Tornado Alley!

Sunday morning (afternoon!) we had to say goodbye to Uncle Larry. I tried to talk him into going to Dodge City with us, but he has a job and bills to pay and is probably a little tired of going and doing. I don't know what we're going to do without his encyclopedic knowledge of our surroundings. I guess we'll go back to "Hey, there's a big thing over there! I wonder what that does?"




I thought we have plenty of time to do and see in Tulsa, but there was so much that we didn't get to do. On the way out of town, we stopped and saw the Golden Driller. He is the largest free standing statue in the world. It's these kinds of little facts that we have Uncle Larry to thank for. It's a big honkin' thing. We missed the Center of the Universe, the Blue Whale in Catoosa, the Aquarium and the Zoo and the Gilcrease and so much more. The girls decided that we will come back to Tulsa. Of course, they also think that they have jobs lined up at Discoveryland!





Everybody was pretty tired and in a fighting mood. They were not so interested in seeing a big yellow dude. They wanted to take a nap. And fight.





So we set out across Oklahoma and into Kansas. There are many, many toll roads here and the tolls are super cheap. No $6 round trips across a three mile bridge! You can drive miles and miles and miles for $1.60. And that's a little strange in itself, who decided that $1.60 is a nice round number?




Kansas is a little bit of a surprise. I expected prairie, but I didn't expect to feel like I'd just driven out to Jay. That is what Kansas looks like; Jay, FL. Only bigger. I think my dad would love it up here. There are deer crossing signs everywhere, little creeks to fish in and little towns that probably haven't changed too much in the past 50 years.




I wish I had gotten more pictures in Kingman KS. I really could see Dad living here. It has such beautiful old buildings and brick streets and this little mini Statue of Liberty. There are lots of pick up trucks and tractors and it smells a little bit like cow poo.





Actually, a large portion of Kansas smelled like cow poo. We passed some HUGE industrial farms that smelled to high heaven. At one point Willa said, "It smells like Daddy pooped on a log and sent it down the river for us." It smelled like everybody's daddy pooped on a log and then put the log in our car. Super stinky!





I liked this little church because it was sitting right in front of what I can only guess it a grain silo complex. Without Uncle Larry, who knows? It could be sitting in front of a space station. I think the picture sums up what Kansas is all about, farming and faith.





We drove through Greensburg, KS on our way to Dodge City. I wanted to take more pictures, but that just didn't seem polite. I did get the picture above of the water tower. I have seen some storm damage in my life, but absolutely nothing can describe what Greensburg looks like even more than a year after the tornado that leveled it. These are some tenacious folks that have years of work ahead of them. If you get the chance, check out their town plan.

Next: More stinky cow towns and a very long drive.

Pigs Can Fly!

Saturday we went down to Ada, OK for the 2nd annual Fly-in and BBQ Contest. Ada is about 2 1/2 hours south of Tulsa and it's just the kind of place that would have a fly-in and bbq contest. You can't really see the kids in the picture, they are in front of the fire truck, but they were so impressed with the size of this flag! that the told me I had to get a picture.




We decided to get the taster's kit that let you get a little sample of 10 of the competing teams food. There were a couple of other teams giving food away for free because they didn't want it to go to waste. We mostly tasted brisket, but there was a nibble of rib eye steak that was stellar, a rib that could have been better, and something that looked like sloppy joe. We did taste one bit of brisket! that was exceptional from the Woodsmoking team. Boy was that brisket ever good, no sauce required. We also had sno-cones.





This is a life flight helicopter. It will probably not be Belly's last time in one. She did go over to one of the guys who was there with the life flight team and tell him that she wants to be a nurse on an airplane when she grows up but she doesn't know how to fly a plane. "You need to show me how to fly this!" she demanded. They chuckled at her, but she was serious.





Connor pulled his head out of his rear end long enough to be interested in a giant military truck of some kind. Then he put his head back in his rear end and continued to be difficult. The girls were whiny, the sun was hot, the sky was blue and he was 12.




Boy did we ever make use of the port-o-potties! Willa spent so much time in one of them that Connor yelled, "Hey Doctor Poo, are you taking your Turdis to another Urinaverse or what?!" And I just cracked up laughing. So for the past couple of days Willa has been Dr. Poo. Hahahahaha....Turdis. That kid cracks me up.





Hey girls! Look at those cool airplanes flying around! Wow! Look at that! That plane is racing a car!





Not so interested in the airplanes. They were picking flowers for Uncle Larry! who was judging the contest. Apparently, he got to eat all kinds of super tasty BBQ and he got to bring home a little goody bag. The kids got into Uncle Larry's goody bag and took all his stuff. They ate his ribs and took his pens and pads of paper.





