Family, Soda Mecca, and Cowboys

    Friday, we had an easy morning since we were so close to Tulsa, we knew we didn't have to drive far.  We arrived at Aunt Marilyn and Uncle Ed’s house a little before lunchtime.  It was fun to get to see the city in which David was born, and get to spend a little time with the Guthmanns.  I also got to meet another one of David’s cousins, Adam, and his beautiful wife and family.  We loved getting to introduce Nathan to them as well. 

After several hours, we reluctantly decided it was time to hit the road again. 

    We decided to veer off the beaten path to drive for a while on the famed Route 66.  Our first stop was this awesome little gas station that has more soda flavors than anywhere else in the world! 

The walls had glass shelves from floor to ceiling all the way around the inside of the gas station that were lined with hundreds of flavors of sodas.  They had everything from Ranch soda to Pina Colada soda.  We chose four sodas, two weird, and two normal.  We chose Bacon soda, Cookie Dough soda, Black Cherry soda, and Cream soda.  Cream soda was delicious.  Bacon was disgusting as you might imagine. 

Nathan conked out immediately following our soda adventure, so we did a quick drive-by of the gas station depicted in the movie, Cars, and a few other random route 66 highlights.                  

     We drove through Oklahoma City and once again won bad parents of the year for waking our sleeping baby in order to stop at the most awesome museum ever – the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum.  Unfortunately, we arrived 45 minutes before closing, but the sweet woman at the admissions counter let us in for free and pointed us in the direction of their most popular exhibit.  We were like kids in a candy store.  It was all about cowboys.  There were saddles, spurs, boots, and guns from beginning of the Wild West to the present and memorabilia from throughout movie history.  It was so much fun to see guns from Bonanza and guns that belonged to John Wayne.  We would definitely love to go back and would recommend it to anyone who happens to find themselves planning a vacation destination to Oklahoma City.  

     Following our Wild West detour, we finally let our kid conk out and drove an easy few more hours to the booming metropolis of Elk City, Oklahoma.  We decided that in the spirit of the Wild West, we had to go eat some Oklahoma beef.  Turns out, Oklahoma is not the place to order a chicken Caesar salad, but a great place to order a big slab of steak.  Yum!  Next up, Amarillo, Santa Fe and Albuquerque! I will say though, we saw some pretty beautiful sunsets!!