Americana Travels,
Pt 6: Tulsa to Wichita
May 17th, 2012 – When I get back to San Diego, I
plan on sleeping for about a week . . . or until I drive up to the Bay Area a
few days later. Hell . . . that trip will feel like two minutes after this trek
across the U.S.!
We woke up in Tulsa, Oklahoma at around 9:00am. We quickly
showered, ate our last muffins from Revolution Bakery in Santa Fe, and checked
out. We were on the road at 10:45am and loading up with flats of water from Walgreen’s,
and a few minutes later, we were fueling up at Starbuck’s, the unofficial sponsor
of Road Trip 2012. We had to load up with flats of water because the hotel we
stayed at oddly enough had no free water for us. I say oddly because the traditionally
dry markets such as California, Phoenix, and New Mexico gave us water freely .
. . as did Texas! Oklahoma gave us nothing. Not that it’s Oregon or Washington
and dowsed in perpetual wetness, but they could have sprung for a community
pitcher in the common area. When we asked about water, we were told to take it
from the tap in our room. The tap? From our room? Wow . . . with customer
service like that, well . . . I’m sure I can take pointers from that. Anyway,
Oklahoma was basked in 90 degree heat, so those flats of water were beyond
essential.
Today was a much needed shorter run than the past few days
across the country. But still, it seems like we packed in a ton of stuff in
fewer hours. Our first stop of the day was a few miles from the hotel, but then
again, I suppose everything in Tulsa is a few miles from the hotel. The first
stop was to Oral Roberts University. We followed Jack’s directions, weaving and
winding in the southern region of Tulsa, and came across these two huge hands
clasped together in prayer. Directly in front of the university at the main
entrance, these two hands greeted us as we pulled into the adjacent parking
lot. The hands were way cool, but there was one negative to the whole
experience. Geese. Wild frickin’ geese waddled around the statue freaking me
out to no end. I mean, it’s not like I’m afraid of geese on a conceptual basis,
it’s more of what I’ve witnessed in watching America’s Funniest Home Videos
when hapless wing-nut’s get bitten in the junk by wild geese. I didn’t want to
be one of those hapless wing-nuts, so I kept a discreet distance from these
fowl beasts and let Mrs. Pope snap the photos for the statue.
A few minutes later, we plotted a course to the America’s
Largest Buddhist Deity Statue. We had to travel east again, actually pretty
damn close to the hotel we had just checked out of. En route to the statue, we
passed about a million and two churches, and found ourselves in a more secluded
region of the town. We were cruising along the road as directed by co-pilot
Jack . . . wait, actually, I think Jack is the navigator . . . which makes me
the co-pilot. Doesn’t it? Judges? Okay, so as were we following the road, we
came upon a dude in a hard hat and reflector vest (no, it wasn’t one of the
Village People), and he re-directed us around the block because there was a
fire that had broken out right in front of us. Kinda’ shocking, but we were
flexible and followed the new directions around the block. We eventually pulled
into the Buddhist Sanctuary that called this monstrous statue home. We felt a
little weird pulling into this place because we thought we might be offending
the folks there, so we made a quick u-turn and pulled out of the sanctuary.
That didn’t stop us from snapping a couple of photos of the big guy. It was
really cool looking as this big white monstrosity was staring east, head just hovering
above the tree line. Take a look . . . dude is cool!
We then headed towards downtown Tulsa to see the Sonic
Center of the Universe. After driving around in circles for awhile, we finally
found a place to park mere steps from the apex of a bridge that crosses over a
set of railroad tracks. In the center of this bridge, it’s rumored that you can
stand there, speak out loud and hear your voice in your head. Mrs. Pope heard
it and got a little dizzy. I didn’t hear squat, but I did feel a little dizzy. It
was still pretty cool to see.
From there, we made our way west and our new stop along the
trek, Wichita! We had one stop to make first before we hit the open road and
the state of Kansas. One of the more unique oddities on this trip was a burial
ground in the middle of a strip mall. We pulled into the parking lot and
rattled off a couple of photos, and it was definitely one of the more bizarre
things we’ve seen . . . a piece of history mixed in with modern real estate, a
contrast of times and cultures.
We took off a few minutes later and headed west on 51 to the
town of Stillwater. We loaded up on some more coffee and powered through the
next forty-five miles, watching trees, pastures, and lakes zip by. That trek
seemed to drag on a bit, but fortunately we had a book on CD that helped while
away the miles. Before too terribly long, we were on the I-35 and headed north towards
Kansas. We stopped for some more coffee coz after another hour on that strip of
highway, we were both getting a little dozy. We pulled off at the final
scheduled site of the day . . . a semi standing on its nose in a field just off
the road. We grabbed some more coffee and snapped a photo of this peculiar beast,
and then continued the journey north.
We crossed the Kansas state line and in about fifty minutes,
we were pulling into the parking lot of the hotel on the outskirts of Wichita.
We checked into our hotel and Mrs. Pope immediately scoped out a place to get a
pedicure and massage. We jammed over to the spa and Mrs. Pope got her feet
done, and I was planning on just camping out with a book until her session was
over. Well, suddenly I was informed that the masseuse was on her way back
specifically to tackle my session . . . nothing wrong with that service! So, a
half hour later, I was rubbed down and relaxed.
From there, we took off for dinner and ended up at the River
City Brewery in Old Town Wichita. The beer made me more loopy than I would have
expected and dinner was awfully tasty. Mrs. Pope had the top sirloin and I had
the house chicken mac and cheese. We had a great waitress that we chatted up,
and much like the rest of the people along this trek, was absolutely friendly
and glad to have us experiencing her state. We then returned to our hotel room
and called it a night.
Pope
Quote of the day: “You
know what we just did? We just navigated Wichita!” --
Pope
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