We have had some rainy weather here in Tulsa lately. To get some exercise I like to use sustainable trails but I hate getting wet so I went mall walking. Nothing more sustainable than that.
I love carousels. I’ve been taking photos of this for years.
One thing I noticed is that the mall has gotten rid of a bunch of kiosks. Fine by me. They started appearing back in the 90’s and they transformed the spaces from being light and airy to a feeling of being all closed in. Plus some of the vendors were too aggressive. I hate that. I understand the rents were sky high and they had to get a pay out. Anyway, most of the kiosks are gone and I love it. They do have things on display though. Fine with me. Anybody want a golf cart.
I love how department stores arrange their merchandise. At least the good department stores. I loved this colorful display.
Tesla has a car on display. I love taking photos of Teslas and posting them on car groups on facebook. Most of those people hate Teslas and go on and on about how terrible they are, and I laugh and laugh at them. I don’t have an opinion on Teslas. I am not convinced that I need an electric vehicle yet. I’d sure look into a plug-in hybrid for my next car.
We finally have a lego store!! I love lego stores.
I love fiesta ware also. Great thing about stores is that I can enjoy looking at their products without having to take them home.
I love Psychobunny merchandise. The thing is that it is never on sale. Every once in while I see some of their stuff on steep discount at Nordstrom Rack.
I love Thomas the Tank Engine stuff also. We have a whole bunch up in the attic. When Logan was a little kid he played with it a lot. I played with it a lot more. I’m saving it for my dotage years.
I ended my mall walk in the parking lot. This was parked next to me. I love it.
About an hour, two plus miles, stayed dry. Didn’t buy anything. Nice mall walk. Make fun of me if you want. I don’t care.
I am trying to stay active these days and I was all set to go walk somewhere the other day when it started raining. So not wanting to get wet, and possibly melt, and also not wanting to do the gerbil thing on a treadmill I decided to go mall walking so I set off to Tulsa’s remaining shopping mall, Woodland Hills Mall.
It was surprisingly busy but not overly so. Most everybody was wearing a mask and it was easy for me to socially distance. So off I went. It has two levels so I did a loop on the lower level and and another loop on the lower level. I also looped into the three major department stores.
Anybody besides me think that carousels are spooky. I do, I was scared of them when I was a kid. Son Logan rode this one plenty when he was little. He seemed to like them.
The Apple Store is still closed. You have a problem with your iphone, you are basically on your own. I always found the people at the Apple Store to be helpful. The Microsoft Store is also closed, but who cares right? Unless you worked there, then you care plenty.
At the far end of the mall I came across these dudes. All staring at their phones. What are they looking for? Time drags when waiting on somebody else shopping. I always find something else to entertain myself.
The department stores sell furniture. We buy furniture from time to time but it has never occured to buy furniture there. It would seem that the overhead was pretty high. Right before this section I passed some recliners. A woman was in one of them fully reclined. I told her that she looked pretty comfy, She said that she was thinking of buying one. I told her that I bought a recliner exactly like that one and loved it. She said, “really.” I said yes, it has worked out well. I was lying to to her big time but I learned in MBA school that it was important for people to be happy with their purchases.
They had this bar for sale also. It’s kind of cool.
Way back when, when work clothing was more formal, coats and ties. I used to love buying and wearing that stuff. What made it work was experienced clothes salesmen who could figure out what kind of clothes looked best on a particular person. They got replaced by people who were selling lawn mowers last week. All they could say, no matter how bad something looked, was “that looks good.” The good places always had a good selection of ties and one particular person that could match ties and shirts to a suit. That was the best part. You could tell those places by their displays. I found the displays of ties and shirts on my mall walk to be pretty dismal. Oh well, I don’t have to worry about any more.
This was a welcome sight. Are short skirts and dresses making a comeback? I was in high school during the golden age of short skirts back in the late 60’s and early 70’s. It was wonderful. I’ve read that hem lines go up and down with the economy. Is this a forerunner of better times then?! I hope so.
The perfume counters, I hate those things. Somebody wants a particular brand of cologne then you had to search around these areas forever.
