So far on our March Bug Trip we had encountered a snowstorm, sleet, freezing fog, and a chill that required layering on as much fleece as I’d packed. By the time we approached Oklahoma City, I was ready to uncork a bottle of wine and sit by a fire.

The Oklahoma capital spreads miles from its center. Through Airbnb Harry booked a night with a Methodist minister and his wife on their sixty-four-acre estate a stretch from downtown. I hadn’t given any thought to the 1995 Oklahoma bombing, or at least had written it off as the work of crazed sadists. Timothy McVeigh was executed in 2001, and his accomplice Terry Nichols is behind bars serving a life sentence. I thought that was the end of it, but apparently the terrorism still weighs heavily on OC citizens. When we called Reverend Bill to let him know our ETA, he gave us the combination to the gate, a large iron barricade that opens after certain buttons are pushed. The driveway is nearly half a mile of winding one-lane macadam leading to a capacious home that Bill and Kathryn keep locked down with a security alarm.

It was clear that we had entered the Wild West.

Bill gave us a brief tour of the house. He had been a helicopter pilot in the Vietnam War, and the walls of his office are lined with photos of flying machines. Models of airplanes and helicopters decorate his wide desk, and several plaques honoring his war efforts sit on bookcases. I tried to get him to talk about some of his rescue missions in Vietnam, but he preferred to discuss his work as a minister and head of the community entrepreneurs group.

Kathryn offered us a glass of wine and we sat down to compare notes about hosting guests through Airbnb. Harry and I have been renting out a treehouse in Vermont for the past five years, but they were new at it. Kathryn had spruced up their backyard swimming pool and hot tub and Bill was in the process of building a suite in the garage to expand the business.

We finished our wine and asked where we could have dinner. Bill suggested we go to the German restaurant ten miles away—the only eatery within a reasonable drive. I hadn’t realized how far apart things are in Oklahoma, but I told them a German restaurant would be fine and that my ancestors came from Germany. I must have failed to mention that my forefathers arrived in America in the mid-eighteenth century and that they quickly forgot how to speak their native language.

“The chef makes great schnitzel and the sausages are to die for. You must go,” Bill said.

Kathryn called the restaurant to tell them we were coming. Apparently she also mentioned that my people hailed from Germany. She must not have added that they did their hailing two hundred years ago.

When we arrived at the restaurant, George the owner was waiting for us, saving a table in the tavern close to a country music band in full swing. The music was loud and I could barely hear George, who chattered away in German. I had to tell him that I wasn’t up on my German. Undeterred, he ordered us two steins of German beer (which he imports from the homeland) and appetizers, none of which we were allowed to pay for (me being German and all). We thought we should order something else that we could pay for, so we got a small pizza.

While we were munching the appetizers, some sort of German eggroll, George brought over his younger brother Mike and introduced him to us. Mike greeted me in what sounded like German, but again I could barely hear him over the country music.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak German,” I yelled. He switched to English, which he spoke better than his brother. He said he was glad to meet us and said Reverend Bill was a good friend.

We were halfway through our dark beer and eggrolls when George came from the kitchen with an elderly woman and introduced her as his 80-year old mother. She smiled sweetly and babbled to me in German. I had to disappoint her by admitting that even if I could have heard her, I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Her English was poor, but George explained that she works in the kitchen helping to prepare authentic German dishes. George says a restaurant should be a family affair no matter how old the members of the family are, and he quickly ushered Mom back to the galley.

Harry sipped his beer as I struggled to think of a German word I could use to respond to these friendly people. Nothing besides “gesundheit” came to mind.

After our pizza arrived (chicken with way too much cheese, added no doubt because of my ancestry), George escorted his new wife to our table. She’s a pretty young woman who works as a banker during the day and waits tables at the restaurant at night. She was wearing a cute calico number that laced at the bodice over a flouncy blouse with puffed sleeves. I assumed she changed out of her business suit before she started her night job.

“You make your wife work two jobs?” I asked George.

“Of course,” he said and winked at Harry. I hoped my husband was not getting any ideas.

Fortunately the new wife didn’t speak German, but she seemed to be happy to meet us and quickly went back to her patrons in the adjacent dining room.

We listened to the music without being disturbed while we ate our pizza, but I was nervous, glancing around to see whom George was going to bring over next. There was some mention of his sister, who—according to Reverend Bill—was sour and disagreeable. Either she wasn’t working that night or George had her so engaged in the kitchen that she couldn’t break free.

Just in case, we ate quickly and asked for the check. Two steins of beer, the egg rolls and a pizza came to ten dollars. We left a ten-dollar tip and when we got up to leave, George nearly wept and Mike gave us each a bear hug as if we were long lost relatives.

I really must visit Germany.

When we arrived back at Bill and Kathryn’s, Reverend Bill was watching his huge screen television mounted over the enormous fireplace. He asked about the restaurant, and we regaled him about the overabundant hospitality. George is a member the local entrepreneur group which meets monthly over dinner at Bill’s house. Being nice to Bill’s guests is George’s way of repaying Bill’s generosity.

Our accommodation was the upstairs suite with huge bedroom, bathroom and sitting area. For some reason, I didn’t sleep well, even with all the security. Kathryn had told us that once when they weren’t home a door blew open in a heavy wind and set off the alarm. Another time, the alarm went off for no apparent reason. I’m not sure why uber security makes me feel insecure, but I was in my own state of alarm for most of the night—or maybe it was the German food.

In the morning I found Kathryn and asked her to turn off the alarm so I could go out for a run. I jogged to the iron gate but couldn’t figure out how to get it open. I suppose it required a remote. Even if I could have remembered the code, I couldn’t reach the apparatus on the other side of the gate. There was no climbing over the fence, which was rimmed with barbed wire. Instead I decided I’d jog around their vast property.

Once I left the paved driveway, I found holes in the ground. Lots of holes. Hundreds, in fact. They varied from a few inches to a foot wide. The larger ones I figured were gophers. But what sort of animal made the smaller holes? Rabbits maybe? But then I thought of Old West movies where the cowboy always encounters a rattlesnake on the prairie. His horse rears up and he falls and hits his head on a rock. Just before the vultures peck out his eyes, he regains consciousness, pulls out his six-shooter and shoots off the rattler’s head.

I didn’t have a six-shooter, and I was not keen on encountering a poisonous snake of any variety. So I jogged up and down the driveway a few times and then went back to the house.

The door was locked and I knocked for Kathryn to let me in. She was making waffles but gave me coffee in two tall Styrofoam cups. I took the Styrofoam upstairs and gave one to Harry. When we went back downstairs, Reverend Bill was waiting at the tall bar-type table next to the kitchen. Kathryn served us the waffles and opened the bottle of Vermont maple syrup we had given them. I suspected Bill would want to say a grace before we ate and asked him to offer it. The four of us held hands, and Bill blessed both the food and his guests.

After we packed up, our hosts walked us down the driveway and took our picture beside a miniature wooden airplane fixed to a tree stump. Bill had bought the plane from a man who pulled it in parades with his two children aboard. He had painted the body bright red and had cleverly made an engine and propellers out of Gaterade bottles painted green.

A chilly wind had begun to blow, and I was glad to get started on the next leg of the trip.

“We’ll pray for you,” Kathryn yelled as we drove away.

I never figured out what was so terrorizing about the rural landscape outside Oklahoma City that required so many locks and alarms. The Germans were certainly amiable, and I had not seen a single suspicious looking character. I suppose it didn’t hurt that we were being blessed and prayed over.

Gesundheit, after all, translates to “bless you.”