46 Oklahoma [Updated to Full Credit]
Over the past weekend, my sister and I went to Oklahoma City, which means that she's officially off the hook for not letting us stop there back in 2008 when we drove cross-country. I had floated the idea of a siblings weekend over New Year's when I visited her (and coincidentally when I knocked out Alabama), and from there choosing a state neither of us had been to was an obvious choice.
Oklahoma City felt a lot like Fargo, North Dakota, with more people and more pretension. It's got a tiny downtown and better cultural activities due to having more people and substantial oil money, but it's got the same big sky and dry heat and spread out suburb feel that the largest city of our home state has.
We flew in Friday and after lunch we went to the Museum of Osteology. This is giant collection of skulls and skeletons. The founder, Jay Villemarette, was obsessed with skulls from an early age, managed to turn it into a career by cleaning and selling skeletons for scientific purposes, and ended up opening this museum and a satellite location in Orlando. It's extremely well done. There are 300+ skeletons, the signage is great, you can touch some of the larger ones like the rhino, and all in all I found it to be really interesting. I highly recommend it.
From there we went downtown to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. We didn't do the museum, but the outdoor reflecting pond and monument is a sight to see in its own right. The bombing is less remembered now in a world dominated by 9/11 and its aftermath, but that's not because of an inadequate monument. The field of empty chairs is quietly effective.
Nearby is Architectural DNA, which is an old spiral staircase hanging in mid-air. It was being removed from a hotel during a renovation project, and someone liked how it looked as it dangled from the crane. One thing led to another, and now it's a cool piece of public art hanging in a trendy part of town, Automotive Alley.
When we woke up on Saturday morning it was already 90 degrees, and it only got hotter. After breakfast we first swung by state capitol and then over to the statue park that commemorates the Land Rush of 1889. There are 49 different statues showing the settlers charging into the territory. It's got a nice little park by it, and if it wasn't so hot, we would have wandered around.
It was so hot though, so we instead went to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, which has a massive collection of Chihuly glass. There was also a good exhibition of largely Impressionist paintings from the Mellon collection. From there we went to the 21C Museum Hotel. This former Ford factory was renovated into a hotel with a modern art museum on the first floor. The exhibition we saw was called "Seeing Now" and was filled with photography and related materials. We really enjoyed it. Afterwards we had lunch in the hotel restaurant and checked out a local bookstore. We then went back to our Air BNB and read books in the a/c, followed by a viewing of Men in Black: International.
Sunday morning we did another museum, this time the American Banjo Museum. That was actually an interesting couple of hours, at least for me as a music lover. It had a surprising amount of Jim Henson material; he'd been inducted into their hall of fame as a "Promoter".
From there we did the Oklahoma River Cruise, which was tolerable because it was only in the mid-80s and because the boat had an air conditioned cabin that we could retreat to when needed. We went to Factory Obscura, a local art collective, and checked out the interactive art created by Wayne Coyne that along with the Flaming Lips album King's Mouth. I liked the art more than I typically enjoy the Flaming Lips.
More reading and dinner followed. We went to bed early to catch an early flight out, and such was our trip to Oklahoma City. Seldom has a state been crossed with such thoroughness.
Photos here for my FB friends.
EDIT: What I ate covered here.
Scoreboard
Full Credit - 44: Delaware ( partial credit post), Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland ( partial credit post), New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama ( partial credit post), Missouri, Arkansas ( no credit post), Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa ( partial credit post), Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia, Nevada, Nebraska ( partial credit post), Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, ( no credit post), New Mexico, Arizona ( partial credit post), Alaska, Washington D.C.
Partial Credit - 2: Connecticut, Idaho
No Credit - 5: South Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii
Oklahoma City felt a lot like Fargo, North Dakota, with more people and more pretension. It's got a tiny downtown and better cultural activities due to having more people and substantial oil money, but it's got the same big sky and dry heat and spread out suburb feel that the largest city of our home state has.
We flew in Friday and after lunch we went to the Museum of Osteology. This is giant collection of skulls and skeletons. The founder, Jay Villemarette, was obsessed with skulls from an early age, managed to turn it into a career by cleaning and selling skeletons for scientific purposes, and ended up opening this museum and a satellite location in Orlando. It's extremely well done. There are 300+ skeletons, the signage is great, you can touch some of the larger ones like the rhino, and all in all I found it to be really interesting. I highly recommend it.
From there we went downtown to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. We didn't do the museum, but the outdoor reflecting pond and monument is a sight to see in its own right. The bombing is less remembered now in a world dominated by 9/11 and its aftermath, but that's not because of an inadequate monument. The field of empty chairs is quietly effective.
Nearby is Architectural DNA, which is an old spiral staircase hanging in mid-air. It was being removed from a hotel during a renovation project, and someone liked how it looked as it dangled from the crane. One thing led to another, and now it's a cool piece of public art hanging in a trendy part of town, Automotive Alley.
When we woke up on Saturday morning it was already 90 degrees, and it only got hotter. After breakfast we first swung by state capitol and then over to the statue park that commemorates the Land Rush of 1889. There are 49 different statues showing the settlers charging into the territory. It's got a nice little park by it, and if it wasn't so hot, we would have wandered around.
It was so hot though, so we instead went to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, which has a massive collection of Chihuly glass. There was also a good exhibition of largely Impressionist paintings from the Mellon collection. From there we went to the 21C Museum Hotel. This former Ford factory was renovated into a hotel with a modern art museum on the first floor. The exhibition we saw was called "Seeing Now" and was filled with photography and related materials. We really enjoyed it. Afterwards we had lunch in the hotel restaurant and checked out a local bookstore. We then went back to our Air BNB and read books in the a/c, followed by a viewing of Men in Black: International.
Sunday morning we did another museum, this time the American Banjo Museum. That was actually an interesting couple of hours, at least for me as a music lover. It had a surprising amount of Jim Henson material; he'd been inducted into their hall of fame as a "Promoter".
From there we did the Oklahoma River Cruise, which was tolerable because it was only in the mid-80s and because the boat had an air conditioned cabin that we could retreat to when needed. We went to Factory Obscura, a local art collective, and checked out the interactive art created by Wayne Coyne that along with the Flaming Lips album King's Mouth. I liked the art more than I typically enjoy the Flaming Lips.
More reading and dinner followed. We went to bed early to catch an early flight out, and such was our trip to Oklahoma City. Seldom has a state been crossed with such thoroughness.
Photos here for my FB friends.
EDIT: What I ate covered here.
Scoreboard
Full Credit - 44: Delaware ( partial credit post), Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Massachusetts, Maryland ( partial credit post), New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama ( partial credit post), Missouri, Arkansas ( no credit post), Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa ( partial credit post), Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia, Nevada, Nebraska ( partial credit post), Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, ( no credit post), New Mexico, Arizona ( partial credit post), Alaska, Washington D.C.
Partial Credit - 2: Connecticut, Idaho
No Credit - 5: South Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine, Hawaii