Day 141: Oklahoma City

We had only one light out of four showing how much propane we had left for the last couple of days. It's not always easy to find propane refills for RVs (sometimes a gas station will have it, but not all branches, sometimes the place will have it but only at certain hours, etc). Usually we fill up at gas stations, but it seems that in Oklahoma so far, the best option is actually a U-Haul (moving and storage company).

We got there first thing in the morning and the one guy working there was very friendly--we ended up chatting to him about his love of 90s metal (he's only in his 20s so clearly vibing with another era). He gave us some suggestions on places to eat at, and Michael also took the opportunity to borrow a ladder and cut off the remaining strips of tarp dangling off the top of our RV, after the awning ripped clean away.

Walking Around Oklahoma City

We got to Oklahoma City and found a free parking spot near Truck Yard, a beer garden which looked like a lot of fun (and had funny signs that included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Norris, and Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movie).

It was a great base for us to walk around and check out the city, starting with the Centennial Land Run monument, which commemorates the opening of the Unassigned Land in Oklahoma Territory with the Land Run of 1889. There are 45 (and a half!) bronze figures on the run, including men, women, and children, as well as horses and carriages. It's carved as if the figures are all frozen in motion, so we could see the frenzy and and intricate detail, right down to the swishing tail of the horses. The monument is right along Bricktown Canal, so it's a lovely walk along the water, also seeing folks doing a guided boat tour as we wandered past.

From here, we arrived at the Bricktown District, a lively entertainment district with various bars, restaurants and shops. It also includes Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark, home of the Oklahoma City Comets, a minor league baseball team. It's a pretty stadium, with colorful mosaics built into the red brick building, which is also lined with flowers underneath it. Across the road was a remnant from recent July 4 celebrations, was a huge blow up American eagle, glaring sharply out toward the horizon.

Continuing along, we passed the Crystal Bridge Tropical Conservatory, a greenhouse shaped like a cucumber on its side, which apparently has over 750 plant varieties, waterfalls & elevated walkways inside. We didn't go in, but it's part of the Myriad Botanical Gardens, so there were already a ton of beautiful flowers and plants surrounding it.

We walked around downtown Oklahoma, which had a few cool sculptures along the way. We were there on a weekend, so it was pretty empty, with only a handful of people walking around and not many cars driving through. Although these days, some cities are also not that busy on weekdays, as places haven't fully picked up compared to before COVID, even though there's more of a swing back to encouraging people to return to the office.

The Site of the Oklahoma City Bombing

While we didn't know much about Oklahoma City before arriving, one thing we did know about is the Oklahoma City bombing, which happened on April 19, 1995, and is still the deadliest domestic terrorism attack in the US--168 people died including 19 children, and hundreds more people were injured. We'd learned more about it recently, as there was a documentary about it on Netflix that came out this year, called "Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror".

We headed over to what was the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building (where the bombing occurred), and could look down into what's now the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, which has 168 chairs representing all the people who died that day. The chairs that are smaller represent the kids who were killed, who were mostly at the daycare center in the building. There's a pool that separates the outdoor memorial and the indoors museum, and on either side of the pool are two times imprinted on the gates: 9.01 and 9.03, which represent the stretch between the minute before the bombing and the time of innocence, to the minute after when the world changed.

Ahead of entering the museum, there's a wire fence which, 30 years later, continues to have pictures of the victims, messages, flowers and other items pinned by people to pay their respects. It's obviously really sad to walk along this fence and see all of this. These items are periodically taken down by Museum staff and kept. We didn't go inside the Memorial & Museum, but decided we'd spend time there the following day.

More Oklahoma City Highlights

There's a couple of Atlas Obscura sights we found and stopped by. First was the Architectural DNA, a spiral staircase in the historic Marion Hotel, that's now suspended by cables, tucked away in an alley amid some elegant looking restaurants and hotels. While we didn't go in, Factory Obscura: Mix Tape is a colorful and quirky building to simply marvel at from the outside, offering immersive experiences for guests (which we imagine would be similar to what we experienced at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe, New Mexico).

