To Omaha

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Clay was up first this morning around 6:30am. I got up and showered and we went to breakfast. We both had cereal and some toasted English muffins. They had waffles (plain or blueberry) and scrambled eggs and link sausage. We checked out and were on the road to Omaha by 8:30am.

About 9:30am we arrived at Wildlife Safari Park at Ashland. We spent about 2 hours there. It was hot so we didn't spend much time out of the car. It is primarily drive-through anyway. It was a cool thing to break up the drive to Omaha. At the same exit, there is a big Strategic Air Command Museum but we skipped it.

Clay's trip instructions for lunch were, Eat Frenchees at Don & Millie's. We got in a big line to order at 12:05pm. Popular place at a popular time. It turned out that a single sandwich was 4 triangles which looked equal to 2 sandwiches to us. I ate all of mine but Clay ordered his as a combo with skinny fries and a soda and couldn't eat half. If we'd known, we'd only have ordered 1 combo and shared it. They had some western sauce you could self-dispense and we enjoyed the Frenchees more dipped in it. They were good but messy.

After lunch, we went to the amazing Old Union Station which is now the Durham Museum. The museum is eclectic with a focus on history but the star of the show is the Art Deco building. After touring we went to their soda fountain which is still serving root beer and phosphates and floats since 1931!

We drove the short distance across a corner of Iowa! to get close to the airport and our Sleep Inn for the night. It is our most expensive room of the trip and the smallest. From the floor plan with the rounded shower out in the center of the room, I'd say this used to be a Super 8. There is no fridge. There is an iron in the closet but there is no ironing board, so I'm baffled. It is 2 stories and there is no elevator! Thankfully we got here early enough to get assigned a 1st floor room. I was in the lobby an hour later trying to print our AA boarding passes and there was a constant long line. It was 108 F when we arrived and 113 F after dinner. People were miserable. The printer was on and out of paper. When I finally got to the solo front desk, the guy told me the printer didn't work. He offered me his email address and he printed them on the desk printer. Clay decided he wanted to return the Avis car after dinner instead of driving ourselves to the airport tomorrow morning because Sleep Inn has a free airport shuttle. We got put on the schedule for 7:45 am tomorrow. He told us to call from the terminal when we were ready to come back from dropping the car tonight. Of course, no one ever answered the phone when we called from the terminal. With some difficulty we finally found a taxi line and got taken for an unmetered ride! So, not a great finish for our trip. Fingers crossed there will be a shuttle in the morning. That brings me to American Air. We booked round trip first class assigned seats back in June. All was fine coming over here. When I checked in online today, there was a problem. The last segment home we had been assigned 4E & F, but as I paged through the process and got to that segment Clay had 2E and I had no seat! There were not 2 seats left together. I took 3F and we'll hope whoever is on the aisle beside me will be willing to switch with Clay.

Final dinner of the trip was our splurge meal. It being Omaha we went to Gorat's Steakhouse. It was very good. It turned out to be only the 3rd place we ate all week that had waitstaff to take orders at the table (The other 2 were Jimmie's Diner and Hammett House.) We were surprised at the number of places that were counter order this week.

So, this is the end of this trip. I guess I have established that this trip did not fill the center hole of missing US states for us. At some point, we'll have to come back this way to check off Arkansas and North Dakota. That will be an inconvenient trip! Unless something noteworthy happens tomorrow, I will not be back reporting about the flights home. Next trip is Eastern Europe.

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To Lincoln, Nebraska

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All things considered, I think we both slept well last night. It helped that we each had our own double bed. Clay was up before 7 am though so we got an early start. Hot breakfast was waffles, scrambled eggs and link sausages. We both had a waffle again. They are irresistible. We were on the road north by 8:30 am.

We had a repeat of landscapes with an increase in the number of trees. It was cooler but only because it was morning while we drove. (By the time we out for dinner after 5:30 pm, it was 102!) About 9:30am we crossed the state line into Nebraska and left Kansas behind.

We reached Lincoln about 11:30am and saw their 2nd tallest US state capitol building in the distance. We had lunch at Runza. We ate Runzas. They are a local tradition of ground beef, cabbage, onions and spices wrapped in a long flat roll. I got cheese on mine and I liked it.

