Roadtrip - July 23, 2013

A year ago I purchased an advance ticket to BlogHer13 in Chicago.

Because The Mother is on the mend from her knee replacement surgery and because The Sister told me to "Go...just go!", I'm on my way to Chicago with The Husband. I'll attend BlogHer and he'll play in Chicago.

Highlights from our drive today:

Years ago, this steer was located at 15th & Utica, Tulsa, OK

in the H. L. Moss parking lot.

Who remembers that?

We revisited Chris Barbee's place today.

This post I wrote in 2010 about this bowling ball yard art

is the most popular post on Cindy's Clipboard, with 4715 page views. 

We looked for Toto. Couldn't find him.

Lunch at a park in Gas, Kansas.

Cold, home fried chicken, fritos and Diet Coke. 

A very sweet man saw Steve taking a picture of me and the Missouri welcome sign.

He turned around on the highway and came back to take a picture of us together.

He says he has done this before. How sweet!

We plan to "pay it forward" someday for people taking photos at a welcome sign!

We drove through the Lake of the Ozarks area.

Look at all the water displayed on the GPS display.

Spending the night in the capital of Missouri - Jefferson City. 

We had a very nice dinner at Madison's Cafe.

Our waitress, Amanda, was full of personality and very efficient.

The owner, Rob, was very chatty and nice.

We would recommend this place to weary travelers.

Night folks!

Seen on Old Route 66

We drove past this scene when we returned from our anniversary weekend.

Somewhere between Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

Near Stroud, if my memory is correct.

I assume these guys are here because it's OU football season.

Have you had any foreign visitors lately?

A Blue Whale and Totem Poles

The Husband and I had no obligations on Saturday, so we decided to do some local sightseeing.

We began at the drive through of Lee's Famous Recipe Chicken by picking up an order of fried gizzards and two cold drinks. Why gizzards, you say? Why not, we say! They are one of our favorite roadtrip snacks.

As we munched on the gizzards, we enjoyed the drive to Catoosa, the home of the famous Blue Whale.

 Here I am at the mouth of the whale.

 There's The Husband peeking out from one of the slides.

Some of the picnic tables have whale posts.

 Or how about a whale chair?

The folks working at the souvenir stand were very nice and one of them is the person behind the Blue Whale twitter account, but they wouldn't confess which one!

After leaving the Blue Whale, we drove to Claremore and stopped at couple of antique malls and A Gallery of the Arts. We found one of the antique malls to be terribly over priced, but the other one was full of interesting items at reasonable prices. We found many items we liked at the art gallery. I even purchased a hand painted gourd bowl that will become a part of my annual fall decorations. The gallery owner, after finding out we'd been to the Blue Whale, encouraged us to drive to Foyil and visit Totem Pole Park. So we did!

Here's a photo of the big totem pole, plus one of the smaller ones.

 The big totem pole is on a turtle's back. Here I am at the head of the turtle.

 Here is The Husband with another totem pole.

This is the souvenir shop, formerly his workshop. The creator of the totem poles also made custom fiddles and furniture.

He made cute picnic tables for people to use. Here's one:

And here's another:

After leaving Totem Pole Park we returned home and told everyone we saw for the rest of the day about our adventure and how much fun we had sightseeing in our own backyard.

How about you? When is the last time you went sightseeing in your area? What fun and/or quirky thing did you see or do?

Mullinville, Kansas - Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose

After leaving Dodge City, we drove and drove and ended up in:

This was a very interesting little town for a couple of reasons. First was a Yard Art Studio.

The artist making one, of many, statements:

The artist has created an OVERWHELMING amount of yard art. We took the following video, in an attempt to give you an idea of the quantity. Let me just say, the video does not capture the awe inspiring reality.

As we drove around the town (all the better to get the video), we saw that a number of the houses proudly displayed items from this artist. We took photos of a few pieces in a couple of yards.

Yard # 1:

Yard # 2:

Second interesting item, as we drove out of town:

Our thoughts were "Not the kind of sign a person expects to see in Kansas."

As we continued motoring down the road, we came to the town of Greensburg, KS. On May 4, 2007, an EF5 tornado destroyed 95% of the town and killed 11 people. Greensburg is rebuilding as a "green" town. As we drove through town, everywhere we looked there were signs of construction, which equates to progress in the rebuilding effort.

The contrast in these two towns made me think:

• It just goes to show, it can be "fun & games" in one location, while it is "life & death" in another location not far away.
• Practice tolerance. (You don't have to accept, but peacefully tolerate).
• Support others through their tragedies.
• Enjoy life every day.

Thanks, Kansas, for providing an interesting drive.

Hello. I'm Back!

I haven't posted for a few days because I was away over the extended holiday weekend, without access to the Internet.

