Despite the earthquakes and super cell storms that absorbed most of our time in Oklahoma, we did get a little time to visit kids and grandkids. Terry’s youngest son Keith and our granddaughter Alyssa live in Tulsa so we decided to spend an afternoon at the Oklahoma Aquarium. This is a great family-oriented environment with several interactive aquatic displays and the largest bull shark grouping in the country, housed in a one-of-a-kind walk-though clear tunnel tank.
The unusual creatures to be found under the sea have always fascinated me, so I thought I would share some of my favorites.
The graceful jellyfishThe moray eel, the reason I have no desire to scuba dive!Under the sea beauty
Tulsa has done an admirable job of expanding upon their riverwalk, complete with sitting areas and plantings. It was a great way for us to grab some exercise on the one sunny day that we had while in the city.
Since Terry lived in Tulsa many years ago, he wanted to see how the downtown area had changed so we also took some time to drive around, with Keith and Alyssa as our tour guides.
The BOK Center ( Bank of Oklahoma), is a multi-purpose arena in Tulsa, used for sporting events as well as music venues. It was designed by César Pelli, the architect of the Petronas Towers in Malaysia and is the flagship project of Tulsa’s Vision 2025 long-range development initiative.
Terry, Alyssa & Keith
Alyssa is a very talented 12-year old, learning to play the guitar by ear and is asking for a ukulele for Christmas and has an interest in learning to play the violin. She loves classical music, sings beautifully, and wants to be a marine biologist or veterinarian and loves nature.
Oklahoma City is where we experienced all the crazy weather and where Terry’s oldest son, wife, and our two grandsons live. We opted for an indoor activity and decided upon the National Cowboy Museum, a wonderful depiction of all things western: paintings, bronzes, rodeo history, western performers and a great display of saddles from the 1700’s through present-day. Beautiful fountains and gardens rounded out the presentation. Unfortunately photography was not allowed in many of the viewing rooms.
End of the Trail by James Earle FraserWestern Performers
The two grandsons are into sports, playing basketball and football. Given that the oldest grandson, Brandon, is only 14 and is already 6’1″ and wears a size 16 shoe, and the youngest, Matthew, has had a big growth spurt, football may be in their future, at least mom and dad hope so.
Monday, and most of today was spent in front of the television watching news reporters track a super cell of storms racing towards Oklahoma City, where we have come to spend a couple of days with Terry’s oldest son, wife, and our two grandsons. We can bearly believe the weather that we are seeing here right now, truly wild! A number of tornadoes have touched down in outlying areas; strong winds of 70-80 mph have been reported; and large hail and heavy rain is occurring throughout several counties. All of this is certainly enough to keep anyone on edge, particularly those of us sitting in RV’s!
If this weren’t enough, at 8:45 pm we felt what we thought was a strong wind gust, but oh no, what we felt was another earthquake! This quake struck in the same area as the last one, about 50 miles from here and registered a magnitude 4.7. You just can’t make this stuff up! It is now 9:30 pm and we have thunderstorm warnings and a tornado watch until 4:00 am tomorrow morning. It is going to be a long night!
At some point I will write a post about time spent with family, really I will, as soon as Mother Nature finishes having her way with Oklahoma.
Paint Your Landscape 