Sat Oct. 5 to Fri Oct. 11- Wichita, OK City, to Lubbock TX

Posted on October 17, 2019 by deniselg

Saturday- We had a quiet day. In the evening we went to dinner with Bob’s cousins, Terry, Karen, and David at a really good Mexican Restaurant.

From left, Terry, Bob, David, and Karen. I heard a lot of stories about Bob that I had never heard before!

Sunday- We did laundry and had a quiet day. We leave in the morning.

Monday- We left around 10 AM and drove through the base to the back exit. It was closer to I-35 south. We traveled south to Oklahoma City. We had planned to stay at Tinker AFB, but they do not accept reservations. When Bob called, they said they had one site, and his was the third call. So we punted and went to Council Road RV Park off of I-40, west of OK City, FHU 50A, $38 night with a Good Sam discount of $3 per night.

While traveling south, we noticed that a truck stop/gas station had a dog park at their truck stop. So we stopped and let the dogs run and sniff. We had subs at their Subway.

We went to dinner at a nice little German Deli, called Ingrid’s. We had looked up restaurants on the Triple D website and up it popped. Evidently, Guy Fieri had been there when Ingrid still owned the restaurant. We found that out when talking to some folks while eating dinner. We both had excellent meals. We liked the German Potato Salad, so much, that we bought 1/2 lb. to take home with us.

Tuesday- While driving yesterday, we had made a reservation for the tour of the Braum’s Ice Cream Factory, just south of OK City. We could not get a reservation for the 11 AM tour, so we made a reservation for the 9 AM tour. So we were out the door a little after 8AM.

We were the first to arrive. You had to be there at 8:45 for the free tour. They start promptly at 9 AM and a group of folks, who did not make it there by 9, missed the tour. There were only about 10 of us on the tour.

The tour started with a video of the factory and all about the business. They only sell their products within a 300 mile radius of the factory. They make deliveries, every other day, to each of their stores. They do everything themselves. They are a family owned company. They grow most of their own feed or purchase it from local growers. They grow their own cattle, milk them 2x a day, and everything they make is in their stores within 36 hours. They do not accept any government subsidies. I was not allowed to take pictures inside any buildings. Below is the visitor center.

We took the van from the Visitor Center to the Dairy Building. Below was on the way to the building. Braums has their own private roads, river water, and the white buildings are the cows stalls.

We toured the building seeing all the different products being made. They even cook their nuts, bake their cones, package and store everything. Below is a picture, which was inside the building. I liked the picture and asked permission to take a picture. Our tour guide granted me permission.

Below is the Bakery. Oh, did it smell good!! It was an interesting tour of how they bake their cones, cookies, bread etc. Braum’s has their own stores, where they sell hamburgers, salads, and ice cream. They have a little grocery inside, where they sell 1/2 gallons of their ice cream, and all their other products.

Once we returned to the Visitor Center, we were given a choice of an ice cream bar or a small cup of vanilla ice cream. We both choose the bars.

Our next stop was at the Land Run Memorial of 1889. This is a really interesting memorial. It depicts the people, who at 12 noon, took off trying to get to a piece of land that they wanted. Some people cheated, they were called Sooners, who staked out their claim early. The government did not really have a good plan for this run. It must have been crazy… Bob’s family was not involved in this, they were in Kansas well before this occurred.

This last picture of the memorial, is of the starting shot that started the race…

As you can tell, it is a really big memorial!

We decided to go to a place called Earl’s BBQ for lunch. We arrived and when we entered the restaurant, there was an overwhelming odor of cleaning fluid. Ugh! We left.

We went to George’s Happy Hog BBQ, which was okay. From there, we went a few blocks to the State Capitol. Note the crane.

When we arrived, we found the Capitol building under renovation. We weaved our way thru the construction entrance, went through security, and went to the the Visitor Center. We were there for the 1 PM tour. It was 12:40. They said, since there was very little to see, due to the construction, we went immediately, just the 2 of us, on an abbreviated tour.

The above, Native American sculpture, is by one of the delegates. It represents all of the tribes in Oklahoma. Below is the entranceway we would normally have entered, below the mural.

Below is the dome. They are working in the area, so this is the best picture that I could get.

Below, from a different direction, you can see the murals below the dome.

This was a struggle to get decent pictures. Here is another one of the murals.

Below is the House. We could not go to the Senate.

On the right side, along the wall, those are the only Democratic seats. All of the rest are
Republican. The House, before WWI, was primarily Democratic, but it flipped and has stayed Republican. Note the seats up on the balcony. The balcony goes all the way around. They vote via the buttons on the desks and the count shows up on the board above, in the back of the room. The room was not as ornate as other Capitols that we have visited. Here is the ceiling.

That was it! The building is going to continue under construction for at least 2 more years….

We had dinner at home.

Wednesday- We were watching the weather closely, as there was a front coming through Oklahoma. Our plan was to drive to Amarillo. We left at 9 AM. We drove west on I-40. At about 80 miles, the wind became very strong. I checked the weather app and found that we were going to be having a “wind advisory. This was not listed earlier, before we left OK City. So we pulled into a Loves Truck Stop. All the parking spaces were taken. We tried a Casino, which had 50 amp hook up, but it was too slanted. So we found a little RV park, for $32 for FHU, Good Sam discount. We set up and went to lunch at a nice little restaurant downtown. We ate dinner at home.

Thursday- The winds had decreased, so we left and continued on to Lubbock, skipping Amarillo. We parked at the Elks Lodge, $25 FHU, 50 amp. This was a very nice Elks Lodge, with a concrete pad and nice picnic table. We had a quiet evening.

Friday– We went to the Buddy Holly Museum.

That is the only picture that I could take inside. They do not allow pictures or videos. Too bad, as it was a very interesting place! We paid our $6 each, senior rate, and went to the movie about Buddy Holly.

Charles Hardin Holley was born 9/7/36 in Lubbock. He was named for his grandfathers, Charles and Hardin. His mother thought his name was too big for a little boy, so she stated calling him Buddy.

“Buddy developed an interest in music at an early age that ranged from country and gospel to blue grass and rhythm and blues. He created a rockabilly sound with a distinct flavor by integrating all these genres into the songs he wrote and performed with The Crickets. Buddy Holly’s short-lived career encompassed twenty–five hit records before his tragic death at the age of twenty-two. Though his music career and life were brief, Buddy Holly created an innovative sound that influenced the direction of popular music”. Taken from the Gallery Guide. His name was accidently changed from Holley to Holly, when there was a mistake on the first music contract that he signed.

After the 15 minutes movie, we entered the gallery. This took us through his childhood, his career, his guitars, his marriage, and “The Day the Music Died”. What was really interesting, was the impact, in his short career, that he had on other artists. Paul McCartney said that the first 40 songs that he and John Lennon wrote, were based on Buddy Holly’s music. There was also a room with awards, from the museum to various artists. There was a guitar that was given to Paul McCartney, who came to the museum to accept it; he signed it and it was on display. Surprisingly, we really felt this was a very interesting museum!

Across the street, was the West Texas Walk of Fame, “which honors those individuals with a strong connection to Lubbock and the West Texas area, who had devoted a significant part of their lives to the development and production of the performing and visual arts and whose body of work has been influential nationally in one or more of these areas.” From the West Texas Walk of Fame brochure. We were surprised at some of the names….