They did finally watch some airplanes flying around, but only because Belly was waiting for one of them to crash. "I saw this on television," she told Willa conspiratorially, "they go high, and then they fall and explode." Thankfully, she was disappointed.





Connor got some video footage of the airshow that I have to figure out how to embed in the blog. Uncle Larry says he knows how, and I'm sure Connor can figure it out. We'll see if we can get that up here in the next few days.





After we got back from the air show, we went to dinner at Hideaway Pizza! Super tasty! I wish we had one of these at home. I was glad to finally meet a real friend of Uncle Larry's (that's half of Doug in the photo above). Up until this point we've only met the neighbors, not any real 'friends' to speak of, and I was starting to get a complex. Are we really that bad? (Yes, yes we are!) We also went to Target and bought shoes because Willa's flip flops made her feet hurt.

Discoveryland!

We have been preparing for the trip to Discoveryland by learning the songs in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The girls call it 'cowboy music' and sing with a fakey crazy accent that I can't even begin to describe. The weather had been iffy all day and I was afraid that they would cancel the show (our luck has been like that) but things went off without a hitch.





This is the Cattleman's Ranch Dinner. Uncle Larry says, "it's part of the experience!" It tastes exactly like you think it should. Mexicorn, pre-fab potato salad, pork & beans and a steak on a bun. I have to admit, the meat was nice and tender and had a good flavor to it. There is something to be said for Cowboy Leg.





This is Dudley. The man, not the horse. The ponies were tied to what looked like an old fashioned clothes line and they walked around in circles. The girls were thrilled and wanted to take the ponies home and put them in the back yard.




Both of the girls pitched a fit to ride the ponies. Actually, the both took turns pitching fits for whatever reason, I have no idea.





Here is a teepee we saw and thought of the nephews, some more of The Burts Who Stayed Home. I sure wish I had an alligator expert with me on this trip, you never know when you're going to need one. Oh, and a karate master, if only I had one of those!




Snow cones and seats in Row B. It doesn't get much better than that!





Uncle Larry has been to Discoveryland! before, and yet, he went along with us. Discoveryland! is actually a really neat idea. It's an outdoor theater with a Western theme. They only do two plays, Oklahoma! (go figure) and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. We saw the latter.




There was a Western Review before the show. There was singing of all the songs that you would expect and some can-can dancing. Annabelle wanted to know why the can-can dancers were doing that with their skirts. "It's a special kind of dance," I told her. "When I do that you get me in trouble," she noted. Yes, yes indeed.





The singers did a patriotic/post-911 thing where they were Proud to be an American. Annabelle said that they were 'crying inside' when they sang this song because of the looks on their faces. I was crying a little inside too.





Bless yore beautiful hide! The girls were mesmerized and sang along. This activity was definitely a winner. Connor didn't even bring the PSP, and he said he really enjoyed the show, too.



The cast was all wearing lots of clothing and while the weather was a relatively mild mid-70's, all I could think was that they looked hot. I mean, I didn't expect them to be in bikinis or anything, but they were wearing coats at one point and dancing and singing and I was just sure that somebody was going to keel over from heat exhaustion.





After the show they have a little meet & greet with the actors and the girls got to meet Meghan who played Millie, the lead female. They were star struck . Belly told Meghan that she was pretty and she loved her.



Belly also loved the actor who played Adam, the male lead, but he was not pretty. Willa told him that she wanted to sing and dance on the stage and he told them both that they could come work at Discoveryland when the got a little older. See you next summer!

Emergency!

We had had a really busy week, so I thought that we would take it easy on Friday morning and then we could go do something fun around town. The weather was kind of yucky, so I thought the hotel's indoor pool would be a)inside and b)fun! And for a while, it was.





It was fun until Belly smashed her chin into the side of the pool and sliced her chin open. It doesn't look like much in the picture, but there was lots of blood. It was a pretty deep cut, so I decided to take her to the doctor and have it checked out just to be on the safe side. So instead of doing something fun like the Oklahoma Aquarium or the Gilcrease Museum we went to MedNOW! doc-in-a- box.

I decided on the Urgent Care center because I really didn't think it warranted the emergency room, I figured it would be cheaper, and I asked the desk clerk what she thought. (Now who's the crazy lady with the skin rash?) I'm not used to doing this kind of stuff without Randy and not having any back-up is a pain.





Not only did I have to keep Belly from screaming her head off about how her chin hurt...which made her chin hurt...which made her scream at me that her chin hurt, but I had to keep the other two from stabbing each other with needles from the sharps container. And they would have too.




The doctor told us that they don't really do stitches on little children's faces, so a couple of steri-strips and a good cleaning were all that were needed. All fixed!





The bad news: she has to stay out of the water until the steri-strips come off in four or five days. No more pool. I think there was more crying about that than there was about the actual injury.

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!