I had a big day. I don't know how I'm going to write it all down. I think I'll bullet point it, summarize and expand. Maybe I'll write about today over the next couple of days.
- OKC: National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum
- OKC: Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum
- Dinner in Tulsa
- Tulsa: The Center of the Universe
- Arkansas: Fireflies
- Bentonville Arkansas
- Geena Davis
I think I should start backwards. [Side note: I'm writing this after having written the blog...I sort of started going backwards, but ended up jumping all around. See the above for the timeline order of events]
Geena Davis is currently in Bentonville Arkansas and so am I. She is here for a film festival and I'm sad to say that I have not seen her (yet). Honestly, I might have driven by where she was about 30 minutes after she was there, but, at that point, I had no idea she was even in town.
The woman who runs the B&B I'm staying at told me, "There is a Geena Davis film festival in town right now." And I assumed she meant her movies. But THE Geena Davis is HERE! I could probably yell her name and she might respond.
Here's a sentence I never thought I'd say. If you ever get a chance to go to Bentonville Arkansas, do it. I've been here an hour, all I've done is check into a B&B and I want to cancel the rest of my trip to stay here. Except I don't have any actual rest-of-the-trip plans, so I could. Only this film festival is in town and I think all the hotels are sold out.
How I ended up in Bentonville:
1) My boss has asked me twice if I've been here. The last time, he explained that it's got everything you'd expect from Arkansas, but also really interesting cafes and a hotel that's also a museum. (This is a chain, if you're interested. 21C Hotels).
2) When I was checking out of my wonderful little boutique hotel in Oklahoma City (one day early...I will explain that later), I told the women at the desk, "I don't know where I'm going to go, but I know I have a lot of driving to do. It's between Kansas and Arkansas." They both lit up and nearly jumped up an down saying, "Arkansas, you have to go to Arkansas!"
They recommended Eureka Springs, which I didn't even look up and threw my other plans out the window, deciding in that moment to go to Arkansas. Another sentence I never thought I'd say.
I had originally planned to NOT go to Tulsa, but to go to Wakita (famous only for it's mention in Twister), specifically to go to the Twister Movie Museum. I was fully aware this museum was probably not legit or licensed to sell anything Twister related, but I didn't think anything on the rest of the trip would be particularly interesting, honestly, and had planned on buying a Wakita key chain (say that three times fast) and heading on up to Kansas. There were a couple of options for Kansas. Boot Hill, which I think does in-the-street old-timey shoot out recreations, but I'd already seen that in Deadwood. OR I was thinking of going to Wichita for no good reason. When the hotel ladies said, "Arkansas!" it took me all of 10 seconds to agree and plug Bentonville into my phone. FYI, Bentonville is close to Eureka Springs. Well, it's an hour away, but that's relatively close.
First thing this morning, I fully packed. The idea was, go to the Cowboy & Western Heritage museum in the hopes of seeing SOMETHING on the dust bowl. If that didn't take too long, check out of my hotel a day early, drive up to Wakita by 5pm (a 2hr drive away, mind you) to see the museum and then head to somewhere, ks to find a hotel. If the museum took a long time, I could go back to my hotel for a nap or if it was way too late, I could stay the night and take off first thing Friday. I loaded up the car and hit that museum.
"This is a four hour museum," he said. He who? He, the dude that explains the museum map. I half listened, but gave big eye smiles (because you can't see my actual smile under the mask). "Do you have anything on the Dust Bowl." "That doesn't really fit our theme." Boo! "Gotcha. Thanks so much. I think I'll start over here!" And then I took a big poop in the bathroom. (no one but me is going to think that's funny, but it's accurate...and funny. Get on board.).
The museum absolutely could have taken 4 hours. I saw some patrons who looked like they'd been there about 60 years. But, and this is a confession from a two-time English major, I don't like reading museum blurbs. I'd rather read a 400 page book on farming than read 100 snippets next to art. I just can't do it. So, I took a bunch of pictures in the hopes that I'll care later and look into the who/what/why of it all.
They had paintings, artifacts, sculptures and replicas of Native American dwellings. The place was huge and I was out of there in like 30 minutes.
Around about the exhibit about blue uniforms, I overheard and elderly woman ask an elderly curator if there was anything else to do in OKC. "Is there a zoo?" "Yes, there is a Zoo. And there is the Oklahoma City Bombing memorial. That is probably our most popular tourist destination."
I had COMPLETELY forgotten about that! While I was still in California, dreaming of all the things I might do on the trip, that was very high on my list. Thank GOD that conversation happened or I'd be half way to wherever before I remembered. It's the same as the JFK / Dallas thing. I totally forgot about it.
I have a tremendous compulsion here to explain WHY I seek out potentially misery making tourist attractions, but I'm going to skip that because....well, these attractions exist for a reason and I'm not weird for wanting to see them.
