OK Day 6- Buffalo, Barons, and Bowling Balls
Today started with coffee from a place called Joe's Addiction. The coffee was great but you'd think with a name like that they'd have more 90's ska music and coconut macaroons.
While I was driving to my next destination I passed this sign for a bowling alley that absolutely blew me away. I feel like it's an unspoken rule that you can't put a long object between two balls without making juvenile traveling comedians like me start giggling. They HAD to know, right???
Driving up to Bartlesville for the museum I was going to, I drove through Osage Reserverartions which was the first time I've ever actually been to a Native American reservation. I drove by beautiful rolling plains and rivers, thriving communities and also some of the most totally run down small towns I've ever seen. I've read about how underserved and poorly funded reservations can get, but it's an entirely different thing to really see it in person. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of smart talented Native people who do come out of these communities and it is important to respect tribal autonomy but I also think it's mildly despicable that they don't get more federal assistance. I know there are people who think the federal government does too much meddling as it is, but I think this is pretty long overdue and It's not really a hand out if you're the one who stole the money and land in the first place. Until every community has an equal shot, we're all losing out from the potential great minds that have to waste their talents just trying to survive. Just my two cents.
My first stop was a place called Hideaway pizza which is an Oklahoma based chain that has been recommended to me by TripAdvisor in literally every city so I Finally buckled down and decided to try this pizza staple for myself. It was one the best outcomes of buckling down I've ever had. First of all there were kites hanging everywhere due to a partnership and a competition among local schools for the best kite, so that was both super endearing and really fun to look at. Second of all the pizza was amazing. They had all the classic toppings as well as some fancier ones like artichoke hearts and Genoa sausage, but if you're indecisive like me you can get something called the Hideaway special. This beautiful monster has different toppings on every slice. alternating meat and veggie slices they have Bacon, Hamburger, Pepperoni, Sausage, Black Olives, Mushrooms, Red Onions & Green Bell Peppers. Oh boy it was all good, but for me the bacon slice and (this is just surprising to me as it may be to you) the pepper and onion slice were the best of their respective camps. And because there was an equal amount of meat and veggies, that makes it healthy!
After the pizza, I made my way to Woolaroc, another (but not the last) Massive Oklahoma oil baron estate turned museum. The first thing that surprised me when I arrived is that you had to pass through a little toll booth where you bought your admission and they gave you a little cd that played an introductory message to you while you drove across the expansive estate to the main museum portion. This soon made sense to me though as the majority of the vast expanse is open land gracing for a number of exotic animals. There are ostriches, antelope, gazelles, zebras, horses, and goats among quite a few others so you've gotta stay in your car while you're on their turf but it makes for a fascinating ride. My favorite little thing from the intro cd about Frank Phillips, of Phillips oil, was that when he initially started filling the estate with wildlife there was a single kangaroo. That kangaroo must been so confused and so confusing to all the other animals.
Naturally the guys that made me the happiest where the Buffalo (they may have been bison but I don't know the difference). I liked these guys because they were big, goofy, and could not have possibly given less of a shit if you were trying to drive on the road they were standing on.
Especially this guy:
He literally did not move for at least five minutes
Other non-animal highlights of the drive up to museum were the beautiful woods, lakes, and rocks that combined make the eponymous portmanteau. I even saw a buffalo jump over one of the rocks, and seeing one of those big jumps get airborne was incredible. The drive up was also peppered with remnants of the oil history that built the estate including a big statue of an oil derrick and one of the last remaining original Phillips 66 service stations that used to be a staple all along historic Route 66. I miss when people were so excited to be able to drive to other states that even getting gas was a whimsical experience.
Eventually I did make it to the museum portion of the grounds. Right from the parking lot there was plenty of art leading the way. The parking lot had little miniature houses all along the far edge, the front lawn had a beautiful sculpture of a cowboy and his horse at the end of their road, and the building itself was quite an impressive of stonework and mosaics invoking ancient Native American cave drawings.
