Thursday, June 2, 2022

Arkansas and back in 1 day

 I got home from Colorado Thursday evening, and on Friday, spent the day doing laundry and getting the bedrooms in the basement ready for the grandkids.  We decided to drive down early Saturday morning and return the same day! 

Their parents, our son and daughter-in-law, were doing a study tour in Israel.  Staci's parents watched the kids for the first half of the time and we were taking care of them the 2nd half.


We gave the kids a clue to what we would be doing each day.  
The clue for this day was:  
    Into the past we will go
    Where men did fight horribly so.
    There were soldiers and Indians in those days
    And going west was all the craze.

Leaving Fayetteville, we took a little road to Farmington, where we stopped to get some food to go.  We had to have DESSERT FIRST! so the ice-cream wouldn't melt all over the car!  We ate the burgers as we drove.



We kept up the suspence of where we were headed.  Lots of winding roads!



Very curvy!!!


The road often wound under a canopy of trees.  Just beautiful!



And here was our first destination for the day - Fort Gibson!


This fort was established in 1824 and active in keeping the peace between the Osage and Cherokee and also during the civil war.  It was the final point of the Trail of Tears.  You can read about the history of this fort here.  
 








This re-enactor tells about the mess hall and the food preparations.




We watched a film about the fort at this place.


Holding a cannon ball.  They come in all sizes.
This one seemed small but it was heavy.


We drove to the national cemetery.




You can the history of Talahina here.



You can read about this guy here.






The back road to Tulsa was not the best.  


The kids wanted to eat at the Cheesecake Factory.  When we got to Tulsa, we saw the blimp flying up in the sky.  Allen remarked that the PGA tour was taking place.  In fact, our friends Marc and Luke were there right under that blimp (they told us later).  


I heard that Tulsa had 35,000 visitors for the golf tournament and I think they were ALL at the Cheesecake Factory!!!  The wait to just check in was really long, maybe 20 min. to even get your name on the list!! and probably a 2 hour wait to eat!!   We couldn't, well, we wouldn't do that.  I looked on my phone and found this Italian place in Sand Springs, on the west side of Tulsa.



It was incredible!!  Run by a family from Albania and such good food!!!



It isn't far off 412 either.  You can see the elevated highway in this picture.  
We knew we would be back!  A hidden gem!!


Al pulled us off the road at Keystone Dam.


The birds and the fishermen knew where the good fish were!







Back on the road to Nana and Papa's house.





Looking forward to the days with the kids!

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