Showing posts with label el reno. Show all posts
Showing posts with label el reno. Show all posts

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Day 10: We have entered the Twilight Zone

Yesterday, we met Jack. This picture is kind of small, but I wanted to get the Longhorn Steer in for Mike!


Jack runs the train station museum at the Canadian County Historical Museum and Heritage Park right outside El Reno, OK. Jack is a treasure. He would have just let us wander around his museum without bothering us, but I was curious why there was a display of Eskimo baskets and ivory carvings. I was working hard to make the connection between the Canadian County Railroad and the Eskimos. Jack got a kick out of my suppositions. The real reason they have this collection is that it belonged to a long-time resident of El Reno and when the wife passed away, the collection was donated to the museum.

That got the conversations going. Jack told us about the buffalo head on the opposite wall. It seemed this big guy lived in El Reno for a long time and was a cantankerous sort. Well, he got crossways with the new guy on the local police force, and earned a bad name for himself. It wasn't until he got out and decided to take a stroll on Route 66 that really did him in. It seems that the bison decided to take on a VW and won. Shortly after that, they had to kill him....then they ate him....Which led to the conversation of where to get the best Buffalo Burgers, a POW camp at Ft. Reno where a few hundred German prisoners (captured in Africa) were housed for the duration of the war, and how to make these elaborate hair wreaths. We learned a lot in El Reno, and we didn't have to stay in school to do it....har, har....I crack me up (that was a segue for this great picture of Flat Dad in the restored one-room school house).

We made a wrong turn right outside Weatherford and discovered a wind farm. Mike and I saw this somewhere around Bloomington and Stewart, Illinois, and I was fascinated then. This time Hazel and I had the time to drive right up to the turbines! They are spooky when you come up to them. These turbines sit atop and behind the rolling hills, and depending on where you are on the road, you might only be able to see the tips of the blades as they rise and fall behind the hill.

Once we got into Weathford, we found a small park with some information:

1: Each blade is 122 feet long.

2. The towers are 252 feet tall.

3. Computers turn the blades so they are always facing the wind.

4. They look like alien beings and are almost silent.

5. They are so cool!

Found Lucille's Roadhouse (the new one) in Bridgeport and taught the girls, Melissa and Whitney to make chocolate sodas. They were thrilled and so was I. They have a smoking section in the diner! For the first time, I got to smoke a whole cigarette in air conditioning!




Found some giant Kachina Dolls in Elk City. Mom, this one was named Myrtle! Dad and I had to have our picture taken for you.

Just a few, final words about the tail end of Oklahoma and entering Texas...CRICKETS! Huge, giant, aggressive, crickets! They are in the parking lots, under store signs (yes! the ones on the walls), and they jump and leap out at you. They are everywhere and I don't just mean one or two. They travel in herds, or flocks, or gaggles, or whatever you call a group of crickets! We didn't get any pictures of them as they fling themselves at you if you stand still!






Westward Ho!



~Penny

Friday, August 10, 2007

Day 10 out of Oklahoma

We are now in Texas. Well we really did not plan on being in Texas, we were going to stay in Oklahoma but we couldn't find a hotel in the small towns we were in. So we crossed the Texas boarder to Shamrock. We were getting nervous since there are no billboards on the road in Texas but we finally found a Sleep Inn, only 2 months old so it is very very nice. Flat screen TV's and very lovely rooms. So we lucked out. Maybe we should look for a room earlier in the future, or.........not.






We had a lot of distractions today. We went to El Reno where we saw some lovely old buildings and interesting antiques, like this stove. NOTE the name on the stove is HAZEL....go figure! Then Penny and I saw this collection of "Irons" hundreds of them, we are not sure what you do with them but they were kind of cool.







We found this interesting place to eat, if you go through El Reno's try it out! The name says it all!!!

We spent a lot of time on the original Route 66 today. It was great we discovered so many things. Can you guess how fast Baby could go on this long straight stretch of road? There was LOTS of it. The best parts of Route 66 are on this part of the trip so far......very straight, lots of hills, bridges and scenery. Notice how red the the pond is or how steep the bank of this river is. As I said, we are so easily distracted along this stretch of highway.

We found more GIANTS today! Giant Kachinas and Giant Indians.



And here is one of my favorite photos, it is a collection of windmills.

Tomorrow we start across Texas! I am very excited about Texas and look forward to some BIG adventures as we cross the pan handle.

Getting our Kicks on Route 66
Hazel M. Walker
Queen of the Road