My personal favorite mosaic was of this wide eyed and innocent buffalo:
Inside the museum had a vast and eclectic collection of galleries pertaining to the art, history, and culture of the American West. Frank Phillips loved this part of the country even before it made him rich and he was big advocate for Western wildlife, regional Native American tribes (he was made an honorary member of the Osage tribe for his contributions to their community), and the collection and sponsorship of regional art. By the end of his life, he had quite the collection from all these pursuits and he thought it was important to preserve it and share it with the public. I was definitely glad he did, because I had no idea going in how huge and diverse his range of artifacts would be.
Things started out with a fun collection of pocket watches adorned by a local artist with all the presidential portraits. It's fun seeing the evolution presidential styles throughout the ages, though I think they made Trump look a little more boyish than any 71 year old I've ever seen before.
After that more generally American artifact, we got into the nitty gritty of the Western collection. The guy at the front desk of the museum was even wearing a cowboy hat so you knew they weren't messing around. Things started pretty chronologically with the earliest Oklahomans, the dinosaurs. My personal favorite things here were a preserved raptor egg with some of the embryo still visible (!) and some preserved mammoth teeth which were about the size of footballs and ridged for grinding up grass and stuff. It's crazy that such large animals, in both prehistoric time and now, can live off of eating such small stuff.
After the small prehistoric exhibit the next gallery was a much larger collection of Native American artifacts. Items included jewelry, baskets, textiles, tools, clothes, pipes, and pottery. Personally I loved the more explicitly artistic pursuits like the weaving, jewelry, and ceramics just because I love that people have been channeling creativity into artistic pursuits since the dawn of man and a lot of the designs are still so elegant or downright impressively intricate. Something I hadn't seen in any of the similar collections of South Western tribal artifacts was a collection of particularly ancient engraved shells from Spiro Mounds which give some of our only insights into the religious and cultural symbols and ideas of the pre-Columbian tribes along the Mississippi. I was also fascinated by how innovative a lot of the tools were like using a buffalo's shoulder blade to make a backhoe or shaping throwing sticks similar to boomerangs used for knocking out small to medium sized game. A lot of "primitive" cultures were way more advanced than that term gives them credit for, and I'm always amazed at the resourcefulness it took to see fairly commonplace objects and devise these clever new used for them.
My personal favorite items from this collection were: the Kachina dolls because I had never seen these playful ceremonial figures before hitting the southwest but I can't get enough of them since the mixtures of human and animal figures are the kind of bizarre folkloric creations I've always loved (they even have a spirit called Mudhead who's a clown that is intentionally goofy looking and he's obviously my favorite); a really lovingly detailed diorama of an early tribal community gathering; some early Mississippian statues of kneeling figures that also happened to be pipes (imagine smoking out of one of those!); a gorgeous collection of arrowheads; a full-sized early oxcart loaded up with pottery to be taken to market; ceremonial head shaped pots that are apparently the rarest from of clay vessels known to anthropological and archaeological circles and they're probably equally impressive as they are sort of unnerving; a giant, stunning statue of a ceremonial Gan dancer performing a dance to the mountain gods; and the very literal crown jewel of the collection a charm brooch that had belonged to Geronimo himself.
Alongside all these artifacts was a pretty diverse collection of really lovely paintings concerning Native American lives from antiquity up to more contemporary pieces. Some of these painting were actually done by Native artists, but I would say the majority of the painting were done by White artists involving Native subjects. Fortunately, if Native artists weren't super well represented, at least the white artists on display were very high caliber including CM Russell, Frederic Remington, and a guy who I'd seen before but really blew me away here named William Leigh. I also really liked a portrait of chief Black Kettle by an artist named John Shelby Metcalf. Black Kettle is a really cool historical figure who often gets overlooked, but he was a really smart and capable peacemaker staving off war between settlers and Indians for years until he was brutally betrayed by the US at Sand Creek. It's nice to see him rightly getting celebrated.
In a fun segue from the Native American art and artifacts to the cowboy stuff, thy had too large animatronic displays, similar to the type you might have seen at old time nickelodeons, one of cowboys making beans and soup and one of Native Americans doing a rain dance and when the the guy at the front desk flipped a switch they'd still whir into action which was really a treat.
The cowboy artifacts were cool windows into pioneer life, collecting barbed wire, saddles, spurs, some authentic pistols and rifles, and a full sized chuck wagon. I was really surprised at how much artistry and diversity of items I always assumed were totally commonplace like the different barbed wire and spur designs that helped people always have their own personal trademarks and styles.
