R is for Rain!
Downtown Oklahoma City. I was warm and dry in a pedestrian bridge.
Category Archives: Oklahoma City
Signs – Mickey Mantle’s
One of the most famous Yankees is Mickey Mantle who grew up in Oklahoma. The Bricktown area of Oklahoma honors his memory with a restaurant and a sculpture near the AAA Bricktown Ballpark
Scavenger Hunt Sunday from Lace to Bling and more
Time again for Ashley Sisk’s Scavenger Hunt Sunday. This week’s hunt was especially challenging.
1.Lace
Lace, lace, I’m not much of a lace photographer. I didn’t quite know what to do. I briefly considered going to my favorite sporting goods store, Victoria’s Secret, with my camera but I wasn’t really in the mood to get escorted out of the store even in the performance of my journalistic duty as a blogger.
The above is a sugar mask from the Oklahoma Sugar Art Show. You may not know it but Oklahoma is big in the sugar art world.The masks are made from sugar and are so delicate that one observer’s bumping the table with their motorized wheelchair destroyed many of the masks.
2.Bling
Son and I went on a road trip to Oklahoma City and one of the things we did was tour the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Center where we found these belts in the gift store.
3.Wood
Let me tell you about the relationship between me and wood. For a time our family lived in the small town of Eagar, Arizona up in the White Mountains. We heated the house with the fireplace so my brother and I got a lot of experience in hauling wood to the house, sawing it into fireplace length with a bow saw (see the photo, no chain saws for us), splitting the logs, stacking them, and then hauling a days worth from the wood stack to the front porch every day after school during heating season. So to make a long story short I am very happy with our natural gas fireplace. I don’t find the sight of real wood fires to be romantic at all!- Yes, that’s me in the photo above, probably about 1968 or so.
4.Fuzzy
Bison are pretty fuzzy, we have lots of them in Oklahoma but I found this guy I found in Wyoming’s Grand Teton Nationa Park last summer.
5.Fabric
My Father-in-law was a great guy and a small town pharmacist who passed away way before his time. He had quite a Christmas necktie collection. Nana, the world’s greatest MIL, had his ties made into quilt with the Grinch as a centerpiece. Charles was no Grinch, he was one of the most generous men I ever knew, but he enjoyed poking stuffed shirts when they needed it. For example he displayed a prominent quote from Charles Darwin in his office^. Let me clue you in: people in rural Oklahoma do not like Charles Darwin. Charles didn’t mean any disrespect, he just thought that Darwin had some good thoughts about responding to change.
Here is Charles with son in the pharmacy when son, SuperPizzaBoy, was just a baby. I’ll tell you that no Grandfather loved their Grandson as much as Charles loved SuperPizzaBoy. Anyway, we have the quilt hanging in our front room and not a day goes by that I don’t think of him.
^Darwin’s quote that Charles had on display: ““It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.””
Signs – Automobile Alley in Oklahoma City
I was in Oklahoma City late last month at a conference. I took a few pics of the Christmas Lights on Automobile Alley. The area also has several great old school neon signs.
Not only old school signs but old school businesses. Nice to see an urban restoration without Old Navy or Kohls.
This is my favorite. I love the big long looping glass coils that make up the image.
This probably isn’t really neon, but what the heck it is a great regional chain and the pizza is wonderful. I recommend the barbecue chicken pizza. It’s delish. They also have a great gluten free crust available.
Have you seen any good signs lately? Do you have a good pizza joint? I’m needing to know stuff like that?
Hey also, any instagrammers out there? Have you cancelled your account yet? I sure have. I think this may go down as a MBA case study on how to destroy a business one day. Or maybe they’ll back off a little and this will all blow over. Any good alternatives out there? I’m suffering mightily from Instagram withdrawal. Don’t judge me if I go crawling back! I am not worried about the privacy concerns. I mean if you want things to be private don’t be uploading it to the internet, right, duh. I’m concerned on how they are going to use my poorly lit, out of focus, photos of my new shoes.
Weekend Reflections – Devon Tower and Myriad Gardens
Last week I was in Oklahoma City.
The Devon Tower and the Myriad Garden’s Crystal Bridge made a matching pair that night.
The revamped Myriad Gardens has some very nice areas.
There is a temporary ice rink set up. Lots of people skating during the warm evening.
There were lights everywhere.
I walked a few blocks to the north. I’ve always wanted to see the Oklahoma City Memorial at night. These lights glow year round for the 168 people who lost their lives in the attack.
Scavenger Hunt Sunday – Missing!
This week’s prompts were challenging for me, which makes it fun!
1. Missing
One of my obsessions is geocaching that is a sport where people hide caches out in various locations and post the GPS coordinates on geocaching.com. Others go find the caches and log both a paper log in the cache and the online cache page. Sometimes I end up in creepy places like this long abandoned roadway near Tulsa. I walked down this road about a mile to the cache. This looked like a great place to go missing. Of course, not a soul knew that I was out there. If something happened to me it might a while before somebody found me.
2. Numbers
Good old number 103!
3. Purple
Christmas lights on Oklahoma City’s canal in the Bricktown area.
