Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” has practically been our Route 66 anthem, and as we drive through downtown Erick, Oklahoma, the singer’s face smiles at us from a huge mural. He grew up here!
The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it
-Richard Bach
And we’re back on Route 66, now in Oklahoma, still driving it the “wrong” way—West to East. If you’re just joining, we’re deep into our 73-day, 10,000-mile odyssey on a tight budget through the heart of America and back.
This stretch of Route 66 between Erick and Tulsa included a bridge we braced ourselves to cross, an unexpected Czech heritage connection, and Oklahoma City Memorial—one of the most hauntingly beautiful tributes we’ve ever seen. Oh, and Tulsa was selling off Frank Lloyd Wright house, half off!
Catch up on the previous stops here:
- Part 1… Arizona?, where I almost stole a kitten
- Part 2: New Mexico where we met a huge dog with sky-blue eyes
- Part 3: Texas where we watched the storm from a salt-water pool
- Part 4: Erick, Oklahoma where we met the Redneck King of the Road
Day 7
The Bridge that Wasn’t Crumbling
Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” had practically become our anthem on this trip. So, imagine our delight when we rolled through downtown Erick and saw the singer’s face grinning down at us from a massive mural. Turns out, he grew up there! How apropos, given that we’d just met the Redneck King of Route 66.
The skinny gray ribbon of the Mother Road unwound before us through Oklahoma—no traffic, just the hum of the car and the oldies spilling from the speakers. A few hundred yards to the right, the I-40 freeway hummed with the constant rush of cars and semi-trucks, a blur of movement, missing all the good stuff.
What repeatedly struck us on this trip were the homes by the road, and especially the yards. They were huge! Front yards, back yards, space between houses. After living in Vegas, where you can hear your neighbor fart in their kitchen, the breathing room felt decadent.
As the sun dipped lower, we drove by The National Route 66 Museum in Elk City and Lucille’s Roadhouse in Weatherford. Both were closed. “Maybe we’ll catch them on the way back” was our go-to line when we missed out on something interesting. But even though we had no idea yet which way home we’d take, we both knew that retracing our steps was unlikely.
My sister had been reading about the state of American bridges ever since we set off on this trip. Reports of rusted supports and crumbling concrete landed in my phone with alarming regularity. And we were about to cross a 4000-feet (1.2km) long bridge that was built in 1933 over an unruly South Canadian River! She’d freak out if she knew.
My heart was beating a bit faster too as we drove onto the bridge and those side arches just kept coming and coming, like an endless Roman aqueduct. Something felt odd. The car quieted down on the velvety-smooth blacktop. This looks new!
Later we found out that the Bridgeport bridge, a piece of the original Route 66 through Oklahoma, had been under reconstruction for a year and a half and reopened just a couple of days before we arrived!
With the bridge behind us, we’re hunting for something special and, strangely, personal: Yukon Best Flour Mill.
The Czech This Out!
It was not hard to find: the building sits right by Rt66, a painted sign glows under a spotlight on its massive wall. And underneath, the words “Yukon – Czech Capital of Oklahoma”, and Libuše, the legendary ancient queen of the Czech people. How cool is that?! (Hint: very cool, if you, like me, were born in the former Czechoslovakia.) Apparently, a bunch of Czech folks came here in 1890s and lived happily ever after. Every October, they throw a Czech festival with polka dancing and koláče. Another little wink from the universe.
We drove on, past another “must see” – the Milk Bottle Grocery, with its giant milk bottle perched on top of a tiny triangular brick building, built in 1930 on a little speck of land. Route 66 keeps throwing these quirky things at you, even as you head towards something sacred, something steeped in symbolism and emotion in the heart of Oklahoma City.
From Grief to Grace: Oklahoma City National Memorial
The mood in the car shifted as we approached the capital. It was ten at night. We parked and walked towards the memorial grounds. The air had cooled. I pulled my sweater tighter, a small comfort against the weight settling in my chest.
After Harley’s chaotic, life-affirming madness, there was something almost unbearably poignant about this ordered, luminous silence.
The Oklahoma City National Memorial sits on the site where the deadliest act of domestic terrorism tore through the city. On April 19, 1995, an anti-government extremist detonated a truck bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring 684 more.
That same day marked the execution of a man who had plotted a similar attack on the building a decade earlier, as well as the second anniversary of the end of the Waco siege—a 51-day standoff between federal agents and a religious sect in Texas that ended in a deadly fire.
