Oklahoma events worth the drive

Oklahoma's two marquee gatherings sit at opposite corners of the state and could not be less alike. Labor Day weekend belongs to Tahlequah, where the Cherokee Nation holds its national holiday in the green river country of the east — powwow, stickball and homecoming crowds filling the Ozark foothills. Weeks later, the panhandle's far tip hosts one of the country's great amateur astronomy meets under Black Mesa, in some of the darkest measured night sky in the lower forty-eight, where campers run red flashlights and generators fall silent at dusk. The drive between those corners crosses nearly the whole state — which is exactly why a camper works here: the distances are the point, and your bed moves with you.