May 9, 2017

Squirrel watching out the back window.

Our morning walk on the west side of the Arkansas River, with a separate walking and  biking trails. Coming at the end of the year on the east side of the river is a fantastic new 100-acre park system, connecting the east and west side by 2 land bridges (http://www.tulsaworld.com/specialprojects/gatheringplace/).  This park, when it is completed, is believed to be the largest gift to a public park in U.S. history at $350 million.  The funds were donated by the George Kaiser Family Foundation. The park will include a lodge, boathouse, several playgrounds, bike and walking trails, gardens and fishing piers.  Pretty impressive for Tulsa, OK.

Lunch at the Blue Rose on the Arkansas River.

May 5, 2017  Friday was such a beautiful day in Tulsa.  We decided to go to the First Friday Art Walk in the downtown Brady District.  Hey, Mambo is a cute little restaurant where we could sit on their patio, have supper and watch the people walking by. We had a huge pizza (their specialty), but could only eat half of it. Then we wandered through some of the small galleries, listened to sidewalk performers, searched the sidewalk exhibits, and enjoyed the eclectic mix of people that were there.  It was a really nice evening.

May 4, 2017

This beautiful mansion was home to another Phillips (Phillips 66 Co) family member, Waite Phillips.  In 1937 it was donated to the City of Tulsa for a museum.  The building is much more ornate than the Gilcrease Museum that we saw yesterday.  It sits on 23 acres and has beautifully landscaped formal gardens, complete with 2 water gardens, a rose garden, sculptures, and a tempietto (a small temple-like building).  There is another branch of this museum downtown.  We plan to visit it when we do the First Friday Art Walk tomorrow evening.

May 2, 2017  We took another short trip, this time to Tulsa, OK for a week.  Today was chilly and rainy, so we decided to go to the Gilcrease Museum where we could stay warm and dry. 

This world famous museum has the world's largest collection of art and artifacts of the American West.  It has a unique collection of Native American art, as well as clothing, household items, weapons, and other artifacts.  There are also old documents and items from early United States History. My favorite was the "live mask" of Abraham Lincoln's face and hands.  It could have been in the Smithsonian, but here it is in Tulsa, Ok!  It is a very extensive collection of 350,000 items with only about 4 per cent out on rotation.  Because of this, they are planning an addition in two years. We had a private tour with an excellent guide to show us around.  One fun fact is that we saw some of the artists whose prints we have in our small collection.

Gilcrease Home

Mar 10, 2017

We picked up our new camper, the Road Yacht.

Mar 28

Maiden voyage was a short trip to Bartlesville, Ok.  We spent one morning at the Price Tower.  It is the only tall, vertical building that Frank Lloyd Wright designed.  It was designed with a tree theme.  The copper has aged to a tree green and it has a central "trunk" instead of the 4-corner pillar design of most tall structures.  The interior is classic FLW, all angles, built-in furniture, minimalist décor. Even the 4 central (tiny) elevators cars are triangles and will hold only 3-4 people at a time. The history of the building of this tower is fascinating.  If you are ever passing through Bartlesville, take the time to take a tour of this unique building.

Saturday, Kay joined us and we went to Wooloroc.  This ranch ( now a museum) belonged to Frank Phillips who founded the Phillips 66 Petroleum Co.  Phillips was a very eccentric, very rich oilman and his ranch and collections are evidence of that.  We enjoyed listening to one of the docents share stories of some of the parties that Phillips hosted at the ranch.  The museum is mainly Western and Native American art and artifacts.  It is a very large museum and we spent half of one day there.  We would like to go back in the summer when everything is in bloom on the grounds.  It is a beautiful setting.                                                                                                                                                 

February  The RV park where we were staying had WiFi problems.  They were trying to redo the whole system, so we didn't have any way to post on the blog for the last 3 weeks that we were there.  We had a lovely site among the live oak trees, though.

  

Here is a recap of those weeks.  In Fulton, we visited the the Fulton Mansion, built in the 1800s.  It was beautifully restored and had beautiful views of the bay.  On the way there, we passed a grove of trees that looked they had literally been sculpted by the wind!

We decided that Jax was needing a bath after another one of our beach days.  So we swung by the Dog Wash.  Seriously, this is just like a DIY carwash, only it's for dogs.  You make selections like Shampoo, Rinse, Condition, Blow Dry, etc.  So funny!

Later that evening, we left Jax at the camper and we went to dinner.  I had been wanting to go to this place because it is right on the water.  It is called Paradise Key Dockside Restaurant.  Great food (scallops and shrimp), great view, and the Key Lime pie was scrumptious!

Later in the week we spent most of one whole day at Aransas National Wildlife Refuge.  This is one of the few places where you can still see Whooping Cranes in the wild (we saw three of them).  They are still endangered, but are slowing making a come-back.  It is estimated to be up to approximately 500 now (it was down to only 15 at one time).  We also saw alligators and many kinds of birds in the marshes and salt-flats.

We took a short walk to a five hundred year old oak tree standing all alone just a few steps from the beach.

There were lots of walking trails, but we had to be careful to watch for alligators and snakes, especially with Jax.  We also climbed the 40 foot observation tower to get a better view of the whole area.  The weather was just perfect and we had a great day!