Again all the artifacts were accompanied with tons of art, though this time there were a few more sculptures accompanying the paintings including a few stunning hunting scenes by Russell and Remington as well my personal favorite, a sculpture of a fistfight by Joe Beeler, cheekily entitled The Misunderstanding. I like that these painting really capture the hard and wild nature of the frontier showing gunfights, animals running away, and the realities of leaving families behind to seek opportunities. I think outside of the West this genre of art can be sort of looked down upon as being too pulpy or idealistic, but man some of the lush detailing and character work has to appeal to anyone regardless of if you like Westerns or not.
My favorite painting from this collection was Thanksgiving Dinner for the Ranch by Frederic Remington. I just love the use of black and white. It's so cinematic, and I feel like there's so much depth of character rendered with so little information. Really stunning.
Throughout the cowboy and Native American galleries there were also examples of taxidermied animals and art made from animal parts, capturing both Phillips' love of art and hunting. I really liked the Native American necklaces decorated with bear claws to show off their hunting prowess. I was also just shocked to see a mounted elephant head, because they're not exactly animals I associate with American West.
From there, I went down to the basement galleries which started with a brief timeline of Frank Phillips' life with lots of photographs and personal items that traced his journey from a small town traveling barber and farmer to a fairly successful banker to the oil magnate of a multi-million dollar company. It was a real classic story of grit, perseverance, a big ol' chunk of luck, and then good entrepreneurial sense. I liked the stuff from his barbering days the most, because that's really from more of a frontiers-y time that's come and gone, but I just like the idea of roaming barbers, helping to keep everyone trimmed and proper. I also liked that once he established Woolaroc as his personal lodge, he would invite the still living wild west outlaws out to his ranch and he'd have cookouts and parties with bankers and bankrobbers side by side (which seems like honestly a pretty on the nose summary of the history of oil).
The rest of the basement was filled with the most eclectic collection of galleries yet. After the timeline, the next thing on display was a series of incredibly detailed yet wonderfully cartoonish western scenes carved out of wood by an artist named Lynn O. Doughty. I liked that despite their whimsical nature she didn't shy away from having people cheating at cards, wagon robberies, and getting lured upstairs at the saloon by prostitutes.
Up next there was a very large and shiny collection of rocks and minerals from the Southwest. My geology friends will probably be a little disappointed at me because I kind of glossed over this section, but it sure was nice to look at.
Up next there was a collection of vintage toys dating back to early pioneers and Native Americans up to toys from the early 20th century about Cowboys and Indians. It was really cute and fun aspect of Western culture to trace, that I don't see too often and I liked it because it makes history feel more real and relatable to think about children playing through the ages. I also realized seeing their pretty large collection of vintage marbles that I have absolutely no idea how you actually play with marbles. They're cool looking, but they don't strike me as particularly fun. They also had a doll from the 30s of a naked saxophone player. I'm not sure if it was always naked or the clothes just got lost over the years, but I like it as a symbol of the excesses of the jazz age.
The center of this toy collection though was a gigantic model train set that featured an entire miniature city to go with the trains. It wasn't anywhere near as big as the World's Largest Model Train Set I saw in New Jersey, but it was impressive nonetheless, and I always like seeing how much love and attention goes into making these types of models.
In a pretty big tonal shift of exhibits, the next gallery was a large collection of vintage guns. I'm not a big gun guy. I don't know why it is, but I always get a little uncomfortable around them. It's not rational at all and I don't think there's anything inherently bad about them, but they kind of give me the willies. Still that being said such a large collection did give a pretty unique insight into historical trends of firearm manufacturing, including a really impressive gatling gun from the civil war. The best part to me though was that a lot of the guns were custom made so they frequently featured really incredible engravings, etchings, and inlaid mother of pearl on the handle and barrel making them true works of art not just firearms.
