In the Land of the Great Osage-- just a little off the beaten path

Dec 11: Anyone else would have been bored with my day, but I puttered around Cain�s taking pictures, then blazed north to Bartlesville, where my parents grew up and I�ve lived for a while myself. I don�t feel like a tourist in OK, in other words. B-ville is the home of Phillips Petroleum 66, and "Uncle Frank" Phillips was one of the driving forces in the Depression, many stories about him. People like Will Rodgers and Wiley Post frequently were sited around B-ville, not to mention all sorts of other celebrities. On the way out of town, I drove by the Woolroc estate, now a museum, where Uncle Frank�s ranch (quite a party place!) used to be. He was responsible for preserving some of the buffalo when they were endangered, and he had a lot of other rare, unusual critters around the grounds. I remember as a child seeing my first dinosaur egg from the Gobi in there, as well as Frank Remington paintings. Sadly I just couldn�t find the time to go to the museum this visit, and had to keep going.

Another place I visited was the Price Tower in B-Ville, a Frank Lloyd Wright building, one of the few skyscrapers he designed that was actually built close to the original plans. I�ve been up in it before (when it was still an office building), so I didn�t pay their fee to enter. In fact I whipped out a camera to wing off a photo of the mural in the lobby, and the lady wouldn�t allow it! The old bat: I�m sure the Old Man wouldn�t have cared. No matter, I have a copy of it in a book somewhere. I think it�s a luxury hotel now, you can sleep in it.

Later as I was leaving Tulsa town, I went to another Wright-designed home in southern Tulsa, and took lots of photos��.. REALLY beautiful, and I think when I get the time and money, I�m going to build plant atriums just like that. It had green house windows all over it, sticking out in all shapes and sizes.

I drove "home" to the Crowne, singing through the Osage Hills (much of which is Reservation), and enjoyed myself immensely, looking at the ranches and horses. Lots of red tailed hawks. I love Oklahoma, if I ever were to move away from the ocean, it would be to live there. It occurred to me this was the first time I�ve ever done OK on my OWN terms, all the other trips have been driven by family members. None of the back-roads had cops on them, they were all on the turnpikes�. It�s every man for himself on the back-roads, speed as you will! The area is still littered with broken trees from the ice storm they had last winter, and with the new storms moving in, I suspect they are in for more of the same this winter.

That residential home in Tulsa, done by Frank Lloyd Wright. I want a house like this!

Detail to the Price Tower, Bartlesville, Oklahoma

(Moody content) Chapter Four: Dec 11: the show at the Brady, Tulsa

(No Moody content) Chapter Five: Dec 12: The Back Roads