I’ve been on four continents and when I say that the Gathering Place is the best park I’ve ever seen, I’m not exaggerating. A small detour from the Route 66 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it’s like someone who remembers exactly what it felt like to be a child had taken every good idea for a public space, added a hundred buckets of pure joy, and poured it over 66 acres of riverfront property. It’s not just a park. It’s an adventure.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by.
Now, where the heck am I?
Welcome back! In Part 6, we are on Route 66 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where we play at The Gathering Place, walk into the belly of a whale, hear mysterious sounds at the Center of the Universe, and look up the crotch of a golden giant. If you missed earlier installments, here’s your chance to catch up:
- Part 1… Arizona?, where burros wanted to hitch a ride
- Part 2: New Mexico where we dipped into the Blue Hole
- Part 3: Texas where we ate Texas-shaped waffles
- Part 4: Erick, Oklahoma where we met the King of the Road
- Part 5: Oklahoma‘s Bridges, blasts and Bohemians
Day 8 (cont.)
Best Park Ever: The Gathering Place
I loved The Gathering Place., just as Brad, our friend who’d made the move from Vegas to Oklahoma and was determined to show us the best of the area, knew I would.
First off, The Cabinet of Wonder: Imagine a house filled with fascinating displays of toys, statues, gadgets, drawers with not-so-random objects beautifully arranged, and discovery stations begging to be touched. It was like a museum, but way more fun.
And the playgrounds! Forget your average swings and slides. These were sprawling, multi-level fantasy lands—think rope bridges, climbing walls, and secret tunnels woven into stunning nature gardens. We were crawling, climbing, sliding, laughing—our bodies trying to remember what it felt like to be ten.
Then there were the gardens. 6,500 trees, over a million plants and shrubs, 16 acres of wildflowers bursting from 19 different soil types. Every few steps, another discovery.
“That’s Wildhorse Swirl sandstone. Beautiful, right?” A staff member at the Williams Lodge caught me petting the stone floor and launched into a passionate spiel about the place. You could see the pride radiating off her as she talked about the thought poured into every inch of the Gathering Place. I got it. This place wasn’t just built—it was crafted to wake up that sense of exploration and play, a gift to everyone who passed through, even if only for one afternoon.
To add to the whimsy, Tulsa had another surprise up her sleeve.
The Center of the Universe: Tulsa’s Mystery
That evening, we walked to a peculiar spot known as “The Center of the Universe.” It looked like an ordinary metal circle embedded in a pedestrian bridge. Internet said to stand in the very center and start speaking.
I got into position, cleared my throat and said “Hello!” My voice came back at me, amplified and distorted, as if I were speaking into some cosmic megaphone that only I could hear. Step just a foot outside the circle, and the effect vanished completely. We took turns playing with the acoustic anomaly. Mark’s rendition of “Riders on the Storm” might have sounded like a choir in his head, but to everyone else nearby, he was just a crazy guy quietly singing to himself.
Apparently, this is caused by the surrounding circular wall acting as a parabolic reflector. I prefer to think it’s a great mystery.
Day 9
The Blue Whale of Catoosa – A Love Story
To add to our collection of oddities, we went to see a whale of a gift in Catoosa, on Route 66 in Oklahoma.
Hugh Davis, a local zookeeper, needed something big, something unforgettable to give to Zelta for the 34th anniversary of their wild marriage.
They had both survived tragedy before they found each other.
Hugh’s first wife died young, during one of his exotic animal safaris. Zelta was widowed at just 16 when her husband was crushed by a truck. When Zelta and Hugh got together, they built a life wrangling alligators and snakes. Zelta saved Hugh’s life by slicing open his arm to drain snake venom on more than one occasion, and she barely escaped death herself when an alligator called Big Betty clamped down on her arm and dragged her into a pond. She smacked its nose and won that battle.
Eventually, they retired from their daredevil days, and Hugh, in 1970, set out to build a huge surprise for his wife, who collected whale figurines—a life-sized blue whale.
It took him 2 years to weld the 80-foot (24 meter) steel frame together piece by piece and plaster over it. He unveiled it on September 7th, 1972. What started as an anniversary gift and a private playground for their grandkids, quickly became a Route 66 legend, attracting thousands of travelers.
Years later, the paint faded and peeled, and by their 50th anniversary, the couple closed the park down. Zelta nailed up “Trespassers Will Be Shot” signs and kept a loaded shotgun.
The whale sat, crumbling, until a group of nerdy Route 66 fans fought to bring it back to life in the 2000s.
Today, it’s again bright and blue, and still stranded in the former alligator pond.
We walked in through the mouth, stood where kids once slid down the slides and used to launch off its tail (bathing is no longer allowed), and then grabbed sidewalk chalk from hanging buckets to leave our mark among hundreds of others.
The whale has survived time and neglect, but thanks to a handful of devoted people (and Zelta’s shotgun keeping trespassers away), it still stands—a weird, wonderful piece of Route 66 Oklahoma history.
Keystone Ancient Forest: Nature’s Time Capsule
We traded pavement for pine needles of Keystone Ancient Forest, a time capsule of Oklahoma’s natural history. “Some of these cedars were here before Columbus,” I said, reading the welcome sign to Mark.
On the Falls Trail, we paused beneath a centuries-old giant and stroked its gnarled trunk. The trail wound through the so-called “Crosstimbers eco region”—once stretching from Kansas to San Antonio but now reduced to small fragments like this 1,380-acre preserve.
About a mile in, we found a spot that could serve as a definition of “sun-dappled” in a dictionary: rays of light peeking through the canopy, leaves casting soft shadows on your skin and earth below. We found large, flat rocks and sat in comfortable silence, filling our lungs with the sweet, forest air. I live for moments like these.
Back on the paved Childer’s Trail, the sound of our steps was broken by the hubby’s “Don’t. Move.” I followed his gaze to the path ahead to what I mistook for a clump of leaves. The tarantula froze when it realized it had been spotted, its hairy chocolate-brown legs moving with surprising delicacy across the path. I crouched down, equal parts terrified and fascinated, seeing a creature like this for the first time not behind glass.
We let the tarantula pass and continued our hike through one of the last remnants of a huge forest that had once defined this landscape, before humans decided it was in their way.
The Golden Driller Towers over Tulsa
With legs pleasantly tired from our forest hike, we headed back toward Tulsa proper.
“What the hell is THAT?” I blurted. Looming against the Oklahoma sky stood a yellow giant in a hard hat, his hand resting on an actual oil derrick—the Golden Driller, a 76-foot colossus of concrete and steel that has watched over Tulsa since 1953.
Brad and I climbed onto the towering yellow work boot that could have housed a small apartment. We looked up, straight into the Driller’s Barbie-like crotch.
Originally built as a temporary exhibit for an oil exposition, the Driller had been rebuilt several times before this permanent version was installed in 1966. He’s survived tornado-force winds, wore a massive Santa hat during the holidays, and a face mask during the Covid pandemic.
The inscription on his base “The Golden Driller. Dedicated to the men of the petroleum industry who by their vision and daring have created from God’s abundance a better life for mankind” felt like a window into another era, when oil discovery was seen as purely heroic rather than the moral minefield of today.
Oklahoma is like that friend who seems totally normal until they casually mention that their pet lizard wears gloves. It keeps throwing us surprises—some awe-inspiring, some just plain odd. But there’s more to come. Tornado warnings, scenic gardens, and a brush with Hollywood history await in Part 7.
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