 hours since we had eaten at the airport, both of us were hungry. Luckily, one of the things we wanted to visit in OKC was TOBY KEITH'S 'I Love this BAR AND GRILL'. As it turned out, it was less than a mile down the street from the hotel in an entertainment area known as BRICKTOWN! Here are some photos from there. Not shown were a number of items of memorabilia from Toby Keith all along the walls including pictures with other celebrities and some of his gold records! Of course, Sylvia had to get a tee shirt from there at the merchandise table as a souvenir. (PS: You can hardly see me, but I'm that good lookin' guy with the denim jacket standing at the entrance in the first picture.)

The next day, we got up late around 11 a.m. and went out for lunch at a local diner called Woodbridge. Great home cookin'. We also did a little shopping for toiletries and essentials, but with the concert starting at 7 p.m. and us getting up so late, we had very little time to do much else. We actually got into the concert building a little bit late. The first act, JACKSON DEAN, was already into his set when we were being seated. Although neither of us had ever heard of him, he turned in some fine country music and we both enjoyed his short time on stage! Then before Blake Shelton came on, a second "opening" act came on... someone a little more famous... Carly Pearce. Initially, Sylvia was not familiar with the name, but as she did her set, she recognized a couple of her songs including "Every Little Thing" which was #1 on the Billboard Country Music charts and "I hope you're Happy Now" and "Never want to be that girl" which won Grammy Awards. She also sang, "What he didn't do", a favorite of Sylvia, currently #5 on the Country Charts. Powerful vocals. Great entertainer.

Of course, when Blake Shelton hit the stage, the place erupted! He came on like the star he is.

Then this is what I had to deal with for the next two hours!!! Cheesh! You'd think that Sylvia never saw a cute country music singer with dimples before! But she was up and dancing and waving and hollering for the remainder of the show.

The show was fantastic. At one point, Carly Pearce came back on and did a number with Blake Shelton (middle photo above).

Now, the whole time leading up to the concert, I kept telling Sylvia that it was only going to be a great concert if Gwen Stefani made an appearance! And sure enough, about 1/2 way through Blake Shelton's set, he doubled down and brought out his better half! The crowd loved it! She started off with one of her big hits, "Don't Speak" and then they did another 3 numbers together. It was the highlight of my evening as I'm almost positive she was singing to me directly!

But my favorite part (other than Gwen Stefani showing up) was when Blake came out to the middle of the stage and performed by himself sitting on a stool without his band. At this point, he was very close to us, perhaps 35-40 yards away! It was intimate and he made it fun. I never realized just how funny he is as he cracked jokes with the crowd all night. His banter was spot on and the crowd ate it up!

Of course, we couldn't leave the building without getting a Blake Shelton tee shirt as a souvenir!

As we left the concert for the short walk home, Sylvia had what I jokingly referred to as one of her "senior" moments. We were about to exit the building when she suddenly realized that she didn't have her phone! We had stopped at the restroom after the show and looked there first, but no luck finding it there. Then we went to lost and found but it was not turned in. Finally, one of the workers asked where we were sitting, and he ran back to the section to look for it. About 20 minutes into it, I said to Sylvia, "Let me call your phone so that someone might hear it ringing." So I dial it and suddenly, the inside of her boot on her left foot starts ringing. We both look down and there it is. She forgot that she put it in her boot. Embarrassed, we quickly walked out of the building so we didn't have to face the guy who ran all the way down to our seats to look for it. We did stop at Lost & Found and told them that we found the phone before we left however!

The next day, we had planned to visit an outside festival with music and food trucks, however, as luck would have it, a cold front blew into Oklahoma City that weekend with temperatures dropping into the high 20's and wind gusts up to 24 miles per hour. An outside "anything" seemed like a terrible idea. We did visit a small indoor Antique Flea Market and then went to a place called Arbuckle's Mountain Fried Pies. We had eaten some pies on our last road trip through OKC and loved them. So we bought some breakfast pies with egg, cheese and sausage as well as about 15 other assorted pies to take home. We may have over-done it (which may be the understatement of the year)!

But it was another fun trip. To the left is a stand they had at the concert to celebrate Saint Patrick's day since the show was on March 17th. To the right is a picture of the sign from the Antique Flea Market. Sylvia bought some errings and souvenirs for Jeannette including a tee shirt, coffee cup and baseball cap. I bought a vintage dial phone for the house that I managed to pack into my suitcase. But unfortunately, we bought too much stuff to fit in our suitcases and had to buy a small suitcase at Walmart to fit the fried pies and other souvenirs that we purchased on the trip.

But we left happy and excited about our little trip to see Blake Shelton (and Gwen) in concert. Our gate was #14. The plane pictured was not our plane but Frontier had such a pretty plane with a lion on the tail, I took that one instead. The statue is of Will Rogers outside the Oklahoma City airport, THE WILL ROGERS WORLD AIRPORT! In the last picture, I am not sure how I always manage to look at the wrong place on the camera while taking a selfie, but I do! At least Sylvia is looking in the right direction of the lens. (I guess I have my "senior" moments, too!)

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