Our objective today was a guided tour of the Nebraska state capitol building and we were shooting for the one at 1pm. Mission accomplished but we shared it with a class of 30 6 & 7 year olds! They were very quiet and patient. We learned there is a reason the building looked to us like either the LA public library or LA's Baton Rouge capitol. All 3 had the same design team. We learned the state fossil is the woolly mammoth. We learned when the settlers arrived in Nebraska there no trees at all. Everything we see now was planted after the settlers arrived. Nebraska invented Arbor Day. We learned that NE has America's only unicameral legislature and the 50 members are called Senators. They serve 4 year terms with half being elected every 2 years. The building was built when they were still bicameral. Now they only use the house side for special big events. There is a 14th floor observation deck but it was closed as they are doing renovation work this summer. It was a big, beautiful building.

We are staying tonight in our 3rd most expensive room ($81) so far at the Comfort Suites.  As you might guess from the name, it is our largest room of the trip so far. Well, I've just looked ahead since tomorrow is our last night on this trip and the Omaha Airport Sleep Inn is $92. So that will be our most expensive night of the trip.

Dinner tonight must be Clay's concession to me. Thursday night, pizza. We're going to Yia Yia's. Hopefully, we'll save room for dessert. Clay found ice cream at the UNL Dairy Store. Clay had sweet corn ice cream! I didn't taste corn, he said he did. I had butter brickle because it looked like hokey pokey but it tasted like vanilla with English toffee bits.

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Wichita to Topeka, Kansas

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We both woke naturally a little before 7 am. I think we slept better than the previous night with the dripping and trains. Breakfast was a little more varied. Scrambled eggs and sausage links. I think the Crock-Pot today had oatmeal in it. We both finally succumbed to the siren call of the fresh malted waffles today and had one each. Sadly, no maple syrup. Also no hot chocolate mix out for the 1st time this trip. All in all, still can't give this Comfort Inn high marks.

We checked out a little before 9:30am. We found our way to the Frank Lloyd Wright's Allen House for our 10 am tour. The gift shop opened at 9:30 am so we had it to ourselves to browse and take exterior photos. No interior photos allowed. It was a 2-story 4000 square foot house. Our thinking was correct, there was no way 2 hours was needed. We're interested in this kinds of things and architectural history and details, but this was overkill even for us. It didn't help that we didn't even see inside beyond the foyer until after the 2nd hour had begun. It was a lot of standing outside to start. Too much in our opinion. A walk around the other street front (it was on a corner lot) would have helped break things up and given us more of an exterior overview rather than focusing at the porte cochere. Anyway. Glad we did it.

The tour ended at noon and we headed to lunch. Clay went for the Dog N Shake. It was a light, quick lunch and just what we needed. I ordered a chocolate malt that we shared and it was super thick, cold and malty. Yum. We had about as far to drive today as yesterday, but it was about half the time on a 75-mph freeway so it took a bit less time.

The views were almost identical to yesterday's as we drove north and east today all in Kansas. The weather was even similar. The big difference weatherwise is we didn't run into an afternoon rain storm, so the temperature according to the car thermometer reached over 100 F today.

We arrived in Topeka just before 4 pm. Topeka is the capital of Kansas, so we went straight to their capitol building. It has been renovated and modernized and the design was reminiscent of Richmond, Virginia's work with the underground parking and visitor's center. It was a beautiful building. We feel sad for Raleigh's old capitol building every time we see how well another state has handled their historic capitol. We arrived too late for any of their guided tours but they had a self-guided tour brochure and we took a quick look at the highlights. Well done, Kansas!

We are in the Quality Inn at I-70 and Wanamaker tonight. It is only about $4 less than last night's motel and while it has a fridge, it is not nice. It isn't clean, our room is only about 20 feet from the front desk but our door latches are broken. It is an adjoining room and the door between rooms is not sound proof. Now we guess we know why the Sleep Inn 2 blocks away is $20 a night more!

Clay's dinner pick was right downtown and I saw it as we drove from the capitol to the motel so we backtracked again for a meal. About 16 miles round trip. Anyway, it was HHB BBQ. It was really good. In my opinion, the best BBQ of the trip. We ate light again. Today's special was a half-chicken with one side and a beverage. Clay ordered it and gave me half the breast. He got smoked corn on the side. I ordered a side of smoked macaroni & cheese. It was all very tasty and a perfect portion. After eating, Clay realized he'd missed a $4 pint of local beer on tap and wanted to try the ribs because the chicken was so good. He went back through the self-service line. Baby back ribs were $1 each and he got 2. He said they weren't his favorite. The Dunkel beer was good and a great value.

