Leaving Oklahoma

We left Bartlesville about 1:30, and drove through the Tall Grass Prairie Reserve, where we saw some buffalo. You will have to use your imagination to see them in this photo, but it was cool.

But before we left, we took a tour of the building, which included offices designed by FLW for Harold Price. Here is a globe. Price wanted a map of the world, but Wright wouldn't let him have one. But he did let him have this globe. It is discolored because they had plants above it and water dripped on the globe. It has not been fixed, because as you know, these big globes are build in two pieces, and then the hemisphere are combined and papered onsite. Because FLW was so weird, none of the doors are big enough to remove the completed globe.

Cool cutouts, though.

And interesting (if not very useful) furniture.

And louvers and copper designs. FLW was too old to see the copper in this building develop this patina naturally, so they aged it.

Fireplace, in the office

Me, for scale.

Oh, the buffalos again.

We passed a huge wind farm that is on top of a still producing oil field.

It is all on Osage land. They were smart - they kept the mineral rights. (Much of which were stolen, and then the Indians murdered as documented in Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Glann)

They developed their own alphabet

House in Blackwell, OK, where evidently my sister Mel knows someone

Entering Kansas

But not without leaving Kansas. We made a photo mistake and had to go back.

Then we got here.

Comments

Nebraska is a BIG state. Especially crosswise and on two lane roads

I think I mentioned below that we bought a Rand McNally road atlas for this trip. This is where it pays off. Doreen has been tracing our route with a yellow highlighter (I will post Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas later) so we can remember where we were. Here is the route through Nebraska: You may note that it ends in Chadron. That is where we ran out of daylight. We would not have run out of daylight had it not been for COVID19 and the Oglala Lakota. More on that later. But on out way from Kansas, we went through the geographical center of the lower 48 US states. See: It is just outside of Lebanon, Nebraska. and yes, that is a cedar tree. We took a self portrait: Then a nice lady asked if we wanted her to take our photo. We said, "Sure!" This is what we got: Of course, I took her photo, too. But not before taking a couple of photos of myself, first. (Thanks, Matt!) I am not sure I mentioned this below, but on the first leg of the trip, we listened to Charles Portis's book T...

Home again, home again.

It's always good to be home. We have never taken such a road trip before, and certainly never with a dog. That was an experience. She loved the long hikes in the mountains, didn't care for the car rides, especially the long one. We, too, experienced new things. We listened to a lot of books on tape (well, Audible), trying to match the words to the Landscape. So we started with True Grit by Charles Portis, set mostly in the Oklahoma Territory. One of my favorite books of all times, and it was read by Donna Tart. ( The Goldfinch , etc). Perfect book for the start of the trip, from Houston to Bartlesville. On the next two legs of the trip, to Hutchinson, Kansas and then up to Keystone, South Dakota, we listed to My Antonia by Will Cather. (pronounced, we learned, as an-tone-EEE-ah). A wonderful book for driving through Nebraska. And we were on the Willa Cather highway while doing so. As we drove into Wyoming, we listened to Rising from the Plains , by John McPhee. The story o...

Custer State Park, where we discovered that Lulu likes hiking but hates small log bridges.

Neither of us slept great on Sunday night, but we were up and ready to go with the dawn on Monday morning. I took with us some of my World Famous Roasted Coffee (this batch from Guatemala) hand grinded it and made us two moka pots to get started. A great way to start the day. It is really pretty here at the cabin. and, of course, there is this: One can look at that as an engineering marvel, but not sure what else. But we soon got to the trail head, and after a little confusion (which is very common for me), we started off. We were, indeed, there. The trail was very easy, except for the 16 creek crossings, most of which were easy for us, hard for The Dog. Lulu does not like log crossings. She doesn't like water, either, but she likes it more than log crossings. She would frequently just walk through the creek, up to her chest, to avoid the bridge. It was a great, fun, walk, though. Lots of mountain medows. And rock bluffs. We stopped occasionally to take a nice sip of cold water. T...

The Year of Months

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