The next gallery was more personal items related to Frank Phillips' life and the history of Phillips oil. They big ticket items here were the vintage forms of transportation, including a horse drawn carriage, and old oil truck, and even a Woolaroc plane. The plane had the most fascinating story because it wasn't built to transport oil. Phillips actually commissioned the plane be built as part of an air race sponsored by James Dole, the famous pineapple magnate (and huuuuge douchebag if you know your Hawaiian history), trying to capitalize on the cultural excitement after Charles Lindbergh's successful trans-atlantic flight. He offered a $25,000 prize for the first plane to make it from Oakland to Honolulu. The Woolaroc actually ended up making there first and winning the prize, but I think the success of Phillips' plane was unfortunately much more overshadowed by all the other tragedies involved with the air race. Planes were such a new technology at the time, that I think the Lindbergh excitement gave people much more confidence in aviation than probably should have had at that point in time. Of the 15 planes that entered in the race, 11 were certified as safe to fly. Three of those eleven planes crashed before the race began killing the pilots. Two more planes crashed almost immediately upon takeoff, and two more planes went missing during the race. One plane went to try to find the two that went missing and was never seen again. In fact, only one other plane even finished the race! The others all had to land early or turn back for returns. By the time it was over, 10 people died and six aircrafts were completely lost. Definitely takes a bit of the fun out of the victory.
Two other items in this gallery not related in any way to the air race, but still very cool, were a carved ivory tusk that Phillips had purchased in his travels, and the treaty written up by the local Osage Indians officially making him a member of their tribe. The coolest thing about the treaty though was that it was written on a tanned buffalo hide, and featured some really beautiful drawings etched in along the border. I had never seen such detailed almost photorealistic drawings done on what is essentially a piece of leather, and I was really struck by it.
The last gallery in the museum was the largest collection of fine art collected by Phillips both in his life and posthumously by the foundation in charge of running the museum and estate. These were a little more diverse than the Cowboy and Native American paintings, and while the majority of the piece either had western scenes or were by western artists some of them were just beautiful portraits or landscapes that were just there for their artistic merit. This gallery also covered a pretty large time period so you get a lot of different art styles ranging from very traditional s to more impressionistic one to even a few pretty modernist pieces. And of course they had some stunning landscapes by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran.
My favorite pieces from this collection were: a breathtaking painting of a Puebloan dwelling overlooking a canyon; a sculpture of a cowboy leading a horse down a steep jagged mountain; a painting called the Challenge of a buffalo with a bellowing "Come and get me" look; a sort of surreal painting of a single Native American riding back home between mountains; a grisly rendition of Custer's last stand by Remington; a beautiful yet ominous painting of the El Capitan Mountain in Yosemite by James Fetheroll; a cinematic painting of an outlaw nervously guarding his campsite by William H. Dunton; a really grand painting of a rushing waterfall; and a truly magnificent sunset over some Native American ruins by Thomas Moran.
The great art didn't just stop in the galleries and I was actually more impressed than usual by some of the items for sale in the gift shop, particularly these ceramic pots and vases with gorgeous twilight color schemes by a local artist.
As impressive as the museum was in size and scope, it was only one part of the entire Woolaroc estate and there was lots more to see. There was a cafe and lunch area, which I wasn't too interested in given my very filling pizza, but I was still drawn into this space so I could get a good look at the monumental stained glass window they had of a Native American guide showing the correct path down a fork in the road to two young children. Seeing the window in all its glory really catching the light was truly jaw dropping.
The next part of the estate was the lodge that Frank Phillips actually lived in on the property. It was a beautiful wood building surrounded by woods, lakes, and wildlife, a perfect hideaway.
You could go inside the lodge and do a self guided tour of some of the areas, though a lot of rooms were just part of private tours. The most immediately striking aspect of the lodge was that just about every single available wall space was mounted with hunting trophies and animal heads. Some of these animals were pretty exotic too including (another!) elephant head and rhinoceros head. Definitely not what I was expecting to find in the middle of rural Oklahoma today.
Just out back behind the lodge were some pretty great vistas over the woods and lakes (remember one guy owned all of this) with a few more sculptures spicing up the views even more.
On both the drive up and back down from the estate, I had two of my favorite sodas from yesterday's Pops six pack while I was waiting for buffalo to get out of the road. While I had picked them because they had the silliest bottle art, the Leninade and the Swamp Juice were two of the best sodas I've ever had packing in a lot of fruit flavors without being overly sweet.