We can sleep in again tomorrow though breakfast ends at 9am. We have to drive to Lincoln, Nebraska tomorrow. Chosen because it is the state's capital again. Where all we have scheduled to do is visit the capitol building there. Plus eat lunch and dinner! It should be another nearly 4 hour driving day tomorrow. We are averaging about 40 mpg on the Corolla so that is good.

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We're in Kansas!

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We didn't sleep too well last night. The AC unit dripped water in the room all night and the carpet was wet by morning. Then there were the freight trains going past all night! I know I heard at least 6, Clay says more. I must have been soundly asleep at some point because Clay says I woke him by saying in a clear, conversational voice, asshole. I have no idea what that was about! Hot Continental breakfast buffet actually meant access to a toaster, a waffle iron and a Crock-Pot of sausage gravy. We had cold breakfasts but no cereal because they ran out of milk. This was our cheapest night's stay!

We started in Claremore at the Will Rogers Memorial Museum at 10am when it opened. It was less expensive that the last museum we visited but only about 1 man! Both museums had a 62 age for senior discounts so I've been paying full fare. This was interesting and a large impressive building and grounds. He and his family are interred there. After we got there, we decided to visit the Birthplace Ranch too. It was about 15 miles away, but we had all day so we went. That was just as interesting and a beautiful location since the dam was built and the house moved uphill. Since Clay had picked Hammett House right next door to the memorial museum for lunch, it meant we backtracked again. It was a very popular spot with the locals and we ate a big lunch that we both enjoyed.

We set out for possibly our longest driving stretch of this trip to Wichita. We still have the problem with setting Clay's phone to no toll roads and got off to a miss start. It turns out we had to drive way out of our way instead of directly either her preferred toll route or the route we actually took because of a big empty space that I researched and turns out to be the Osage Reservation. So we drove about 4 hours. As we neared Kansas, the forests thinned and the hills flattened. By 2:30pm or so when we crossed the state line we drove through miles of cornfields. When we stopped going north and turned left to Wichita, we drove through more hills but were in cattle pasture lands for hours. Eventually we drove by a huge wind farm in the distance. We arrived in what must be a suburban area of Wichita where our Comfort Inn is located during rush hour! We'd been in clear blue cloudless skies driving until a big dark area appeared on the horizon. It turned out to be Wichita! The last hour or more of driving was in the rain, in gridlocked traffic. Not fun.

The Comfort Inn is surrounded by at least 4 other motels, so this must be some kind of major intersection. It is much nicer than the Microtel, but not perfect. At $86 for tonight it is our most expensive so far and so far the only room without a fridge. The other downside is that it is posted as a smoke free facility but as soon as we opened our door to room 306, it reeked and clearly the past occupant smoked in here.

After we got settled in the room, we left again for dinner. Fortunately, rush hour traffic was brief and had cleared. Dinner was maybe 4 miles away at Jimmie's Diner. It was fine but Clay voted it worst meal so far. It wasn't great or special other than huge servings for the price. Neither of us could finish and we had to pass on the soda fountain offerings. I was impressed that they had fried cornmeal mush on the breakfast menu and I wish I'd ordered it. But this was the place we'd chosen for me to have chicken fried steak so I stayed with it.

Hopefully we'll sleep better tonight. There is another complimentary breakfast buffet here from 6 to 9 am. We have already got our tickets for a 10 to noon guided tour of a Frank Lloyd Wright house here in Wichita. Our interest is more peaked than usual because we have never spent anywhere close to 2 hours in any FLW house before (other than the Usonian we slept in!).

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OKC to Tulsa to Claremore

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Clay was up first around 7am if you can believe he slept that long. I went to bed about 9:30pm and slept soundly with little pillow wrangling required. We went to breakfast around 8:30am. It was fine. I had yogurt and a toasted bagel with cream cheese and 2 cups of mocha coffee. Clay had a sausage biscuit and orange juice followed by a cinnamon roll. They had fried eggs and a waffle making set up as well. The Sleep Inn was certainly a good value. They also had an indoor pool, whirlpool and fitness center, none of which we used. Just saying.