We took an unexpected trip to the family cabin in New Mexico. The roof of the cabin is being replaced and the workers needed some supplies for the job that had been purchased in OK. Niece Amy and her family were planning to spend the 4th at the cabin, but they had no room in their vehicle to transport the supplies. You know how it is with kids, packing for a short trip involves taking most of your household goods with you! Enter Uncle Steve and Aunt Cindy, who volunteered to transport the supplies in exchange for being able to stay at the cabin and escape from the Oklahoma heat.

As a side note, we drove through El Reno, OK and saw this sign:

We are going to find the race schedule and go back!

If you follow me on Twitter, you already know that we stopped for the night in Amarillo, TX and had dinner at The Big Texan. Here's The Husband immediately after arrival. He's happy!

No, we did not attempt to eat the "free" 72 oz steak dinner, but four challengers did while we were there. A challenger named Nelson managed to EAT THE WHOLE THING in 59 minutes and 59 seconds. Here is his victory fist pump!

The Big Texan is a fun roadside attraction. We've always enjoyed the meals there, which is why we continue to stop when we are in the area.

We arrived at the New Mexico cabin early on Friday and, after a trip into town for groceries, commenced relaxing and having a good time with Niece Amy and her family. Her boys are almost 5 (end of July) and 3 1/2. It was good for us to spend quality time with the boys on this trip. They live an hour and 1/2 from us, so we don't get to see them as frequently as we would like. Aunt Cindy learned that one way to their little hearts is via bacon! They were so cute asking for pieces the morning I cooked breakfast!

Here we are on a short hike, which the boys love to do.

Everyone did their own thing during the day and at night, after the boys were in bed, the four adults had nice dinners together. Amy enjoys cooking and is good at it, so it was a win/win for everyone.

Amy's family attended the 4th of July Fiesta parade in Las Vegas, NM on Saturday morning. On Sunday, the 4th, we were invited to shoot off fireworks with old family friends at their ranch not far from the cabin. It was fun for everyone to visit with each other and view the fireworks. The boys enjoyed yelling "fire in the hole" once the fuses were lit!

I will tell you that while the fireworks were pretty, the stars were absolutely magnificent! We were in a big, mountain pasture with no city lighting for miles and not a cloud in the sky. As the evening progressed, more and more stars popped out in the big, big sky. It was awe inspiring and made me realize how much beauty city dwellers miss every night.

Here is a photo of the roof project. Hard work!

And, last but not least, here's a photo of Hermit's Peak. We see this peak out of the kitchen window. Do you see why we like to go to the cabin?

How was your 4th of July?

"See The USA" Roadtrip Recap

I must confess, we were both very happy to see this sign on Wednesday:

We were gone for 21 days.

We went through parts of 9 states (Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas).

I had never been to 4 of the states (Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska).

We saw famous places (national parks and roadside attractions) we'd never seen before and we thoroughly enjoyed playing tourist.

We visited some nice antique shops, which always makes my day!

The Husband drove 3,400 miles. I drove 1 mile. Hey, that's the way we do things on vacation!

We took lots of pictures (some quite dorky) and I tried to write fun blog entries so my readers could enjoy the journey with us.

We had a great trip, but are glad to be home.

I've now got laundry to do, groceries to buy, and blogs to read!

The Rock Head Presidents

The Husband and I finally went to Mount Rushmore on Monday. We got tired of waiting for the rain to stop and we were running out of  time as well.


We had a late breakfast in Rapid City, did a bit of shopping at an antique mall and then headed to Mount Rushmore National Park.

Can you see them? They are up there, above our heads in our fancy self-portrait.

Oh, you want to see a better picture? Okay, here you go...

When I told my sister we were coming here on this trip, she related the story of her oldest daughter (now 7) coming home from school last year talking about the "rock head presidents." It took my sister and her husband asking a few questions to understand she was talking about Mount Rushmore! Funny!


After leaving Rushmore, we drove through Custer State Park. Beautiful, beautiful country. We saw mule, pronghorn and white-tailed deer. Plus, wild burros and buffalo.


You are not supposed to feed the animals in the park, but of course some people do not believe those rules apply to them and do so anyway. We got stuck in a bit of a traffic jam, because the burros know cars = people = food. Here's a shot of one of them trying to get us to feed him:

On the scenic drive through Custer State Park the roads are narrow and extremely winding, with a few very narrow stone tunnels. Here's a shot of a commercial tour bus coming through one of the tunnels. It took him a while to get through and by the time he did, he had a large audience watching him.

Here's a shot of the tunnel as we drove into it:

After we left the park, we headed to Wall, South Dakota. Home of the famous Wall Drug Store.


It was overwhelming. Any type of junky souvenir you could possibly desire is available here. They also have places to order food and opportunites for weird pictures. To wit: 


Me and a large, white rabbit. Harvey, perhaps?

The Husband and the elusive Jackalope.

After walking through Wall Drug (and, I confess, purchasing a tee shirt) we checked into the local Best Western Hotel and got settled. We went out for a quick dinner and I was in my pj's and in bed by 8:30p.m.


I think this road trip is beginning to kick me in the butt!