My Favorite Museum: Woolaroc

Researching Lonely Planet guidebooks, you end up seeing dozens and dozens of museums no one would really bother with. Some of them I loved. The Romanian Peasant Museum in Bucharest, for example, has hand-written signs and an arrow leading to a makeshift "grandma" room. It's filled with various knick-knacks once belonging to various grandmas, with the gentle suggestion that "life is busy, but we should always keep one grandma keepsake after she dies." That's the sweetest thing I've ever seen.

But it's not my favorite museum. My favorite, decked in limestone and nostalgia, is the museum at Woolaroc, a collection of Western and Native American art at the one-time summer home of Frank Phillips of Phillips '66, in the rolling prairies of the Osage Nation outside Bartlesville, Oklahoma. I've been, probably 20 times (and counting) in my life, often meeting cousins to picnic to the soundtrack of locust buzz and lingering long below paintings of Custer's Last Stand.

There's plenty of wildlife to see and one fake one I love: a (fake) talking buffalo, who used to suck up trash and still tells you not to touch him if you pet him. Which I always do.

The video above is a look at Woolaroc (named for the area's Wood, Lakes, Rocks) in 15 seconds.

Talking Oklahoma on Amateur Traveler

When Chris Christensen of the Amateur Traveler asks if you want to talk about Oklahoma, you ask 'how high?' It was a pleasure to record this podcast:

Amateur Traveler Episode 295 - Travel to Oklahoma with Robert Reid from Lonely Planet





For more Oklahoma, here's my Top 22 list for Lonely Planet.

76-Second Travel Show: 'Boley, Oklahoma'

Boley! I never knew about Boley for years, not until going back home after 10 years as an expat Okie in places like New York, London, Melbourne and Saigon. I wrote more on Boley for Lonely Planet.



Meanwhile, this happened:







That's right, Lonely Planet is leading with Oklahoma. (And my article on Oklahoma's Top 22.) It's a very unusual week. In all the right ways.

Boley, Oklahoma

Oklahoma is known as 'Native America' -- at least per its license plates. No state has, per capita, more Native Americans than our 46th state, whose name means 'red people' in Choctaw language.

That's only part of the picture. Around the time of statehood in 1907, Oklahoma had over 40 'black towns,' settled largely from African Americans, chiefly freed slaves, migrating from the south and looking for more autonomy.

One of the greater success stories was Boley, Oklahoma -- about 10 miles northwest of Woody Guthrie's birthplace of Okemah. Now home to 1200 (though two-thirds live in state's nearby prison), Boley's heyday peaked at a population of 4000 prior to the Depression; much of that era is seen with boarded-up brick buildings on along main street.

It's a friendly place, with much history if you stop and chat, or get an appointment to see the Boley Historical Society (call Henrietta Hicks at 918-667-9790), housed in a century-old home you can arrange to sleep in for $35. There's a bank that Pretty Boy Floyd's gang failed to rob in 1932. And McCormick's Deli, on Highway 62, is the lone place to eat, known for its spiced 'pookie burger.'

Otherwise, the big draw is the 'Boley Rodeo,' a three-day 'black rodeo' held over Memorial Day weekend for, in some incarnation, since 1905, when it was staged merely to attract land-buyers. My favorite participant was Ross (above), a four-year-old barrel racer making his rodeo debut.

Around the arena, you'll find lots of food. The barbecue comes spicy, and nothing beats a cheese-covered 'potato-on-a-stick,' apparently a local invention by the hilarious Linda Sykes, a Boley native. I met her first in town. When she heard I had never had it, she instinctively took over the community center kitchen on Main Street, and fried me up a couple. (Ask around for her.)

My first visit here was ten years ago, while researching Lonely Planet's USA guide. It was a surprise. Though I grew up in nearby Tulsa, Boley didn't quite make my Oklahoma history classes. As one local put it, 'Black towns were wiped out of history books.'

It's time to put them back in.

New Oklahoma City Slogan: 'Real Chill'?

In the most underrated travel story of our young decade, veteran NBA guard Kevin Ollie spoke to ESPN about his new home, Oklahoma City -- a place that has the reputation as something of an "NBA purgatory." Ie The last place you'd want to be traded to.

But Ollie joined fellow Thunder players to defend it, and talk up post-game ballyhoo around Bricktown's Flaming Lips Alley, food at Mickey Mantle's Steakhouse, before returning home to "play the crib" early.

Ollie said, "It's not LA or Miami, but it's cool here. REAL CHILL."

The Oklahoma City CVB should take note. Currently Oklahoma's capital -- and one of a handful of cities I've voted as the best made-over ugly-duckings around the USA -- has no tourism pitch phrase, slogan, moniker.

How about 'Oklahoma City: Real Chill'?

Though one anonymous player whined that the "selection of women here isn't exactly off the charts," star forward Kevin Durant, who grew up in DC and spent a year at the University of Texas at Austin, joined the defense:

"People always ask, 'Wouldn't you rather be in Miami or L.A.?' I always tell them, 'No.' This place is perfect for me... You can get tired of tall buildings after a while. Man, I live across the street from a farm."

"Perfect," he said, not purgatory.

Seeing an alternate view in a place that gets one-sided treatment from most? That's a travel writer's job. Maybe NBA players should chip in more?

