Got to OKC all right. Luckily it was a shortish drive. Ended up getting on 2 turnpikes that didn’t have any rest stops! What???? If I got desperate I could have pulled off the road and did a squat but luckily I didn’t need to do that, nor did I need gas. But, as soon as the turnpikes were done ($3.50 + $5.00 total) there was a plaza with a McDonald’s so I had a filet-o-fish and a small fries. I don’t eat those often but when I do they’re always good.
There is so much construction in Bentonville that it took a bit to get out of town. Stopped for gas here – at the Kum and Go (LOL). But gas was $4.10. Not bad these days!
Anyway, got to the hotel in OKC and it was … interesting. Another 21c. This one is in an old Ford factory (from the Model T days) and then was another manufacturing site. The “halls” by the rooms are CAVERNOUS. Kinda weird.
Nice big room though
Here is some artwork around the hotel
Didn’t do much on the arrival day. The windy driving took a lot out of me. Got 2 dinners from the hotel restaurant because they’re closed today and there’s not a ton around here, although today I found a couple places. Blazing Saddles was on, following by From Here to Eternity so I had a nice movie night.
Woke up today, Sunday 5/29, and decided to hit some museums. Had an hour or two to do some travel planning and then got the hotel shuttle to the OK Contemporary Arts Museum. Kaden, my driver, just graduated from high school 2 weeks ago. But he was a slow safe driver so that was cool. Nice kid.
https://oklahomacontemporary.org/exhibitions/free_tickets
This artist, John Newsom, is from OK but lives in NYC now. Cool stuff!
It didn’t take much time to go thru the museum and then I had to decide what to do. As it turns out, there was another funky place just a few blocks away – The Mix Tape Factory Obscura. It’s kind of like MEOW WOLF but much less technology and all hand-made art.
Here it is. It’s basically an interactive, immersion kinda thing. I wore my mask and didn’t really want to touch much but I still enjoyed it.
You entered thru an ear – one of the points of it was how hearing music changes how you experience things (weird looking ear though)
Upon closer look these are all plastic cups!
We got glasses kind of like the old cardboard 3D glasses that were like prisms. I took this photo with them on the lens
I didn’t do a video but this was kind of like a waterfall. Really cool!
Book alleyway. And, the photos don’t really do the place justice
Then on to the Oklahoma Memorial Museum (homage to the OKC bombing that took place in 1995. I didn’t go inside though.
Then I decided to walk over to the Myriad Gardens.
The greenhouse is closed for renovations, but there’s a lot of cool stuff.
I was close to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art so figured I’d go there too. Why not? Nothing like a column of Chiluly!
Kenn was happy to get out. Especially because I forgot my backpack in the hotel bar yesterday and didn’t realize it until today. Thank God they had it!! (I have found that all this driving with my brain so focussed on driving is not necessarily good for focussing on stuff when driving is done. Need to work on that. These are good reminders though!)
Closeup of the above. Pretty impressive how this technique works so well!
After this I was done. Called the hotel to see if the shuttle could pick me up (Kaden loves to drive the shuttle) and it was available. Funny though – he first went to the museum where he dropped me off instead of where I was now. but, it all worked out.
Got back to the hotel, got cleaned up, decided to fill up my water bottle at the gym, which conveniently is very close to my room, and … left my room key in the room!! That’s a first! I usually put the hotel key in my leggings pocket, but today I had the room key plus a card with the shuttle phone number. I felt the shuttle number and thought it was my key, but, alas it wasn’t. And so, I had to go down to the lobby barefoot, without ID, to get another key. Luckily one of the people there knew me from this morning and could vouch that it was me.
I think that’s about it for the past few days. Heading to Tucumcari NM tomorrow. Decided I needed to stay at at least one place that is actually on Route 66. The other option was Amarillo TX but I decided I didn’t feel like staying in another downtown place, in TX.
Talk soon!