The Oklahoma City Memorial is a monument to both profound grief and the outpouring of kindness that followed.
We walked to the piece of land where the building once stood, now covered in a Field of Empty Chairs that almost seemed to float, their glass bases glowing into the darkness. A name on each of them represents one of the 168 people killed. Among them, nineteen smaller chairs stand for the children who didn’t come home from the building’s daycare center that day.
Each chair felt like an unspoken story.
The Survivor Tree that once provided the only shade in a downtown parking lot, now watches over the Field of Empty Chairs. It was badly damaged by the blast but survived, just as the 684 people that were injured. The tree keeps growing, with shards of metal embedded in its trunk.
The Reflective Pool at the center of the memorial occupies what was once N.W. Fifth Street. This is where the truck with explosives had parked. The Pool is bookended by The Gates of Time, tall bronze and concrete gates with 9:01 etched on one, and 9:03 on the other, framing the moment of the blast.
“This is the most beautiful memorial I’ve ever seen,” I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper. “It’s so…”
“I know,” Mark nodded, understanding what I couldn’t quite articulate.
We lingered for a few hours, neither of us wanting to leave. The night around us deepened. Our footsteps were the only sound besides the gentle splash of the waterfall at the end of the Reflecting Pool. We wandered through the Rescuers’ Orchard, past the Survivors Wall (the only wall left from the original building), and studying the drawings and messages on the tiles drawn by children in the aftermath of the tragedy. We left after midnight, the weight of Oklahoma City’s tragedy weighing on our hearts.
But in the morning, our trip would take us to another remarkable place, this one full of reckless joy in an unlikely place.
Day 8
Chandler Bing’s Exile (Tulsa)
We found a spot for the night. By now, we’ve mastered the art of the Prius bed. Back seats down, a few comfy layers, and you’ve got a surprisingly spacious and cozy nest. (If you’re curious about our rest-stop sleeping adventures, check out my post Free Car Camping in the US Rest Areas)
My mental image of Tulsa came from a ‘Friends’ episode where Chandler Bing had to relocate there because he fell asleep during an important meeting. It was portrayed as a kind of corporate Siberia, a place nobody in their right mind would ever go.
But we were meeting up with our friend Brad, who had traded the bright lights of Vegas for Oklahoma a few years back and had no complaints. So yeah, my expectations were a mixed bag.
“Holy crap, this is nice!” I whispered to Mark as we stepped into our corner room on the 8th floor of Hyatt Place with a sprawling view of downtown Tulsa. The receptionist smiled when we showed up at 8 AM, full seven hours before the official check-in. “Your room’s ready. And feel free to help yourself to breakfast,” she winked as she gestured toward the buffet. Small-town hospitality in a mid-sized city along Route 66 Oklahoma.
Tulsa & a Frank Lloyd Wright on sale
Brad arrived an hour later, looking like Oklahoma agreed with him. While catching up over coffee, I was scrolling through “Things to Do in Tulsa” when I nearly choked on my drink.
“There’s a Frank Lloyd Wright house here?!” I’m a sucker for good architecture and love Wright’s designs.
Ten minutes later, we were standing in front of Westhope, peering through the windows. Built for Wright’s cousin in 1929, the house sits like a geometric puzzle against the Oklahoma sky. No fence—just one of Wright’s masterpieces casually hanging out on a Tulsa street corner.
At 10,000 square feet (930 sq. meters) it’s one of Wright’s largest residential designs, and the only textile block house outside of California. These distinctive blocks—some 20,000 of them—are made of concrete, some of them with decorative patterns that look like fabric.
“It’s a private residence, you know,” Mark muttered as I shamelessly headed right up to the front door.
“The owners must be used to it by now,” Brad said, patient while I pressed my face against a window to glimpse the interior. Through the glass, I could make out soaring 30-foot ceilings in the living room, the original Wright-designed furniture still in place, and glimpses of the pool and a bunny hopping in the garden behind the house. Five bedrooms, five bathrooms, and apparently for sale—originally listed at $8 million but now down to mere $3.5 million.
“If we stopped eating and lived in a tent for the next fifty years, maybe we could buy it,” I joked, reluctantly stepping away from the window.
With my architecture fix satisfied (for the moment), we finally headed to the place that Brad had been raving about since we’d planned this visit—an adventure playground that he “just knew” I’d love. And, boy, was he ever right!
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Check out in Part 6:
- A whale of an anniversary gift
- Weird acoustic phenomenon at the Center of the Universe
- Park that might have just ruined all other parks for us.
