I tried a new morning schedule. Usually, I do my morning computer stuff before taking my shower. But, when it’s cold outside, I get chilled while doing my computer stuff then I don’t want to take my shower. This morning I went right to the shower while I was still warm from bed. That worked better. So, I’ll try to remember to do it that way again.
Sunshine! We’ve had enough rain lately to make morning sunshine something to notice once again. Wonderful how that works, isn’t it?
This morning’s first stop was the Gilcrease Museum, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This is a big place with lots of fascinating exhibits. We spent a lot of time at the Ansel Adams exhibit and a little time at the 101 Ranch exhibit. I need to get up my courage to bring in my segway if I’m going to spend much time in museums. We keep leaving before we are done because my knee gets so sore walking on those hard surfaces. They offered me a wheel chair but we are both less than enthusiastic about having Dave push me around and I don’t think I’d get very far trying to wheel myself. I wish we could come back time and again to see the rest of this museum, though.
The we drove by Cain’s Ballroom. Cool sign. This place still hosts bands playing for dances but I probably wouldn’t enjoy the bands that play there today. I am now officially an old fogy.
Then we went looking for the Center of the Universe. This is a place on a pedestrian walkway that has odd acoustics. We found the walkway but no place to park amidst the road construction so we cannot personally attest to the oddness.
Next we found the Golden Driller standing outside the fairgrounds. He’s 76 feet tall. He even makes the stop lights look short.
Then we went looking for the Blue Dome. This former gas station was open 24/7 decades before that became common. The attendant lived above the station and would fill your tank, check your oil, wash your windshield, and put air in your tires at any time of the day or night. Of course, he might wonder why you needed to do that in the middle of the night. This was the first gas station to offer pressurized air and a car wash and was being restored to be the centerpiece of a 2004 Route 66 gathering. But, it is gone. I wonder what happened?
I like my Segway and the fact that it has a seat but I sure wish the seat had more padding. I’ve discovered the seat looks like one from a unicycle so regular bike seat covers don’t work. I thought Tulsa might be a big enough place to be able to do something about that so I Googled “unicycle Tulsa” and got three hits. The clerk at the first shop was a jerk; he did not want to even try to be helpful. So I was delighted to find the opposite case at T-Town Bicycles. The clerks there got a kick out of seeing my segway, they loaned us a wrench so we could tighten things that were coming loose, and they gave me a URL for a seat one of their customers has and likes that they said would take a week to order if we wanted to wait for it. As much as I would like to go back to the Gilcrease, a week in Tulsa is not high on our list of choices right now. But, thanks, guys! I plan to go to unicycle.com and order a Kris Holm air saddle.
We also stopped at a mall housing an Apple Store and a Radio Shack so Dave could exchange a bad part and buy a new cable. The bad part exchange went extremely smoothly; Dave walked into the Apple Store carrying the part and the clerk automatically brought him a new one. The cable is to hook up his piano to our stereo so we can hear the piano. Right now, only the person wearing the headphones can hear it. That’s OK for Dave’s practicing but we are about to visit a friend we haven’t met yet and she plays piano. We might want to hear her.
You can’t drive very far in Tulsa without seeing signs for Up With Trees. Apparently this is an organization which persuades people to donate money to plant trees in memory of loved ones. They are all over town. What a great project!
Heading on down the road we came to Sapulpa, Oklahoma, and went to our most frequent stop: WalMart. Having stocked up again we drove back to an RV park we passed on our way into town. So we are now parked at the Route 66 RV Park where Dave did four loads of laundry in their two machines. We were lucky to get them done since a couple other people came along while ours were in process. The woman said she didn’t mind waiting until tomorrow and the guy was just arriving as ours was finishing so that worked out OK.
While Dave was doing the laundry I did a bunch more research on upcoming sites. I discovered it’s important to list days and times of openings on my database. For instance the museum I was planning on us going to Friday morning is only open Monday through Thursday. And in the next town the first museum is open Saturday but the second one is not so we need to reverse the order in which we plan to go to them. Maybe now we’ll stop going to museums that just closed.
TTYL,
Linda