Pioneer Woman and a Beautiful Garden in Tulsa

Mom and I went to this see the Mercantile, Pioneer Woman's store in Pawhuska, OK, not too far from Tulsa.  We ate dinner there and we both got grilled cheese sandwiches, how crazy is that?

We did get Cheesy Olive Bread, which was delicious!  I have made this at home before and it's really good.

Tomato soup!

This was the original painting on the old building that Pioneer Woman renovated, I'm glad she didn't tear it down.  The wood carvings were really nice too.

This is how I paid for the meal, plus I just entered my email address to send me the receipt.  How cool is that?

The Mercantile Store.  We didn't buy much, but was fun to look around.

It was really nice that it wasn't busy.  I've seen pictures of the store just jam packed with people.  I wouldn't have enjoyed that at all!

The next day, we went to a city park.  This was a truck outside the hospital.  Not sure why the guy had an alligator on the front, but was pretty funny!

This park was really nice.  Had several fountains, plants, etc.  The roses had suffered a disease so they weren't too healthy. 

 These mushrooms were in the yard, there were a lot of them around.

When we got back, the Tulsa Ukulele Club was playing some music.  There are so many different volunteers that go to the hospital and do activities.  It's really nice.

Short video of the music.

Mom went on the Tour of Tulsa one day, she enjoyed it. 

Tour of Tulsa

The Cancer Center has a lot of activities each month.  Last week I went on a Tour of Tulsa.  I was the only one on the tour, had a driver and the tour guide, Jerry.  It was a really nice tour and I learned a lot about Tulsa.  Here's some of the pictures of the day:

These praying hands are at the Oral Roberts University in Tulsa.  They were huge!  They are the "world's largest praying hands", standing 60 feet tall and weighing 30 tons, it's apparently the largest bronze sculpture in the world.  Isn't that something?

This is a cool building, but I can't remember where it was or what it was.  It may have been the tallest building in Tulsa.

At one time, Tulsa, Oklahoma sat atop the world's largest-known ocean of oil. Drilling derricks were everywhere, even on the lawn of the state capitol. The city called itself "Oil Capital of the World."

But Tulsa did not build Tulsa's giant oil man. It was built by an oilfield supply company out of Texas, which set him up in 1953 for a trade show at the Tulsa State Fairgrounds. Dubbed "The Golden Driller," the giant roustabout resembled an oversized brass statuette, with a broad grin, a tin helmet tipped back at a rakish skew, and a gloved right hand raised in a kind of limp-wristed OK sign. The statue proved so popular that the Texas company returned six years later with a second temporary giant.

A third giant, tallest of all at 76 feet, took up permanent residence at the Fairgrounds on April 8, 1966. This version still stands today. He's very different from the original Golden Driller, with a slender waist, muscles ripped on a bare chest, mustard-colored rather than gold, and a face that's a chiseled mask of Teutonic invincibility. He was designed by George S. "Grecco" Hondronastas (1893-1979), a Greek immigrant to Tulsa who viewed the Driller as his greatest artistic accomplishment.  (I didn't write all that, I stole it from Roadside America). 

We also stopped at a Glacier Confections, a neat chocolate store at Utica Square.  I bought a couple of pieces of chocolate and managed to get two of them home to Mark and Kasey, but they didn't like them for some reason.  I should have just eaten them and never told them.  :)

At the Cancer Treatment Center, they were having a 5 year survivor party.  This was the new tree they put up in the hallway and put up the 5 year "leaves" on the tree.  It was a nice celebration for the survivors.  I'll have my name on the tree someday!  Looking forward to that.

On my way home I stopped in Joplin to visit with my dad and his friend Tom.  They were at the big "Guilty by Association" Truck Show.  It was a really big truck show with lots of big trucks that had a lot of chrome and amazing paint jobs on them.  It was pretty hot so I didn't stay very long.  On Saturday evening, they were having a "truck parade" down the streets of Joplin with all their lights on.  I asked a couple of people if the "truck parade" was going to be on Twitter or streaming on social media.  They all quickly corrected me "you mean the convoy?"  Well, yes, I guess so, although it sure sounded like a parade to me!  I forgot all about it and didn't check it out on Saturday night.