Unfortunately, I'm also going to skip talking about the memorial and the museum for now because it was insanely emotional and I might leave that for it's own blog post.
Instead I'm going to tell you about forgetting something else.
I was driving through Stillwater, Oklahoma on my way to Tulsa. I figured Tulsa would be a great half way point to Arkansas. If I liked it, I could get a hotel room and stay the night (clearly that didn't happen). If I didn't, I could get dinner and GTFO (that did happen). Oh, but I did take a quick stop at The Center of The Universe.
It doesn't look like much
This lovely woman told me all about it
Even my phone knew it was the Center of the Universe
Long story short, I'm going to copy/paste from Atlas Obscura. "The 'Center of the Universe' is a little-known mysterious acoustic phenomenon. If you stand in the middle of the circle and make a noise, the sound is echoed back several times louder than it was made. It's your own private amplified echo chamber." Let me also say that no one else can hear the echo. Its only heard by the person standing on the circle. It was COOL!
The woman (and her husband) who were also there for this phenomenon, were from Louisiana and couldn't understand why I would only stay in Tulsa for dinner. Anyway, they said they have a thing for Presidential Libraries. Have you ever heard that before? I love that.
Anyway, at some point today I was in Stillwater, Oklahoma and something in my brain was like, "This means something." (Close Encounters reference). I could not for the life of me remember what special site was to be seen in Stillwater and then I passed this!
Who is that peaking out from behind a fence? Is that Optimus Prime?!
Here are other places I completely accidentally ended up that I had, while planning, thought, "It'd sure be cool to stop there."
For my Parks and Rec fans
Because I'm from Cleveland (yes, I brought this shirt in case I ended up there and YES I changed in the car to take this picture)
Then the weather turned rainy and lightning happened, as if to remind me of Cleveland, and that's when I ended up in Tulsa.
The first thing I saw was "skid row". I haven't said that phrase or even heard it since the 80's, but it fits. I saw a dozen homeless folks trying to huddle together and hide from the rain by standing under trees. I saw a group huddled on the front stoop of the bail bonds place.
I will say this for the city of Tulsa. I knew when I arrived. It was no Oklahoma City sprawl. It was a proper city with a sports venue and restaurants and hotels all in a central area. It made sense.
I had a lovely dinner indoors, which freaked me out, but everyone working there was masked and there were no customers as it was like 5pm. It was delicious. Then I did the Center of the Universe thing, since it was a 3 minute walk. Then I couldn't make one more decision and sat paralyzed in my car.
I called Krista and said, "I just can't" and she said, "Yeah you can." Basically. It was perfect and motivating and I got my butt to Arkansas, didn't I?
Ok, I have one more thing to say before posting this blog and giving my brain a break before tackling the OKC Bombing Story, which will probably be short, but I just can't FEEL that again right now.
I thought I could beat the sunset to Bentonville, but was wrong by about 45 minutes. However, just like last night at Pops, when the sun went down, the country came to life. The humidity skyrocketed, but the temperature cooled enough that I could roll down my car window, especially since I was now on backroads going about 30mph. I turned off the radio and listened to the sound of the forests and farms. The insects were chirping and whirring and sometimes sounded like monkeys. I saw three country dogs wandering their neighborhoods with no collars on. As I drove by, they stopped sniffing around to look at me as if they were waving hello.
If you're my wife, you should probably skip this paragraph. I saw a considerable amount of roadkill. At one point, I was seeing something in the middle of the two lane road every 500 feet or so. Some of it was unrecognizable and I was thankful for it, because some things were very recognizable and I'll probably keep those images in my head longer than I'd like. I did see a pretty intact racoon and thought, somebody will make a nice hat out of that.
I passed homes that were stately and showed how well their farm was doing. I saw small raised trailers on enormous lots of land. I saw overgrown lots with rusted out RVs and a lot of belongings outside. I thought, "That looks like generations of stuff and what do you do when it's left to you? There's no one else out here who is going to take it." I saw homes with 15 cars in different levels of decay with different levels of grass growing up, around and through them. I saw wood buildings that caved in on themselves from decades of humidity.
When the sun was fully gone, I saw fireflies. They danced in the reeds and fields next to the road, entertaining me for miles. The backroads and lightning bugs, humidity and wind blowing in my hair lulled me into a slow speed.
And then I arrived in Bentonville, who surprised me immediately! It was full of life with a bustling Main Street. People were walking home or to their hotels (after the film they just saw ended, I found out). Folks were eating outdoor at high quality restaurants. The homes looked like multi million dollar estates, but I had been driving a long time and my senses were overwhelmed.
I looked on the map for hotels near me. The 21C was sold out. The only other option in town was the B&B that I'm currently in. I drove up, called the number on a note at the door and asked if they had a room available for the evening. She said she lived next door and would be right over.
It's now after midnight and I'm absolutely exhausted. Blissed out from how amazing my life is, but pooped and this super fancy pants bed is calling my name. Good night folks.
