Oklahoma City

woke up to a very cool morning.  headed into OK city for the day.  Our first stop was at the Capital.  the only Capital in the US with a working oil well...

it is a beautiful building with a lot of sculptures, paintings and other art work.  It was a pretty quick stop, no tour of the building.

Next to the Gaylord-Pickens Museum

history of Oklahoma.  some of their favorite sons..

Woody Guthrie

Will Rogers

the museum was OK, would not necessary recommend it.

Next to the OK City National Memorial

we did not go into the museum.  the memorial was very nice and worth seeing.

now its got to be time for lunch!!

I had the chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes both were very good..

Eric had the catfish and fries.  the catfish was really very good, the fries cold and not so good..

one more stop before we head back to camp.  this was our favorite musuem of the day...

they are works of art...

the museum was set up very nicely, easy to see everything and very interesting.

Eric made hot dogs on the fire for dinner..

Lake Thunderbird State Park, Norman, OK

We had a visitor last night

did not know what to feed it..  plus we don't have a lot of food on hand.  Eric gave it a bowl of milk.  It drank most of it. this morning the bowl still had some frozen milk in it..  it looked to be well taken care of and kind of chunky so assuming it is back home.

After a beautiful sunrise

we left the Ponca City area and headed about 150 miles to Lake Thunderbird State Park in Norman OK.  We are about 30 minutes from Oklahoma City.   the park is really nice as well as the camp sites.  concrete pads for the RV, picnic table and grill. 

we took a 90 minute walk around the park.  A cactus with a flower...

the flower is pale pink and not easy to see with all of the leaves.  I moved a couple of the leaves and ended up getting cactus stickers in my finger!

Eric found some red clay to play in..

a walk along the beach had signs of Coyote?

the tracks were in too straight of a line to be a dog.  not sure what other animals are here in OK.

we are not far from Tinker AFB and every now and then we hear this thunder...  must be a plane taking off.. skies are clear..   maybe we can get a tour??

we will be here until Friday.  so we have time to settle in..  I am getting 4G on the internet connection. have not had that since last year in Santa Ana..  much faster to add pictures..

"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

We left Kansas on Saturday morning, drove about 100 miles south to Kaw City Oklahoma..  Staying at an Army Corp of Engineers park.  It was very windy driving down here, the wind was coming out of the south so we headed right into it.  Pretty high gusts at times.  Hopefully it dies down by Monday.. 

we had to sit on the other side as the wind was blowing so hard... 

Sunday we headed into Ponca City to see Skyfall.   very good movie.. very good popcorn.  we got there a bit early so did a bit of sight seeing..    very glad the museums were closed today!!

it was suppose to get up to 50 but never made it to 40..  brrrr....  too cold and its still windy. 

Internet is very spotty here and TV is non existent..  finished off one book..   should do better tomorrow.  We are heading to Norman OK right outside of Oklahoma City.  this is an unscheduled stop but we have about 4 days before we need to be in the Dallas Fort Worth area. 

One more Museum!

I was planing on staying at the campsite while Eric went to one more Museum but after an hour and a half hike I decided to join him.  We went to the

 

It was pretty interesting, inside was the history of oil and Butler County. 

of course I really went because Eric promised me lunch..

we seen these in KC, Wichita and finally went to one in El Dorado.  the burgers were very good, the fries were also very good and the custard was very very good..  will repeat this place the next time we are in Kansas..

it was such a beautiful day, sunny and 80 degs.. we headed back to the campsite to enjoy the day. 

One last hike this afternoon..

not quite as impressive as Beeds lake spillway..

this is a beautiful park with great walking, hiking, running and biking trails. 

tomorrow we head to Oklahoma...

Wichita, KS

Headed into Wichita this morning.  our first stop after the Visitors Center was

we then headed to the

they had a lot of different stuff, from dinosaurs to royal families to US Presidents.  we really enjoyed this place. 

and a piece of the Berlin Wall

a huge fish

and of course some OZ stuff...

there was a few of these signs around the museum

we could have spent more time here but after 2 museums it is time for lunch..  OK no BBQ,  we have given up on trying to find really good Ribs here in Kansas.

 Burgers and chicken sandwiches.  both were very good and the beer was good too! 

they had a lot of fun signs in this place,  since I really like unfiltered wheat beer I especially liked this one...

time to go to

since it is the middle of the week and winter not too much going on in town..

although it was pretty quiet it was a fun place to visit, over 40 buildings had been moved to the museum.

trying to get money out of the bank

stopped at the print shop and did a bit of work

well it was sunny and 75 deg out side so time to go back and enjoy the park.

El Dorado State Park

We left Clifton State park this morning, sunny clear skies and the highway was clear too.  we only went about 130 miles but the weather is a bit warmer.. 

El Dorado SP has about 1100 campsites, the campground we are in is open all year, with water, electricity and sewer.

we took a short hike, seen lots of birds and deer.  our camper is just right of the dam and spillway.  if we hear a loud siren we need to seek higher ground!  I am a pretty sound sleeper, so I hope Eric wakes me up.

Time for dinner..  asked the camp host where to get good BBQ.  he was not sure but said he heard there was a good Mexican place just across the street from the Dillions in town.  Some one else told us to try...

I had the ribs, green beans and scalloped potatoes.  the ribs were tasty, good smoke flavor but room temperature..  the green beans were a bit too spicy for me, the potatoes were good.

Eric had the beef brisket, cole slaw and baked beans.  the beef was moist and tender with good flavor, the cole slaw was ok and the beans were good.

well.... I am really frustrated with the quest for the best Kansas BBQ Ribs..   I think that I just need to give up the idea of finding ribs better than Central in Memphis.  I think I need a new goal.  will need to think on it tonight. 

oh by the way:  the Mexican restaurant across the street from Dillions was a Taco Bell!! 

maybe I am just having a bad food day...