There's my dad and Tom checking out an engine on a truck, umm, let's go guys!

Lincoln Museum and Tomb

We stopped in Springfield, IL on Wednesday, August 11, to see the Lincoln Museum and Tomb.  We have been by here so many times and never stopped.  It’s well worth the time to stop, the museum was really good.  There were several sections, you started with his young life, through his political start, then the White House years and his death.  There was a theatre presentation called Lincoln’s Eyes.  The theatre was really nice and there were laser lights and vibrations on the chair that went off during the movie.

Outside of the museum.

Railroad station across the street from the museum. 

 

Inside the foyer of the museum, the only place they would let you take pictures.

This is Lincoln’s Tomb, the cemetery was about 2 miles from the museum.    

I thought this was interesting, that there are no living direct descendants of Lincoln.  The last one died in 1985.  I guess he didn’t have any children or maybe they died before he did. 

This was inside the tomb, the inside was marble and granite and it was in a circle that you walked around.  The employee inside the tomb told us that the granite came from St. Genevieve, Missouri.   Lincoln’s wife, Mary, and their 3 sons are buried here. 

There is also a library, it’s mainly for private research. 

This is now the end of the trip.  We got home Wednesday evening and picked Kasey up.  He was really happy to see us, but had a great time with GaGa and Grandpa.  He told them he didn’t want to go on any driving trips unless we took the camper.  :)

Port Washington and Pabst Mansion

On Monday evening, we camped on the shores of Green Bay at a campground.  We put up the tent right by the shoreline.  It was a quiet campground and we could hear the slapping of the waves from the lake along the shoreline.   I actually slept really good this time, probably because I didn’t sleep well the night before. 

We stopped at Port Washington, WI to view a light house that they had in the town.  We actually stopped to get gas, they had signs up for the light house so we thought we would drive to it. 

Needless to say, I was very disappointed with the town’s care of this light.  I know it’s nothing great, but the walk out to the light was littered with trash.  Not just trash from the day, but trash from weeks worth.  

Here is the view from the light back to the town.  It was really foggy, so we couldn’t see too much.  This whole walk out was freaky to me.  The water was really deep and there were no rails, I could just see myself tripping and falling in.  I was glad to get back to the parking lot.  There were a lot of really big fish though, you could see them swimming around. 

We stopped in Milwaukee and toured the Pabst Museum.  It was really neat.  Of course, you couldn’t take pictures inside, but here are a few from the outside and from the inside of the gift shop.

 

Pictured Rock National Park

We let the campground early Monday morning.  The road we took was a sandy drive the whole way.  It was gorgeous, with lake views, forest trees hanging over the road.  Our first stop was Grand Marias, to get gas, then we headed on to Sable Falls.  We hiked about 190 steps down to the lake, there was a series of three waterfalls that took the water down to the lake.  Then we hiked to the sand dunes.  I thought about my mom the whole time, because she would have had a hard time walking through the sand.  Once we were at the beach and mom couldn’t even walk on the sand because it hurt her feet.  :)

 

This is at the sand dune place. 

Pretty view from the top.  The sand dunes were pretty much covered in trees and plants.

 

Then we stopped at a park called Log Roll.  I was skeptical about what it was, figured we were going to have to hike a couple of miles to see anything, but I was pleasantly surprised.  It was a huge sand pile going out to the lake, where they used to roll the logs down to the lake to transport to the saw mill.  It was a 500 foot drop to the lake, all sand, they said it took only a few minutes to get down to the lake, but about an hour to get back up.  Needless to say, we didn’t go down there.

Then we headed to the next lighthouse, Au Sable Pt.  But the road was closed so we couldn’t go see it.

The next thing was the Pictured Landscape Cruise.

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