Tag: Oklahoma

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USA

A Route 66 Oklahoma landmark: Johnnie’s onion burger in El Reno

Johnnie's Grill onion burger in El Reno, Oklahoma (photo by Sheila Scarborough)While blasting north through Oklahoma enroute a speaking engagement, I saw on my map that I was passing through tiny El Reno, OK (located on historic Route 66.)

The town has three different places listed in one of my favorite references, Jane and Michael Stern’s Roadfood.

I couldn’t find Jobe’s and Sid’s was closed, but by golly I found Johnnie’s Grill so I stopped for their famous onion burger.

I adore onions. My kids aren’t really into them. Since this was a business trip, they weren’t with me to turn their noses up, so hah.  I got my onions.

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50 State Series

Family travel in Oklahoma

Chisholm Trail Heritage Center in Duncan, Oklahoma. I'm lucky my teen tolerated any cowboy hat pictures at all! (photo by Sheila Scarborough)Every Tuesday (this week I got a little behind so it’s Wednesday) until we run out of states, I plan to post about family-friendly vacation ideas, attractions and events in each one of the US states, taking input mostly from Twitter and Facebook.

Yes, I know how to search for travel ideas on a destination or attraction Web site, but a tweet or a Facebook Wall recommendation is a much more engaging and public way to spread the word.

Please don’t email suggestions to me; that’s nice but it is one-to-one communication. Tweet me and/or Facebook me, so that all of our networks can see what’s cool about your state.

We’re going in alphabetical order but started with the end, so our first state for the series was Wyoming, then we investigated Wisconsin , West Virginia , Washington, Virginia, Vermont, Utah, Texas, Tennessee, South Dakota, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Oregon and now we’re moving on to….Oklahoma!

Their state tourism organization is on Twitter at @OklahomaTourism and they’re on Facebook at the Oklahoma Tourism Facebook page.

When I asked for ideas, here’s what came in….

Twitter Travel Tips for Oklahoma

***  From @OklahomaTourism on Twitter  —  Family-friendly places: Jasmin Moran Children’s Museum (Seminole, OK), Leonardo’s Discovery Warehouse (Enid) and Oklahoma Aquarium (Jenks.) Oklahoma City & Tulsa Zoos are also among the top-rated. Families can order Exploring OK with Kids, a free magazine on TravelOK.com plus check out our Hot Deals section for attraction discounts/coupons https://www.travelok.com/hot_deals/index.asp.

***  From The Clarks via @Travel_Notebook on Twitter  — Just finished at Chickasaw NRA (National Recreation Area.) Great hiking and swimming, accessible to all ages. [More in their South Central OK blog post.]

***  From Lisa Gerber via @lisagerber on Twitter  —  OKC (Oklahoma City): Bricktown – ride boat, bowling and eat at Red Pin, or eat at Zio’s.  [See] Myriad Botanical Garden and Crystal Bridge Conservatory.

***  From Anne-Sophie Redisch via @SophieR on Twitter  — Children’s Cowboy Corral and interactive kids area [at National Cowboy Museum.) Got a kids’ website, too: https://cowboykids.nationalcowboymuseum.org. Indians, cowboys, rodeos….what’s not to like for kids.

***  From Sandra Sims via @sandrasims on Twitter  — I’ve always enjoyed Turner Falls in Davis OK. Great hiking and cold spring water for a swim!

***  From Robert Reid via @reidontravel on Twitter  — I grew up with talking buffalo at wonderful Woolaroc: https://www.woolaroc.org [Museum and Wildlife Preserve in Bartlesville.]

***  From Pam Baggett via @pambaggett on Twitter  — Area north of downtown OKC called The Paseo, the arts district, about 2 blocks of 20s & 30s Mediterranean facades. Artist studios & shops. Annual art event [there every] Memorial Day weekend called The Paseo Arts Festival. Children’s dance troupe performs Paseo weekend. Just remembered the miniature replica of Will Rogers home somewhere between Tulsa & Nowata. True name. [Also] I still remember trips to Turner Falls from when I was a kid. And that was a long time ago!