My first stop after Woolaroc was a house in the small town of Nowata that has become quite well known for its extensive yard art made out of bowling balls. The house, affectionately called the Bowling Ball House, is totally open to visitors, and if you're lucky like I was the artist, Chris Barbee, might even be hanging out and happy to chat. The house is in a residential area off a dirt road where all the houses look pretty much the same, but if you pay close attention the fence in front of this house might seem a little different.
Chris Barbee's passion for bowling ball art started 9 years his wife passed away when he noticed that she had used a few bowling balls to make globes for their garden. Something about the bowling balls struck him and that's how he got the idea to decorate the fence too. From there, now that the passion was ignited he got more ambitious and creative with his projects. He's made over a dozen sculptures including a billiards table , a shed completely covered in bowling ball (where he works on new art), a pyramid, a shrine to the children who died in Columbine, bowling ball spiders, bowling ball sunflowers, a rocket ship, the state of Oklahoma, bowling ball ladybugs, a bowling ball wishing well, a replica of an art display from the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, the entire alphabet, a Jesus fish, a breast cancer awareness ribbon, a peace sign, a Newton's cradle, a Christmas tree, and an American Flag. That's certainly one way to keep your retirement from growing stale. He's also working on a collection of bowling balls sent to him from all 50 states, so if you've got a spare one lying around maybe send it to good home or make some art for yourself.
After all that art and driving, I was wayy overdue for a coffee, so I actually headed back to Tulsa and stopped at a place called Shades of Brown. Once I stopped giggling at the name long enough, I came to appreciate that they had really great coffee, a super friendly atmosphere, and some pretty cool local art hanging on the walls.
After recharging and writing at the coffee shop for a bit, I went to get dinner at a great local Irish pub called Kilkenny's. It almost made me feel like I was back in Boston again. The place was packed and had a real warm and jovial pub vibe to it, and I was lucky enough to find a seat at the so I didn't have wait too long. All those people packing the joint weren't wrong as they had some mighty tasty traditional Irish food and a hell of a beer selection. I got the cottage pie which was a mix of tender beef and veggies covered in mashed potatoes which is basically all of my favorite things on one plate. Maybe I'm making a stereotype of myself, but I don't think there's a meal out there that isn't made better by being covered in mashed potatoes. I was very happy with the food, and to wash it all down I had one of the finest local stouts I've had in the country, the Prairie Ales Bomb! (the exclamation mark is part of the name but I do share the sentiment after having tried it). The stout is an imperial so it's pretty strong, but its aged with coffee, chocolate, vanilla beans, and the tiniest hint of ancho chili peppers. The chili peppers might sound off putting, but it's almost imperceptible just giving the beer a little note of spice and heat to offset the warm chocolatey-ness and stop it from becoming too sweet. For a beer with almost 13% abv, it was one of the easiest and tastiest to drink stouts I've encountered. If i didn't have to drive back home, I would have ordered another.
Favorite Random Sightings: A sign that said "Indulge your fantansy" (it wasn't in front of a tanning salon so that's a big old typo not a pun); Little Darlings (one of the skeeviest named strip clubs I've driven by); God's Garage; Country Bumpkin Pumpkin Patch
Regional Observations: Driving in Tulsa can be confusing because there are alternating Places and Streets with the same name so you've gotta keep your wits about you otherwise you might circle a block a couple of times.
Albums Listened To: Pressure Up by the New Limits (good Boston guys); Pretzel Logic by Steely Dan (one of my favorite Steely Dan records); The Producers Soundtrack by Various Artists (the Producers is a great musical, but somehow I found a weird knockoff soundtrack that is very disappointingly not great); Prolonging the Magic by Cake (just Never There); The Promise by Bruce Springsteen (just his original version of Because the Night); Protein Source of the Future...NOW by the Mountain Goats (just Pure Heat); Proud by Have Nots (more great Boston dudes); The Psychotic Freinds Nuttwerx by Fishbone (an absolutely horrible name for a pretty consistently strong album); Punk-O-Rama Vol. 5. by Various Artists (just We Have to Figure It Out Tonight by Beatsteaks)
People's Favorite Jokes:
I'm getting so old the candles cost more than the cake!
What's the difference between a buffalo and a bison? You can't wash your hands in a buffalo (this joke might require a southern accent.)
Songs of the Day:
A true work of comic genius