One of the things we've noticed is that some towns have a common theme that they run with, manifested by statues of this all along the city. For example, Vernal in Utah has dozens of dinosaurs statues in different sizes and designs thanks to all the fossils found in the area, while Lindsborg in Kansas has Dala horses in recognition of its Swedish heritage. Oklahoma City has a lot of bison statues in different colors and designs, as part of the "Spirit of the Buffalo" art project, aimed to raise awareness about the bison as a symbol of Oklahoma.

We managed to walk through the stifling heat, passing the American Banjo Museum, and one last Atlas Obscura entry, the Flaming Lips Alley (meh, literally just a street sign, blink and you'll miss it), before we got back to our RV to sweat it out further in the heat of the afternoon, during which Lisette caught up with her friend Will in the UK over a WhatsApp call.

Sweet & Savory Treats at Arbuckle Fried Pies

When we were at the U-Haul earlier, we were told to check out Arbuckle Fried Pies, so we headed over to the original store in Oklahoma City (they have a few other branches in Oklahoma). We'd seen this brand sold at Pops 66 Soda Ranch, but had never heard of a fried pie, and had certainly never tried it. It's basically exactly what it sounds like: a crescent-shaped pie that is deep fried, with either sweet or savory fillings, common in the American South.

We were overwhelmed with the long list of pies when we went inside, including savory (chicken & vegetable, spinach & mushroom), sweet (apricot, pineapple, pecan), no sugar added (same flavors as the sweet), cream (sweet + cream fillings), and new special flavors (gyro, crab rangoon)... there was a lot!! When we told the lady behind the counter that we'd never had one before, she feigned a swoon, but very helpfully talked us through the menu, and became excited when she realized that we were Australian. "I'm in the presence of Australians!" she exclaimed, adding that she'd been to Australia as part of a military deployment but couldn't remember where (we guessed by her description that she went to Darwin).

Once we placed our order, we saw the pies being made (they make the savory ones fresh), where the employee at the back was rolling a sheet of pastry through a roller to sit on top of the pie. It's very different to how Aussie pies are made!

There was an elderly gentleman who was sitting inside eating his pie, and Michael asked him if he was enjoying it. When he learned where we hailed from, his eyes widened and he also became super excited. A native Texan, he was in town as he has property in Oklahoma, and he gave us a recommendation of where to go in Texas (which we later figured out would be a bit too out of the way, unfortunately). When we told him that we'd ordered a cherry pie as well, he retorted, "When you bite into that pie, it's going to be so good that you'll want to slap your grandma!" And as he said this, he slapped his thigh and started laughing, which made us laugh along with him, with his hilarious Texan way of describing things.

As we left with our box of pies (chicken vegetable, cherry, peaches and cream), the gentleman customer and staff were both simultaneously hollering, "They're from AUSTRALIA!" and excitedly waving us goodbye. We're not sure if they get many overseas folks visit, but we definitely felt special dropping into Arbuckle!

The chicken & vegetable pie filling is very similar to what you'd expect from an Aussie chicken pot pie, but shaped differently and without the flaky top that we are used to. It was really good! The sweet pies are more foreign to us as we don't have these in Oz, but were both delicious. The cherry pie had sweet cherries in a sugar syrup, while the peaches and cream was a mix of sliced peaches and whipped cream inside. We're not sure that we had the urge to slap someone (grandma or not), but we enjoyed the treats!

Final Oklahoma City Highlights

Before wrapping up for the day, we dropped into Oklahoma City University, for a roadside visit to see 3 of its alumni, who were all Miss America pageant winners. The Miss America statues are all grinning in the way that beauty queens do, with stiff smiles baring both sets of teeth. Our final roadside stop was the historic Milk Bottle Grocery. It's no longer operational, but has the milk bottle of the Oklahoma brand Braum's, an American chain of ice cream parlor and fast food restaurants that we may check out at some point.

We cranked up the air-conditioning, driving back to the same truck stop that we were at last night, this time parking in between the Cracker Barrel restaurant and the gas stations for a bit more privacy. While we had the windows open with the screens blocking out the mosquitoes, they still inevitably get in, and Lisette was absolutely demolished by a mosquito that bit her several times all over her feet and legs. She breaks out into big welts where the bites happen and they are so incredibly itchy and burning in sensation, so she's now also bathing in Lucas Papaw Ointment from Australia to ease the itching (honestly, this ointment does everything). We have bug repellant but she's not wearing it 24/7, so it's just luck--or bad luck--in these critters being successful!

Route Map