Bath and Body Works. How do people stand working in there. So many scents and smells that all meld together in a ugh.
Jerseys. I don’t have any sports teams jerseys. I think it is creepy to get a jersey with somebody else’s name on it. I have Dallas Cowboys shirts but they don’t have any player’s name on them. I actually pop in here to see if they have team caps on sale. I got a very cool Mexican national soccer team cap in here one time for $5. Nothing on sale today though so time to move on.
Ah yes, my favorite sporting goods store, Victoria’s Secret.
The mall has a new (to me) store featuring Native American themed goods. All very nice and very colorful. I’ll be back, I like that kind of stuff. Photos are free!
This shirt doesn’t apply to me. I am as white it gets. Anybody else do the DNA thing with Ancestry.com? I got mine and it is fun and interesting and all that but what gets me is how they send updates to your ancestors origins. Mine has swung all over the place. Used to be a lot of Danish involved, the latest one has no Danish but lots of Irish, British, northern Europe generic, Sweden, and Norway. Used to be rumored that there was a little Native American but nope, not a drop. Don’t worry I am not a white supremacist, I hate those people, just stating facts. Oklahoma has lots of Native Americans and many of them are blue eyed and whiter than me so I think the shirt is aimed more toward them. The various Tribes all have the right to determine who is member of the tribe and who isn’t so one has to be careful claiming to be a little bit this tribe or that tribe.
So anyway, I did my laps and got about 1.6 miles in, and stayed dry! Didn’t buy a thing either.
Saturday afternoon, the weather said 91F, my car said 100F. Me and Logan need to get some exercise but he doesn’t handle the heat to well and he is still nursing his ankle. So I said, “Hey, you want to do go mall walking Buddy?” He kind of did the “Sure Dad, and so off we went.
When is Sears ever going to learn about merchandising?
The plan was to park at the upper floor of Sears at one end and walk on down to Macy’s and back while going through the two big stores in the middle, J.C. Penney’s and Dillards.
Logan couldn’t get out of Sears fast enough.
We weren’t really prepared, neither one of us was wearing Hush Puppy’s for instance.
Red Cross was there taking people’s blood. I used to give blood many moons ago but things got worse and worse. One time they backflowed the heparin into my arm. Now that was painful. The last time I gave blood my wife had to come get me. So sorry guys. You can’t have my blood today. Logan didn’t feel like it either.
Outside Eskimo Joes. If you are from Oklahoma you have probably heard of them. It is a restaurant that also sells a lot of clothes. I bought a nice Route 66 themed shirt on sale. The lady asked me if I would like to join their club. No thanks, last time I was here was in 1992.
I think it was in Penney’s, I offerred to be Logan a Cars themed back pack. He didn’t seem that that would be okay for a high school senior. Besides his Mom does all his school shopping.
The food court. Neither Logan can stand loud crowd noises. So no thanks, we’ll go elsewhere.
a
Macy’s had a great dish display.
The old carousel. Not the same one as eon’s ago but he rode one just like it around and around and around.
We were walking not shopping but this window scared me. Those super heroes look pretty angry to me.
And what is up with this. Since when is ice cold equal to 37 degrees. For pure water it is 32 degrees. For sugar water it is probably a lot less than that is what I say.
a
What is up with all the hat stores. I have never actually seen anybody buy a hat in one of those stores. What is up with that?
And what is up with all the sports logo merchandise? The University of Oklahoma, Okalahoma State, it just flies off the shelves. I’ll tell you though that one good thing about being a Dallas Cowboy fan is that they discount the merchandise pretty heavily about three games into the season.
a
At about 75% of the way through the mall. I’m getting kind of tired of it all. But the AC is working great.
Logan outside the Apple Store. He is an Apple man through and through. I’m cheap, I have an Ipod touch and an Android phone. I can change the battery for $7 and have a big old cheap 32 Gig memory chip to help out the 16G built in. Try that with your Iphone.
Logan and his cool new friends. Say goodbye dude, we have to go.
