This is not an easy place to do justice to in a photo and my very, very, very annoying day of lostness and overshooting turns-ness and generally screwing things upness gave me little time to try at the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in northern Oklahoma. (See here.) I will return, though. It is the largest protected piece of tallgrass prairie in the world--a sea of grass and tranquility.
And bison.
The day was gorgeous, the only sounds out on the trail were birds and insects and rustling grasses, the scent was baked earth...and I was in a hurry. All wrong. All wrong. I had about 30 minutes out of my car at the preserve and the rest of the time was spent getting lost, getting there, getting frustrated, having to drive all the way back to my hotel to check out, killing time until a scheduled tour in Bartlesville that ended up not so great....Ugh. Travel can break your heart. Especially if you're me--directionally challenged.
I love solo road trips but not having a navigator can suck. I was on rural two-lane highways most of yesterday (much of it on the Osage reservation) and if I missed a turn or got mixed up, I had to pull over to consult my map. But finding places to pull over wasn't always easy. And so I would be driving along, cursing, knowing I was burning time and gas in the wrong direction and unable to do a thing about it.
Time for GPS.
After my messed up day in Bartlesville in northern OK, I thought I'd try a different route back south than I took north, but that involved more time on small roads and lots of little towns. You'd get 100 yards of 65 mph, then approach a town and it was 45, 35, 25, 25, 25--then 65 for another 100 yards, then 45, 35, 25... I was due at Lara's house for dinner in Norman at 7 and it looked like I would never get there.
What a frustrating day. I have callouses on my hands from driving. No kidding.
On the other hand, Oklahoma is double-A-OK. I see lots of exploring of this state in my future.
Now I am comfy at one of my favorite hotels, the Sooner Legends Inn. (See here.) All the rooms here are themed to a OU football game, star or other legend. They put me in the Texas-OU room--appropriately since the big game is tomorrow. I hope my car (with Texas plates) wasn't egged in the parking lot.
5 comments:
I'm surprised that you weren't buzzed by a crop duster.
Sophie, if you liked that, check out americanprarie.org
Cool! Perhaps I need to return to Montana in 2009.
While you were in Bartlesville, did you visit Woolaroc ? It's a big museum of stuff collected by oil man Frank Phillips.
I didn't--I will next time. I stayed in the Inn at Price Tower, Frank Lloyd Wright's mixed-use skyscraper.
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