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

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 of

Wyoming. Where family has to take you in!

I lived in Kemmerer, Wyoming in 1978, working in a coal mine. Back then, when you entered the state, the sign said "Welcome to BIG Wonderful Wyoming!" It is a big, big state, and much of it is wonderful. I have fond memories of the place. Now, my oldest brother lives there with his wife, (Not in Kemmerer, but in Lander, which seems to be much more civilized) and it was just great to see them. Ah, but the sign. Now it looks like this: Let's zoom in a little: Personally, I liked the old sign better. A lot of Wyoming looks like this: That is a loading silo for the US's second biggest coal mine - Black Thunder, originally owned by ARCO, now by Arch Coal. Different mine, different technique than the one I worked it. But just incredibly huge. You drive through the mine and it just goes on forever. But there is a lot of this, too: We stopped at the Tourist Bureau in Casper to get some state maps (yes, we have been using hardcopy maps, our atlas, as well as The Google Lady o

The Revised Trip starts soon

As we all know, there has been a change of plans. The change was instigated by a pandemic the likes of which the US has not seen in a hundred years. Over 180,000 dead as I write this, and the infection mechanism still seems to be up for (a little) debate. Aerosol transmission, especially fatal if you have underlying conditions. So we stopped all our plans we had made (see below) and now have made new plans. The new plans are a driving trip, where we would like to believe that we will have better control over our environment. We are even renting a car so as to eliminate the stress of having to worry about charging up the battery on the Tesla. Our plans now go something like this: September 16, drive to Bartlesville, OK and spend two nights at the Inn at Price Tower , a Frank Lloyd Wright building that has been turned into a hotel. Head north to Hutchinson, KS to visit both a salt mine , and the Apollo 13 command module, Odyssey . Then to Grand Island, NE, where we hope that the Sand

The Year of Months

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