We checked out around 9:45am and headed to the National Cowboy Museum. It was AH-mazing! If you ever find yourself in OKC, I can recommend a few hours there. We spent less than 2 hours and didn't see everything. But, if you have any interest in native artifacts, westerns, western art or western US history there is something here for you. Very well done. It opened at 10am and we were there shortly after that. We headed out about 11:45am. Oh, the gift shop was exceptional and had a penny press machine for Clay.

We drove towards Tulsa. We stopped about half way for lunch in Cushing, OK at Naifeh's Deli. It was convenient for us and was a popular stop for lunch for the locals. We thought our sandwiches were alright. They made their own potato chips. We shared a chocolate malt that was great! We stopped at Walmart on our way out of Cushing and bought a small collapsible cooler. I am not sure why we didn't think to pack one from home for this road trip. We both had space in our suitcases. We'll fill a spare ziplock with ice from motel ice machines each morning and keep a few of Clay's sodas in the trunk cold each day from here on.

We got to Tulsa around 2pm. About 16 miles out, we had a breakdown in Clay's phone's routing as we had thought we routed with no toll roads. Fortunately, I had 2 dollars in quarters in my wallet. Exact change in coins was required. It cost us a dollar to get green lighted. I'm not sure what went wrong or how to avoid it again. We went to Decopolis in Tulsa. It is a free art deco museum in the Philcade Building with a gift shop across the street. Did you know that Tulsa enjoyed an early 20th century oil boom and with that wealth a downtown business district building boom that coincided with the popularity of Art Deco? We didn't know. But it was amazing for what's been lost as well as what's been preserved. We used a self-guided walking tour. We had to compete for paid parking on a Monday afternoon. We paid $2 for 2 hours of on street parking. The walking tour map had 50 buildings. We saw about 20 of those and went inside about half of those. All were free except we made a donation to enter the Trinity Episcopal Church (to see the stained glass of Adolf Hitler) where we were treated to an organist playing. I sprang a blister in a new place on my left foot about the time we got back to the car and our 2 hours was up. Time to ride! We learned in the gift shop about Tulsa's Golden Driller Statue so that is where we headed next. Clay's next plans were vague as to dinner or another roadside attraction stop. Clay decided he wanted to eat later vs. earlier in any case and we drove all the way out to our motel (which we'd selected due to its proximity to tomorrow morning's attraction, The Will Rogers Museum) in Claremore. We should have eaten at Oklahoma Joe's BBQ in Catoosa and then on to the Blue Whale and to the Microtel in Claremore. Instead we added a 30-mile roundtrip to backtrack for dinner.

So, we spent the late afternoon driving Historic Route 66. Since we backtracked for dinner we saw a lot of a short stretch of it. The Blue Whale is silly but the highlight. There is a busy freight rail line next to it. We can hear the trains from our motel room which is right on Rte. 66. I have historically been a fan of Microtels but this one is under renovation or still being constructed. It is hard to tell which says a lot! We booked it in June with a pay now rate of $55 a night that we actually paid on arrival. So I guess it is still a good value. The room is smaller and dingier than last night's Sleep Inn. The pool and whirlpool are outside and I can't recall seeing a fitness center. As it is a Wyndham chain and not Choice, I guess, there are only 3 small square pillow instead of 5. Useless! The other real detractor is no sheer curtains for daylight. There are only blackout drapes and our ground floor room looks directly at the parking lot 3 feet away, so the drapes have to be closed for privacy. No lamps in the room so the lighting is poor. The wifi is fast and a strong signal and free! There is a hot Continental breakfast included, we'll see what that means exactly. It is adequate, if not as nice as we'd expected. I think this is our only night of this trip outside of the Choice chain. Live and learn. Dinner was fine. Clay said it best. This is probably the cheapest OK-style BBQ we could find. It was oversold by the advertising and under-delivered. The planet's best BBQ beans were served room temperature and were baked bean sweet. 'Nuf said.

So, we spent a good portion of the day driving east across central Oklahoma and we were a little surprised by the landscape. Somehow it was not what we expected. First it was greener and more densely forested than we'd envisioned. Second was the big rolling hills. The roads were very straight, but the ride was mostly either up or down. I think we both envisioned this part of the country being flatter. You'd get to the top of a hill and it would look like a roller coaster in front and behind. Lastly, something is wrong with the car's engine. On cruise control, when the engine should disengage to just coast down hills, it roars into overdrive! Hopefully, we'll make it to Avis in Omaha without any real incident. Another OK surprise for us, shattering our preconceptions yet again, was repeatedly crossing Marine Highway M40 late yesterday on Route 66. I am sure if asked prior to yesterday, we'd have responded that Oklahoma was landlocked.

