Day 17 - Oklahoma City, OK to Tulsa, OK

Some days are just different than you expect. I'm not quite sure what we expected, but we got way more. We left the Bradford House Inn after a great coffee and pastry - a kouign amann, which is a Breton pastry. In the Breton language, the words mean cake and butter. It's sort of like a croissant but sweet. Yum! 

On our way out of town we went to the Oklahoma City National Memorial, which commemorates the 1995 bombing, thinking it would be a quick stop. It is beautiful, but so somber and moving. We spent twice as long there as we expected, and we didn't even get into the museum. Every writer who tries to generate anger or outrage about our political system, and every person who feels that anger and outrage, should spend some time there and ponder what can happen.

The country along Route 66 from OKC to Tulsa gets gentler and gentler, at least this May. The grass was lush, and the Indian Blanket, Bluebonnets, Queen Anne's Lace, and Purple Prairie Clover flowers in the fields offset the patches of red soil. The little towns were also gentler - they didn't have that starved horse look. Yards full of drilling and well service equipment hinted at the money brought in by the oil and gas industry. Still, you wouldn't have to look too hard for shop space. As you can see from this picture, traffic along The Road wasn't too stressful. If you are not in a hurry, poking along at 55 mph with only a few other cars is much more pleasant that hammering along the interstates with truck traffic. We drove through Arcadia, which boasts of a big soda pop bottle, and Stroud, where Mamie Mayfield ran the Rock Cafe for ages. Perhaps a long-lost cousin.

Our Tulsa hotel was in the middle of downtown, within an easy walk of our target. While planning the trip, we highlighted the Woody Guthrie Museum, but our hostess in Amarillo mentioned that the Bob Dylan Museum had opened just a few months ago and was getting great reviews. It was a tough choice, but we went for Bob over Woody. The 50th anniversary arts festival was in full swing in the area with a street full of pianos than anyone could play. Little kids are so great - they couldn't play at all but were hammering away and grinning like they were masters. Local bands were playing on a bandstand, and street performers were working through the crowds.

 

The Bob Dylan Center was great. The music, the writing and the videos walked us through the late 50s and early 60s when Bobby Zimmerman was reading beat writing and listening to late night radio to find a voice, then through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s as Dylan is still exploring what makes songs work. We were both humming and bopping along to the music as we browsed through the archives listening along to songs and interviews through our headsets. When accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature he quoted the ancient Greek poet, Homer: "Sing in me, oh muse, and through me tell the story".

After the OCK Memorial, a few hours of driving, then the Bob Dylan Center, we were worn out, so we stopped at the Valkyrie Bar for refreshment. They are artists. They could mix up pretty much anything anyone asked, but they really shone when someone would say, "I like this kind of drink; what can you do?" Betty asked for a green drink, which gave them pause for a bit, but then a cucumber got peeled and some Chinese five spice was shaken into some other crazy stuff to make a surprisingly refreshing apéritif.

Dinner was at outside at a Basque restaurant. Several small plates if tapas, a guitar player who was picking and singing next to us, soft and warm evening air, and we were thinking kind thoughts of Tulsa - could it be the next Austin? We spoke with a couple of young professionals who said the last 10 to 15 years had brought some great changes to the downtown. New apartments brought people in from the suburbs, which brought in new restaurants and bars and an art scene. Now the streets are busy in the evenings instead of dead.

A few days ago (Day 8), we were at the End of the World in the Mojave Desert. Sometime after then, we must have transited a worm hole because on the way back to our hotel from the Basque restaurant, we passed the Center of the Universe. We're not sure if all our friends and family will be dead or in diapers. Let us know, ok?

By the time we walked back to the hotel, we were done for the day - too tired to blog.

Today's mileage: only about 125 miles. (We forgot to check until we'd started for Springfield, MO, on Day 18.)

License plate count - Alaska, Arizona, Arizona Navajo Nation, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oklahoma Caddo Nation, Oklahoma Cherokee Nation, Oklahoma Chocktaw Nation, Oklahoma Osage Nation, Oklahoma Peoria Nation, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee. Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and the US Government. And from Oh Canada - British Columbia, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Quebec. And from Mexico - Ciudad de Mexico, Sonora.

After driving through all that Indian country, I was reminded of another book a friend recommended. One Thousand White Women was written by Jim Fergus who lives in Tubac, AZ. Based on a historical fact, it is a series of fictional diaries of May Dodd who travels out west in 1875 to marry the chief of the Cheyenne Nation.

Our music selection today is dedicated to Tulsa, another new favorite city. 

Eric Clapton & Sheryl Crow perform " Tulsa Time " (HD Version) - Bing video