You’ve probably heard jokes about Philadelphia, for example. That they had a contest, and first prize was a week in Philadelphia while second prize was two weeks. Well, we’ve had the Philadelphia experience, and a week was nowhere near enough to experience the city to the fullest. We did well, we went just about everywhere we really wanted to go, but there were still quite a few attractions we had to pass up with some regret.
The flight was enjoyable. Harry had the aisle seat this time, so he got to flirt a little with the stewardess. For my part, I was able to look out the window during our approach to Tulsa. It was still light out, but even on night flights I get a kick out of seeing the lights of the city below, as if they’re all lit up just to welcome the two of us.
They delivered our rental car just minutes after our bags came off the luggage carousel. The car was a full-size Olds with a plush velour interior, very quiet and luxurious. Back home I don’t even own a car, and all Harry has is the six-year-old panel truck with the name of the store painted on its sides. We could have managed just as well with a subcompact, but if you shop around you can usually get a really nice car for only a few dollars more. We’d had a great deal on a Lincoln Town Car in Denver, with free mileage and no charge for the full insurance coverage, for example.
We stayed downtown at the Westin on Second Street. Harry had booked us adjoining rooms on the luxury level. A double room or even a small suite would have been a lot less expensive, but we both like our privacy, as much as we enjoy being together on our vacations. And, as you probably have gathered by now, we don’t stint on these trips. If we have one rule, it’s to treat ourselves to what we want.
We made it an early night, unpacking, getting settled, and orienting ourselves in the hotel. First thing after breakfast the next day we took a Gray Line bus tour of Tulsa, which is what we always do when we can. It gives you a wonderful overview of the city and you don’t have to find your own way around. You get to drive past some attractions that you might not be interested enough to see if they required a special trip, but that are certainly worth viewing through the window of the bus. And you pick up a familiarity with the place that makes it a lot easier to get around during the remainder of the stay. Harry and I are both sold on bus tours, and it’s disappointing when a city doesn’t have them.
The tour was a good one, and it took most of the morning. After lunch we went to the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art. They have a wonderful collection of western art, with works by Remington, Moran, Charles Russell, and a great many others. The collection of Indian artifacts was also outstanding, but we spent so much time looking at the paintings that we didn’t really have time to do the Indian collection justice.
“We’ll get back during the week,” Harry said.
We had dinner at a really nice restaurant just a short walk from our hotel. The menu was northern Italian, and they made their own pasta. We took a long walk afterward. When we got back to the hotel Harry wanted to have a swim in the pool, but I was ready to call it a night. I’ve found it’s important to not try to do too much, especially the first couple of days. I took a long soak in the tub, watched a movie on HBO, and made an early night of it.
They brought in Tulsa’s first oil well in 1901, and Tulsa invited oilmen to “come and make your homes in a beautiful little city that is high and dry, peaceful and orderly, where there are good churches, stores, schools, and banks, and where our ordinances prevent the desolation of our homes and property by oil wells.”
Sunday morning we went to services at Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, which had been pointed out to us on the Gray Line tour. Neither Harry nor I go to church as an ordinary thing, and we weren’t raised as Methodists to begin with, but that’s the whole point of vacation, to get away from the workaday world and experience something different. Why, I hardly ever go to museums in New York, where we have some of the best in the world, but when I am in another city I can’t get enough of them.
That afternoon, though, we tried a different sort of cultural experience and drove over to Bell’s Amusement Park. They had a big old wooden roller coaster, three water slides, a log ride, and a sky ride and a pair of miniature golf courses. It was a little cold for the water slides but we did everything else, laughing and shouting and shoving each other like children. Harry threw darts at balloons until he won a stuffed panda, and then he gave it to the first little girl he saw.
“Now in the future,” he told her, “don’t you take pandas from strange men.” And we laughed, and her mother and father laughed, and we went off to play miniature golf one more time.
There was a restaurant called Louisiane that we’d seen a few blocks from the church, and where we were planning to go for dinner. But after we got back to the hotel we arranged to meet in the bar downstairs, and when I got there Harry was knee-deep in conversation with a handsome woman with short dark hair and a full figure. He introduced her as Margaret Cummings, up from Fort Worth for the weekend.
I joined them for a quick drink, and then Harry took me aside and asked if I’d mind if he took Margaret to dinner. “I was talking to her at the pool last night,” he said, “and the thing is, she’s going back home tomorrow.” I told him don’t be silly, of course I didn’t mind, and wished him luck.
So I ate right there in the hotel myself, and had a fine meal, and then went for a little walk after dinner. At breakfast the next day Harry grinned and said he’d had some fun with Margaret, and she’d given him her address and phone in case he ever got to Fort Worth. We’ve been to Dallas, and enjoyed that very much, and made a visit or two to Fort Worth at that time, taking in the Amon Carter Museum and some other attractions, so I doubt we’ll be ready for the Fort Worth experience for quite a while yet.
“I was sorry to leave you stranded,” Harry said, but I told him not to be silly. “You never know,” I said. “Maybe we’ll both get lucky here in Tulsa.”
We started off the morning with an industrial tour of the Frankoma pottery. We both love industrial tours, and take advantage of them every chance we get. One of the highlights of the St. Louis experience was a tour of the Anheuser-Busch brewery, and we followed it up a day later with a half-hour tour of Bardenheier’s Wine Cellars, followed by a half hour of wine-tasting. They didn’t give you anything to drink at Frankoma, but it was very interesting to see how they made the pottery. Afterward they encouraged you to buy pottery in their shop, and they had some nice things for sale, but we didn’t buy anything.
We almost never do. The National Park Service has a motto — “Take only snapshots, leave only footprints.” (A side trip to Olympic National Park was one of the highlights of the Seattle experience.) We go them one better by not even taking snapshots. My apartment’s too small to clutter it up with souvenirs, and Harry has the same attitude toward souvenirs, even though he has more than enough room for them at the house in Woodside.
As it is, I pick up one souvenir from every trip, a T-shirt with the name of the city we went to. My favorite so far is a fuchsia one from Indianapolis, with crossed black-and-white checkerboard racing flags on it to represent the Indianapolis 500. Most of the Tulsa T-shirts picture an oil well, and Thursday I finally picked out an especially nice one.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I?
Monday afternoon we went to the Tulsa Garden Center, and spent several hours there and nearby at the Park Department Conservatory. Tuesday we started out at the Historical Society Museum, then went to a synagogue to see the Gerson and Rebecca Fenster Gallery of Jewish Art, the largest collection of Judaica in the Southwest. From there we went to Oral Roberts University for a brief campus tour, and picked up tickets for a chamber music concert to be held the following evening.