We picked up Mom and Dad at 8:00 from Fletcher and headed towards the Land of the Giants. Tulsa, that is. Today we focused on Route 66. It's the hundredth anniversary for the Mother Road and everyone is taking notice. In Tulsa, they installed a new musical road which is where we started. It wasn't easy to get to, but we finally crossed the bridge going the right direction and got the tires semi-close to how they should be so we could hear "This Land is Your Land." It was pretty cool!
Then we headed to the Gold Meadows District, also knows as the Land of the Giants. The neighborhood was literally falling apart with abandoned buildings when Mary Beth Babcock stepped in and opened Buck Atom's Cosmic Curios. She put Buck Atom the Cosmic Space Cowboy outside her establishment. Then she became the cheerleader for the district, encouraging other entrepreneurs to open businesses. She, along with other business owners, encouraged people to put up the quintessential neon signs known for Route 66's past and to begin adding their own 19- to 20-foot giants. Now there are five in the neighborhood, plus a few more farther down route-66 and also the famous Tulsa fairgrounds Golden Driller, which dwarfs all of them at a massive 76 feet tall.
We walked around the area, stopping in a few shops. One of the most interesting was the Decopolis Discovitorium, which ended up being part store, part museum with its dinosaurs outside, and interesting curious goods and art deco information on the inside. Another interesting stop was Grandfather's Clock Gallery. They had so many beautiful grandfather clocks as well as mantel clocks. They also had the cat clocks which we mainly recognized from an old Disney clip. We almost bought Ashley one, but she didn't answer her text asking if it might be something she would like.
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| Rosie the Riveter honors Naomi Parker Fraley, the Tulsa-born woman who inspired the iconic "We Can Do It!" poster. |
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| Meadow Gold Mack |
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| Cowboy Bob |
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| Stella Atom |
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| Buck Atom |
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| The souvenir shop that started it all is housed in a PEMCO filling station from the 1950's along Route 66. |
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| You can buy any color of the Kit-Kat Klock you want at Grandfather's Clock Gallery! |
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| Decopolis |
Lunch was spent at Catoosa where we ate at the Boomerang Diner. I was trying to get all of the stamps for the Eastern Oklahoma portion of the Route-66 passport, so after a quick stop for a stamp at D.W. Correll Museum, we headed to the Blue Whale of Catoosa. The whale is actually part of a zoo that Hugh and Zelta Davis built as a stop on Route 66. Nature's Acres allowed people to see alligators, snakes, turtles, and prairie dogs and even had a replica of Noah's Ark. While the attraction kept them busy, Hugh was a creative man and wanted to build his wife something. He decided on a whale for their pond that would also be a swimming deck. Thus the Blue Whale of Catoosa was born. The fins are slides into the pool and the back fin was the diving board. You used to be able to climb up into the head, but they have blocked that off now as well as prevented the swimming. They opened a visitors center just two weekends ago for the area. That, along with the route 66 anniversary as well as a hot rod tour driving through right as we were made the whale a pretty bustling area.
We only had time for a stamp at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum, but it looked interesting and the people there were incredibly friendly. Maybe we'll have time to go back and go through the museum someday. We also just got the stamp at JM Davis Arms and Historical Museum, but we made the time to go ahead and get out and walk through Claremore's Museum of History. I thought it was interesting that they had an entire wall devoted to the Band Directors from Claremore! It was right next to their section honoring their town's astronaut Stuart A. Roosa who flew on Apollo 14.
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| The space ship is made from legos! |
We were running out of time, as it was already 2:00 and we were no where close to Branson. We decided to only do one more stop to get the rest of the giants in Eastern Oklahoma. The Hi-Way Cafe in Venita has two giants outside and is right next to the Western Motel which also had its own giant. The Hi-Way Cafe (where I laughingly thought we would be at to eat lunch...) also had a car where they had received the Guinness World Record for most stickers on a car. Unfortunately, someone has bypassed them now, but they had the record for awhile.
From Venita, we hopped back on Interstate 44, so we could make it to Branson in time for our show. After a quick bite to eat at KFC, we made it to Sight and Sound Theatre exactly 45 minutes before, which was the recommended time for the showing. Whew!
This is the last season for David and one of our favorite parts, ironically, was the giant in the show! They constructed the giant at 22 feet tall (although he wasn't really that tall) and amazingly, this towering robot, also fell to his knees and then crashed face down when he was slain. It was pretty cool. I thought the entire show was amazing and loved the music. I really thought it was surprising the shocking number of scripture references they included. The music was obviously full of the Psalms, but they even included vaguely remembered things like David's strong men slaying four of Goliath's brothers, for which they built four more giants. (They obviously liked building the giants!) It also had a scene where Saul sent people to capture David, but everyone who went started prophesying, including Saul when he went. They used that scene to show David that with God all things are possible and that He would protect him. The entire act was showing how God was training David to be a king and a man after His own heart. I was floored when I heard him call one of his mighty men Uriah. I never realized he sent one of his friends to death. I just thought it was a random soldier who happened to be married to Bathsheba. The second act started with an absolutely amazing scene of David playing in the meadow under the stars and the entire theatre was flooded with star constellations and the aurora borealis. It was so beautiful and peaceful. The rest of the second act focused on David's kingship, which, unfortunately, was a lot more catastrophic and was so hard to watch. You just wanted to shout, "Say no!!" to the guy the entire second act. They didn't go past Bathsheba, but they did have a young Absalom with his long curly hair sitting on the throne pretending to be David at one point. They stopped the show with David realizing he was still forgiven, and in fact washed as white as snow. It then began snowing on him. Then it began to snow on us as well with David appealing to the audience with the gospel's message of forgiveness to us. It was pretty cool.
God was looking after us as well. Dad is getting worse with his dementia, but Mom would let him go to the bathroom by himself. I ran after him. Both times, I found him immediately. The first time, I walked out of the auditorium just as he walked out of the bathroom. I helped him find his way back to our seats. The second time, even though the women's line was incredibly long, I came out at almost the exact same time as he did and was able to walk with him back to the auditorium. Both times, it was evident he was lost. I thought it interesting though that he remembered parts of the show and we discussed it. It's crazy what his mind allows him to remember and what he doesn't.
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| Jordan bought the Lion and the Lamb. |
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