4. Music
A guitar tower at Seattle’s Experience Music Project. Talk about overwhelming. That was EMP.
5. Bracelet
26,000+ photos on Flickr that I’ve posted and not one bracelet tag so I’m cheating. This was my mother’s turquoise and silver handcrafted necklaces. Mom is gone and Dad gave me her necklace. I remember the day way back when Dad gave it to her. It was a great day for both of them.
Bricktown Sunset
I caught the sun going down while walking along the canals of Oklahoma City’s Bricktown area.
Christmas on Automobile Alley
I am in Oklahoma City on business for a day or two. Usually I just buzz down the turnpike and back but not this time. My hotel is in the downtown area so I was looking forward to checking in and doing either some night time geocaching or photography. I got off the freeway exit and turned down Broadway to make my to my hotel when I saw buildings ablaze with light.
>
It was flat amazing. Each building was decorated with a single color of lights. So xnay on the old geocaching plan, (although I think they do have geocaches). I walked up and down and over across the streets taking pictures.
This section of Broadway north of downtown is called “Automobile Alley” because way back when in the early 20th century that is where most of Oklahoma City’s Automobile Dealers were here. It is not redone and gentrified with cool restaurants and shops.
I remember reading about these lights on my favorite Oklahoma Blog JenX67. She wrote about the lights here and here. I go to Oklahoma City quite often but usually during the day and with somebody. My coworkers are very patient with me but I don’t take them on too many wild photography and geocaching adventures.
This store is just off Automobile Alley but they have upped the ante.
But nothing like the building right next to it. I’d hate to pay their electric bill. But I love the wild zaniness of the lights.
It was getting kind of late. I spotted this nice wine merchant. I went inside and spotted a nice Oyster Bay Pinot Noir and then I went back across the street to Hideaway Pizza and had their BBQ Chicken. Superb!!
Have you seen any good Christmas lights lately?
Automobile Alley Signs
Weekend Reflections Devon Tower
A coworker and I went to Oklahoma City Thursday to visit customers and go to a gas industry luncheon. We got downtown a little early so we wandered over to the Devon Building in search of a cup of coffee. The building was just completed in March. In the lobby they have a spectacular reflecting pool. I was really fascinated by it.
The water is less than an inch deep and I love its wrapped around design. I’ll be coming back when I have more time and a better camera as all I had was my Ipod Touch.
I’ll be taking more pictures of the exterior. The photo below was taken about this time last year.
The building is really striking. It is about 850 feet tall and dominates the skyline for miles around. There will be an restaurant, open to the public, at the top that is opening soon. I hope the food will be able to match the view.
Devon Tower
Road Trip to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum
Saturday a week ago,son and I loaded up the car and headed down the highway to Oklahoma City.
We pulled off the turnpike at Wellston and drove down Route 66 to Pops near Arcadia to get us a soft drink. Pops has almost every kind of soft drink known to man. We bought two each. Usually we only get one but it was hot that day. We drank one and put the other in a cooler we brought along just for that purpose. So we could drink something cold on our way back.
Don’t ask my why I always get some sort of Black Cherry soda at Pops. I’m a Diet Doctor Pepper guy usually. Diet Creme Cherry flavored if I can get it. Don’t judge me. I always like diet Orange Crush.
Next stop was the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. We love this place, just love it. It will always be the Cowboy Hall of Fame to me though. I’ve been going here ever since I moved to Oklahoma twenty six years ago. It has really changed over the years.
One of my favorite places is their big banquet hall. They have five massive triptych paintings by Wilson Hurley. Together they are called Windows on the West. They are huge and spectacular. My employer has a Wilson Hurley painting in the lobby. I saw him there some years ago up on a step ladder touching up the painting.
(The Leader’s Downfall by William R. Leigh)
The museum is cram full of Western Art of all types.
They also have lots of other exhibits about life in the west for cowboys, soldiers, and regular families.
Ronald Reagan belongs in the Museum. I’m assuming that George W. will be there one day. His dad, George H. won’t nothing wrong with him, he is just not western. Barack Obama won’t be there either. I mean you either have it or you don’t. I grew up in small towns of the west with cowboys, I had many western friends, some of my family are western. I don’t have a western bone in my body. I don’t have anything against it, its just now me. But I still like this Museum.
They have a great rodeo exhibit. They explain all the events and have a mock up of a rodeo arena, great fun.
They have a great section on the west in movies and television. That is Kirk Douglas above.
SuperPizzaBoy’s favorite is Prosperity Junction a western Town. He really liked the pulpit in the church.
A mock up of an early day classroom. I hate to admit it but this is how my class rooms in Price, Utah looked like when I was a kid. Inkwells in the desk and all. At least we didn’t use the inkwells.
Early day bank.
I caught him bellying up to the bar. Kids!
I love this hat exhibit. Tell you what though, when I first saw it it reminded my of a tank full of jellyfish. Is there such a thing as Cowboy Hat Jellyfish?
With that, we loaded up, grabbed our second sodas from Pops and headed back home.
I just love road trips, have you been on one lately? Tell us about it.