Manhattan Bridge Cake Party

A D V E R T I S E M E N T:

76-Second Travel Show's
"Manhattan Bridge's 100th
birthday celebration"
11am, Thur, Dec 31
Manhattan Bridge's south walkway

The Manhattan Bridge -- New York's last great East River crossing -- turns 100 next Thursday. The city -- dodging weather and any sense of anniversarial integrity -- celebrated in October.

We're celebrating on its birthday. And you're invited.

If you're in New York, meet at 11am December 31, mid-way across the southern-facing pedestrian walkway on the bridge. After a group handshake, we'll walk to Brooklyn -- as the original crossing of a "little calvalcade of automobiles and carriages" did a century ago -- and have cake and receive commemorative booklets in the north end of the Empire Fulton Ferry State Park (aka "Brooklyn Bridge Park," aka "Phil Collins Park" for the chosen setting at the 1:35 mark of this video) under the bridge in Brooklyn's Dumbo. It's OK to meet at the park, by 11:45am.

Music courtesy of the Spelman Brothers' "The Most Durable Thing"

11 Things to Do in Tulsa While You're Alive

Us '80s-Tulsans grew up with a huge, decade-long sigh of satisfaction. We didn't have mountains, oceans or particularly good taffy, but we knew what we did have:

a) We weren't Oklahoma City. Meaning, we did have some hills, green grass, trees and (due to all the left-over oil money kicking around) art-house films. OKC may have the Flaming Lips, but we had the Hanson Brothers.
b) We had a pro soccer team -- NASL's glorious Roughnecks -- that won the national championship the year they went bankrupt.
c) We got MTV before anyone else (as test-market city). Even New York City, guy. We know MTV way before Thriller came out. So there.

These days, OKC has improved, soccer's gone and MTV sucks. But there are still some great things to do:



Go to Oral Roberts' Jetsons-meets-Jesus, futuristic-in-a-clearly-retro-way campus. Pose in front of the praying hands statue below the array of international flags. Walk straight to the Prayer Tower (shown above) and take the elevator to the top. You don't have to pray. You don't have to talk about el Bible. No one will bother you. And you can have nice views of the very unusual campus set up by a man who once locked himself in there to raise millions to save his life.
Go see the greatest shirtless statue you've never heard of, the Golden Driller. No, he's not gold -- more of a dry-river-bed brown -- but he stands with his derrick for photo opps. And you can sit on his foot if you like.

Go play the silly frisbee (aka 'disc') golf course on the river walk. The Arkansas River winds through Tulsa -- and as of late actually has some water in it. River-side parks stretch 26 miles. The golf course has been there for 25 years. And it's really not a horrible thing to do.

Go to the Gilcrease Museum and look at cowboy art. Don't like cowboy art? Yes you do. You just haven't seen much. Exaggerated or not, it's our most authentic images of Plains Indians, mean US military attacks and guys roping steers. A window to an 1800s America long lost. And it's a lot more fun than it should be -- and easier to decipher than those rained-on works by the Impressionists over at Philbrook Museum.

Go see the Admiral Drive In. You know from the scene in The Outsiders where Ponyboy (C Thomas Howell) tries to pick up Cherry (Diane Lane), in a time when greasers and socs were united by knife fights and watching sunsets. Author SE Hinton is Tulsan, and sometimes lazy.

Go visit the Greenwood Cultural Center in North Tulsa. It was the one-time location of America's 'Black Wall Street' and the stage of the tragic Tulsa Race Riot in 1921. When I first visited a decade ago I sat and chatted with a survivor in her nineties.

Go to a show, if one's on, at Cain's Ballroom. Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys used to control the stage in the glory days centuries past, and it's become the vintage stage to see shows on in this corner of Oklahoma. The Sex Pistols' ironic tour of the south blazed through the stage, and Johnny Rotten apparently hid in the office out of fear.

Go to India Palace. Eat the buffet -- far better than your average Indian buffet -- then walk straight back into the kitchen, purposefully, without asking, and thank the chef personally. My family has done this for years. You will be rewarded with a sizzling 'fire/oil show' on the frying pans. And if you bring a tot back in, that tot will be held by the cooks.

Go up the 'Tulsa hill.' Driving from 61st St & Memorial, head west towards Sheridan, a mile away. The road rises -- a tennis center to the left, apartments to the right. About three-quarters the way to Sheridan you peak atop an unnamed hill -- 'Tulsa Hill' might work -- and can see the whole city scape. When a visiting cousin from (flat) Burleson, Texas, saw it a few years ago, she shot out: 'Wow. That's something. Burleson just looks like a fat guy sat on it.'

Go play Lafortune's three-par course at night. Screw Southern Hills country club, where Tiger Woods comes occasionally and then mocks the city ('boring'). Lafortune's little 18-hole job is the best thing to do in summer. Just don't do what me, Mark and Jay did -- walk on the course for free (or follow Jay's lead by shooting balls intentionally towards traffic on Yale Ave).

Go eat breakfast at Brookside by Day. It's in Brookside, a faintly hip area with biker bars and vintage clothing. Breakfast is as good as it gets.

--> When you leave, and you'll probably want to after a day or so, try to take Route 66 west to Oklahoma City. It's one of the longest stretches of the Mother Road not to be claimed by the interstate system. It saves you the $3.50 toll, you can try buffalo burgers and great cobbler at the Rock Cafe in Stroud, stop in antique stores in Chandler, and see a big round red barn in Arcadia.