***  From Thomas P. Jones via @FreeWine on Twitter  — My favorite family trips are kayaking in Broken Bow, OK and Tahlequah, OK, or swimming at Turner Falls in Davis, OK.

***  From United Linen via @UnitedLinen on Twitter  — One of the best family things to do in OK is WOOLAROC in Bartlesville.

***  From Dara Quackenbush via @dquack on Twitter  — [My husband and biz colleague] Doug French went to the Cowboy Museum in OKC on his way back from Missouri. Just raved about it.

***  From Carmen Hill via @carmenhill on Twitter  —  Oklahoma City’s exotic animal park: https://www.tigersafari.us.

….And now, a massive effort by Becky McCray via @BeckyMcCray on Twitter (disclosure – she’s my business partner for Tourism Currents and also works on tourism issues with Oklahoma’s regional “Red Carpet Country” organization….)

The Honorary Northwest Oklahoma Twitter Tour Guide

***  Take the whole family swimming in the Gage, OK, pool.  It’s spring fed, with a sand bottom – https://redcarpetcountry.com/county-ellis.  Kids love to throw cow chips during the Beaver Cow Chip contest – https://www.beaveroklahoma.net. [There are] dinosaurs in the Oklahoma Panhandle.

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USA

So long, Frank Lloyd Wright

Frank Lloyd Wright's skyscraper (Scarborough photo)       A closer look at the copper panels (Scarborough photo)

You never know what you’ll find on a road trip.

Did you know that architect Frank Lloyd Wright‘s only skyscraper was built in 1956 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma? 

Today the soaring, slender Price Tower with its distinctive verdigris-copper-clad exterior houses an exhibit area, a swanky restaurant and an upscale hotel.

Now you know….

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, Frank Lloyd Wright, Oklahoma, skyscraper, architecture, Price Tower Arts Center

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USA

State Park secret: CCC cabins at Osage Hills

Our cabin at Osage Hills State Park, Oklahoma (Scarborough photo)This is a quick note about our lodgings after we stopped in Duncan, Oklahoma to see the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center.

After a drive across pretty much the entire state from south to north, we spent the night at Osage Hills State Park near Pawhuska and Bartlesville, Oklahoma.

It’s part of the Osage Nation in the northeast part of the state.

I picked that park because it has little cabins built during the 1930s Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC,) just like the “Hobbit Cabins” that my family enjoyed so much at Bastrop State Park in Texas.

Entrance to Osage Hills State Park near Pawhuska, Oklahoma (Scarborough photo)

Our Osage Hills cabin was comfy and modernized with a kitchen and bathroom; it was very pleasant to be disconnected from the phone, TV and Internet for one night.

My daughter practiced her guitar and actually let me read out loud to her from the Little House on the Prairie book, in preparation for our visit the next day to the original Little House near Independence, Kansas.

If you ever find a park with CCC cabins, make a point to stop for the night. I think you’ll enjoy them.

Technorati tags: travel, family travel, Oklahoma

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USA

Getting our kicks on Oklahoma’s Route 66

Vintage gas station on Route 66, Oklahoma (Scarborough photo)In our drive across Oklahoma from Duncan to Pawhuska, we only had time for one little smidgen of the Mother Road; the famous Route 66 that runs across the United States from Chicago to Los Angeles.

We hopped off of the Interstate between Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

It was late in the afternoon, so many places were closed, but it was still a lot of fun to see the original motels and vintage gas stations, and drive a nice, curvy, pretty road instead of the ugly freeway.

Check out this Legends of America Web site for detailed info on each part of Route 66, and drive a bit of it if you ever have an opportunity.

Technorati tags: travel, Route 66, family travel, Oklahoma

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USA

Riding the Chisholm Trail in Oklahoma

Goofing around at the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center (Scarborough photo)We’re still in cattle-driving mode, heading north from Fort Worth into Oklahoma on Highway 81, also known as the Chisholm Trail Highway because it roughly follows the route taken by thousands of head of cattle from south Texas to Abilene between 1867 and 1880.

