DESTINATION:  TULSA, OKLAHOMA 

Carl and I got on the road in ranch country and enjoyed seeing the many different ranch entrances…here’s a couple…

Then we stopped in Adair for some ice and found the Buffalo Ranch…just a little roadside ranch with some buffaloes.  They were fenced in and so it seemed a safe place to get up and personal with some buffaloes.  I watched a baby buffalo nurse for awhile and the mother jumped when the baby was a little too aggressive.  Then the father buffalo came over to me and charged at the fence…I like fences!

Here’s the family…

Father buffalo 

We then headed out to one of our day’s destinations, the Polson Cemetery;  the reason being was to find the gravesite of Stand Watie.  This man was the only American Indian to attain the rank of General during the Civil War and was the last Confederate general to surrender.  He is buried here along with other Cherokee officers and family.

This is his actual grave where he is buried with his wife and son

On the way back to Rt. 66, I spied a cow day spa…she was very serene…

Next stop…statue of Andy Payne, winner of the 1928 Great Transcontinental Footrace, a cross country foot race from Los Angeles to New York organized as a wildly extreme promotional stunt to promote U.S. Route 66 which had been built as a simple, well-paved route across the country, and dubbed “the Main Street of America”.  He ran it, averaging 6 miles per hour, much of it along U.S. Route 66. First prize was $25,000 which he used to pay off the mortgage on his father’s farm. Here’s Andy!

He was 21 years old…handsome, but his shoes were fairly meager.  No Nike trainers for him!

He was a Cherokee farm boy, born in 1907.  Oh, and I forgot, he also became a lawyer.

We ended the day with a Blue Whale.  See?!? 

A kids dream built by a wonderful father who must have been quite a character. (He also created  an alligator attraction and built an ark with real animals in it on this same property).  It soon became a favorite on Route 66 and was restored in 2002.  While now there is no swimming allowed, it still is a great place to pull in and walk through a whale.