Oooooooklahoma!

As promised, here are the pictures from Oral Roberts University! The first time I saw the Statue of Liberty I thought, "Wow, that's really not as big as I thought it would be." When I saw this sculpture of The Praying Hands, I thought, "Wow! That thing is HUGE!" What you might not be able to tell from the picture is that you can see where the artist included details like hair on the arms and veins on the backs of the hands. It is an incredible sculpture.





Uncle Larry introduces us as his "thundering herd!" I don't think he knows quite what to make of us. He went all out and gave us the $5 tour of the entire town. The kids tell everyone that Uncle Larry introduces us to that they have driven ONE THOUSAND MILES and that they are from Florida and that they are on vacation and that they like ice cream and that they got to swim in the pool and that they are going to swim in another pool soon. And Uncle Larry's friends smile politely and back slowly away.





ORU is a spectacular example of mid-twentieth century architecture. The buildings! all look like they came out of one of those cartoons with flying cars. They are pointy and shiny and look like the future did in 1965. You really expect to see boys with skinny black pants and ties, girls with skirts and black cat's eye glasses and lots of crisp white short sleeve shirts. On the day we were there, everyone was mysteriously absent. We did not see one single ORU student. They must have been hiding from the heathens.





In the late 1970's God commanded Oral Roberts to build this building. It is the City of Faith Medical and Research Building. And He said, "Make it all cool, like it's from the future." Actually, it wasn't God who told Oral Roberts to build it, it was a 640 foot Jesus. I guess when 640-foot Jesus tells you to do something, you just do it. The prayer tower that I didn't get a picture of is exactly 640 feet tall. You don't have to tell Oral Roberts twice.






This is the Keystone Dam. This was a side trip that Doris thought that we would enjoy. We had no business being here, but we stopped and took a picture of the dam anyway. The children enjoyed getting to say the word 'dam' without getting in trouble.






We camped at Salt Creek North Recreation Area. It is on the Cimmaron arm of Keystone lake. There has been so much rain this year that most of the campground is either underwater! or will soon be underwater.






There were rocks to climb on and sticks to poke each other with. There was a little boy to play with! named Daulton that Belly decided to call Justin. "Daulton is not a name," she told him.





See! We did camp! Here is our set up for our single night of camping. After checking the weather report and learning that a severe line of thunderstorms was coming through, I made the executive decision to relocate to the Comfort Inn. It is always windy here, like being at the beach, but everywhere you go. They take their severe weather alerts seriously. I was even able to talk my way into a refund at the campground. "But I have three little children!"






While we were camping, we met our neighbor Mary who had been living in a tent and traveling around since March. She asked me to look at a spot on her leg and see if I might know what it was. It looked like a nasty case of poison ivy...or possibly scabies...I'm not a doctor! She invited me to touch her leg, which I politely declined and offered her some cortisone cream instead. To keep. No really, I can get more.





See the tree in the middle of the lake in the picture above? That is Loop A of the campground. The ranger told us that he has lived in New Mannford all his life (Old Mannford is now under the Keystone Lake) and he has never seen the lake so high.





Uncle Larry lives in the nice part of town. In a building with a door man and an indoor pool. Mike the security man is now our new best friend and knows all about us. Mike showed the children how to use the life-saving hook at the pool! Uncle Larry's neighbors have lots and lots of money. I parked my crusty old Grand Caravan between a Jaguar and a BMW. Other than Uncle Larry's GMC truck, I don't think there was another American car on the lot. Or one that cost less than a house.





Uncle Larry presented the girls with a giant box full of their great-grandmother's jewelery. Most of the stuff has to be 50 years old at least. Most of it is gigantic and plastic! and the girls were in heaven. See them sporting their antique clips-on's?





Uncle Larry is trying to kill us. Or he's a witch and wants to fatten us all up so that he can eat us later. We have eaten more food in the past two days than anyone has any right to. The night we got in we ate at Albert G's BBQ. If you are ever in Tulsa, eat the brisket and the beans. Oh, the beans! are just the best. For lunch Thursday we went to some little hole in the wall takey-outy asia-land type place. I'll have to find out the name. Willa had 'yummy noodles' which were yummy. Belly had chicken nuggets (she is on a Chicken Nuggets Across America Tour at this point) and Connor and I split an order of Tika Masala. MMMMMMmmmmm. Tika Masala.





Then last night for dinner we went for sushi! at Asahi. And tempura. And teriyaki. Willa ordered the yellow tail, Belly ordered the calamari, and Connor had the tempura and teriyaki combo plate. I ate what they didn't and was still stuffed. Here's a neat little fact about Tulsa: there is no sweet tea in restaurants, only unsweetened. The building above is the Boston Avenue Methodist Church.





This is the University Club Tower that was the first building in the United States to be designed by a computer! It is also the tallest residential building in all of Oklahoma.





We went and saw the swans! at swan lake. There were also ducks and a sign that told us to pick up our dog poop. We didn't have any dog poop. There was a pair of eyeglasses just stuck in a fence here. Weird.





And, of course, we went to Super Target! Which is super cool and has all plastic future-buggies. Tulsa is very big on the future.

Tomorrow I'll put up the pictures of going to the doctor in Tulsa and of our visit to DISCOVERYLAND!