After crossing the swirling Red River on the Texas-Oklahoma border, we drove to Duncan OK and the Chisholm Trail Heritage Center for an in-depth look at the Trail and its role in creating the American cowboy mystique that lives on today.

The Heritage Center is not very big but is nicely done; there is a room with plenty of buttons to push and interactive exhibits for kids, a Western art gallery and a really great multimedia film that makes the audience truly experience the Trail (stampeding cattle and all!)

I asked a passing museum official a question about the remuda, or group of spare drover/wrangler horses that accomplanied a cattle drive, and the man I asked happened to be Bill Benson, the enthusiastic Executive Director of the Center.

Paul Moore's magnificent sculpture of a cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail (Scarborough photo)

He was kind enough to give us some more historical background and detailed current information; did you know that there are still cattle rustlers today? Some cowboy-owners drive trucks to check and feed their herd, so the animals are used to coming to eat when a horn is honked or metal bucket rattled.

Guess what — the rustlers just do the same thing (honk or rattle) and when the cattle come running the docile bovines are loaded onto big trailers or trucks and taken away.

There’s a special section of Texas Rangers who do nothing but try to track down stolen livestock.

Bill took us out to a new semi-scale-model pathway of the Chisholm Trail, laid out along the ground from a marker representing the South Texas King Ranch to another marker representing the railhead at Abilene, Kansas, with explanations of major Trail stops along the way.

It certainly gave me and my daughter a clearer view of the sheer distance involved, especially when you aren’t getting from TX to Abilene in a 60-70 mph car (the pathway was patterned after a scale model of the Mississippi River on Mud Island in Memphis, Tennessee.)

We spent more time than we’d intended in Duncan, but it was worth it to linger and learn more about the history of the Wild West.

Technorati tags: family travel, Chisholm Trail, Oklahoma, travel

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Blog USA

We’re off to explore the “Square States”

BlogHer '07 I'm SpeakingToday my teenage daughter and I are launching the minivan on our US Midwest Road Trip.

I’m honored to be a Day One panelist speaker at the BlogHer blogging conference in Chicago 27-29 July, so we’re turning that into the travel writer’s mondo assignment and exploring the Midwest going and coming from central Texas.

Yes, Sainted Husband and my young son will meet us in Arkansas on the way back, and they have a full schedule of batting cages and water parks while we’re gone.

The method to my 2000-mile driving madness is improving my pathetic lack of knowledge of the American Midwest, or what one of my colleagues referred to as “those square states.”

OK, they’re not all square, but I just don’t know my Missouri from my Iowa, and it’s time to fix that.

We’re going to follow part of the old Chisholm Trail for the first couple of legs: Austin to Fort Worth and the cattle Stockyards, then north across the Red River (just like the Longhorns of yesteryear) to visit by the Chisholm Trail Museum in Duncan, Oklahoma before stopping overnight in Osage Indian country. We’ll stay at Osage Hills State Park in sturdy little log cabins built during the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps.

The next day, it’s into Kansas, with a visit to the site of the original Laura Ingalls Wilder “Little House on the Prairie.” This year is the 75th publication anniversary of the first book in the beloved series of real-life stories about Wilder’s pioneer family.

After that and a stop at the Kansas Flint Hills Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve, we spend the night in Emporia, Kansas so we can get a copy (at midnight) of the new Harry Potter book at the local Town Crier bookstore.

Then it’s Kansas City and beyond, plus a stop with the Amish in northwest Missouri and a wave to Mark Twain in Hannibal, Missouri before we arrive in Chicago and strap on the Art Institute, Shedd Aquarium, a riverborne architecture tour and more fun in the “city of big shoulders.”

I would link to each place, but I’ve GOT to pack and get some sleep! Blog posts to follow during the journey (depending on Internet connections, of course) plus a few more posts from the Virginia trip.

Cool thing: the terrific public relations person who arranged our recent family press trip to the Colonial Williamsburg area is now so fired up about blogging, she registered for BlogHer today and is coming to hear me speak.

Wish me coherent thoughts as a panelist, and a good hair day.

Technorati tags: travel, blogging, family travel, road trip