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Oklahoma!

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Surprise! We're in Oklahoma City, OK. That's the state's capital. The state bird is the scissor-tailed fly catcher. Now you know. It is the middle of the continent in the middle of July, so it is hot. Given the weather extremes the center of the country has been experiencing since spring, today was probably a perfect and beautiful day.

So, what are we doing here? The genesis of this trip was to meet an American Airlines-issued challenge to reach Platinum status. With 2 international flights scheduled this year already, we only needed one more trip over about 750 miles to hit AA's goals. We thought this trip would fill a doughnut hole on my TripAdvisor travel map. We flew into OKC and we'll drive through KS to Omaha, Nebraska to fly home. One small catch, I realized when I went to pin OKC that I have no pins in Arkansas either! Oh well. I'm also missing North Dakota, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont. I may have gone to Arkansas and Vermont as a child, but since I couldn't say where I haven't pinned them.

We got up at 3:30am today to make a 6am flight to DFW because you can't get directly from RDU to OKC. It was a 45 minute connection in Dallas which meant we walked straight off one plane and onto the next. It was only a 36 minute flight onto OKC.

We rented an economy car at the airport Avis. I guess because it was one way between airports, it is over $500 for a week. We got a Toyota Corolla, that is pretty beat up with under 30K on it. The AC works!

Our first stop leaving the Will Rogers Airport was the state capitol building for a photo op. It may have been open today but not Sunday morning. There was construction. It was good that we were here on a Sunday because traffic was light and we could find parking and it was free. I would guess everywhere, other than the airport, that we went today was within 8 miles of the capitol building. That was lucky because I am not at all certain that Clay understands how maps work. I think maps work by allowing you to see things in distance order so you can find places you'd like to go that are close together and keep traveling in one direction. Clay completely misses that. So, we've driven by the capitol building maybe 20 times today. The good news is that the car AC is excellent!

Next up was lunch. Clay has all our stops and meals 'mapped out'. Lunch was Indian Tacos at The Press. This is an OK specialty as far as we can tell and we really liked it. It was a good choice at a busy local brunch spot. The lunches were $10 each and filled us up. We weren't offered dessert which was just as well since we wanted ice cream. Clay didn't have this planned. So we could have just walked to Roxy's Ice Cream Social, another local treat.

We had purchased 2pm tickets online to visit the Van Gogh, Monet, Degas exhibit for $15 each. We planned to visit the Chihuly collection at the Art Museum around that timed entry. Neither collection disappointed.

Next up a quick visit to the OKC Memorial. This was the site of I guess the worst act of domestic terrorism in the US. A bomb destroyed the federal building here. I usually make a point of not visiting tragic sights when traveling but there are always exceptions. We compromised here and only visited the outdoor memorial and not the museum.

By now we were flagging, and we drove out of the center of town and checking into our cheap accommodations for tonight, the Sleep Inn. I think we booked a prepaid rate of under $70 for the night. It is a Choice Hotel and I think we are mostly using those properties for this week's trip. We used a Choice Property for the Land of Oz trip too. The downside. Choice has this stupid thing with 5 small square bed pillows! Clay takes 2 and leaves me 3 but you can't sleep with 3 small pillows. I can't anyway. I want one firm rectangle of a pillow that I don't have to herd all night long. I am so tired tonight that hopefully it won't be a problem. After an afternoon rest, we headed back into town for dinner. Other than the pillows it is fine. We have a queen bed, fast strong wifi signal included, a fridge/microwave/coffee maker, 2 chairs, a desk and chair, a safe, a shower over tub. It is clean and quiet.

Clay picked Kitchen No. 324 for dinner. It was another good choice. We got there between 5 and 6 pm for dinner and it was nearly empty. Good for us. It was pricey compared to lunch. I had a $15 French Dip sandwich and Clay had a $14 salad. We shared our meals. It was filling and tasty.

We stopped at CVS on the way back and Clay got a supply of Coke Zero for the week and an ice cream bar that cost him a dime due to receiving $2 in CVS bucks for the first purchase. Lucky.

We plan to sleep in tomorrow since after breakfast our first visit is 10am at the OK Cowboy Museum. The one kink in that plan is that Clay went to bed at 7:30pm! We'll see.


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