We arrived in Tulsa and get all set up at the Warrior RV Park. Nothing to write home about, just a place to park with full hook ups.
It happens to be the eve on my youngest niece, Katie’s, 21st birthday. So we get set up and then head out towards my brother, Bryan’s, house for the birthday dinner. She wanted chicken nuggets from Chik-fil-A so they went all out!
THE CAKE - Jesse made it himself
So Katie proudly shows me the farm they have created in the back yard. Complete with farm animals. They have a garden, three ducks, two wiener dogs and a hairless cat. I did not know about the ducks. Funny thing is, the younger wiener dog, Gus, is best friends with the fat white duck. They chase each other and play all the time. The old long haired wiener dog, Murphy, can barely get around until he gets into the back yard and the ducks are out. Then he almost works himself into a full run after the ducks until the mallard will gnaw on Murphy’s ear to calm him back down. It goes on all day long.
Very old dog, Murphy, and the ducks.
The ugliest cat ever.
Gus and the ducks. They think he is their leader.
So Thursday, we get up and head out to The Gathering Place. Been hearing a lot about it from Bryan’s kids. Huge park with a skate park, bike park that is similar to the skate park but for bikes, they have running trails and bike trails - It is a great place for families. Tons of play areas for kids. There are a couple of restaurants even. We wondered all over the place. Nice place to spend the day.
Thursday evening my nephew Jesse and his wife, Nadienne, invited us over for dairy free ice cream cake for Kathie’s birthday. Yes, dairy free ice cream. He lives in a great apartment complex with the large chess game and a great pool area.
Birthday girl, Katie (the big 21), with boyfriend, Jordan and Mama, Traci.
Look at this. The only picture I got of Jordan and her boyfriend Will. Look at that face.
Our host and hostess, Nadienne and Jesse.
That is Oral Roberts University in the background. Note: the taller building is the length of Noah’s Arc and the shorter building is as tall as the width of Noah’s Arc. How cool is that?
It was another good day with family.
On the way back over to the RV the engine light came on in the truck. Now, we have been having an intermittent problem with the A/C and we sure were hoping it was that. We already have the part ordered to replace the ‘blend door actuator.’ So we went by O’Reilly to have them check the codes and it is not the same thing. We find out it is the exhaust gas temperature sensors. The code indicates that 3 of them are bad. What the hell!
So Saturday comes along and I get up early because my brother has a charity ride for a fellow biker who has had an accident and been out of work for a couple of months.
Speedy is his name and several Christian biker groups are getting together to raise money to help him out. We meet a few of Bryan’s group (CMA - Christian Motorcyclists Association) for breakfast at Shiloh’s and head out to Route 66 Harley Davidson to meet the other groups. This was a big event. There must have been over a mile of us on the highway. Funny how some people react when a whole herd of motorcycles come up on them. We had three cars literally stop in the middle lane of traffic on the interstate. That was the craziest thing I had ever seen. Just keep in your lane fool!!!! Apparently they call this a ‘Pack Ride’ and most people are not huge fan of these things - they can be dangerous, especially when there are not any police escorts, but when it is to help someone else these guys are all up in it. It was a pretty hot ride, but once we got to Chester Park up on a hill there was a really nice breeze and it was beautiful. Tulsa does have a lot of pretty green spaces.
I accidentally took this shot trying to take pictures of the bikes behind us. LOL
We were about the middle of the pack. It was a large pack!
My brother, Bryan aka ‘Squirrel’, is on the
left behind me and ‘Bullseye’ is on the right
So, my brother has been called ‘Cadillac’ most of our lives. He joined this group and everybody gets a name, but Cadillac was already taken so you have to wait until someone tags you with a new one. The name ‘Squirrel’ came about when Bryan was on his way to a meeting one evening when a squirrel ran out in front of him on his own block. He had just left the house. Anyway, he laid over his bike to avoid hitting that squirrel. He got back up and went to the meeting with torn pants and bleeding. You can see why that name stuck. LOL! They have some pretty funny names as I suppose they do in most groups.
I got pictures of a few of the Christian Biker Groups who where there. The first one is Bryan’s.
From my point of view you cannot possibly tell how many bikes were on this ride, but here are a few pics.
We had a great time. So glad I got to do this with my big brother, Squirrel.
Back at the RV Dennis has been checking the sensors. He got one loose and checked everything and it appears fine. The others are harder to get to so he calls a dealership and they said they can get us an appointment in the middle of next week. WOW, this is Saturday and we are supposed to leave on Wednesday. So he calls the one right across the freeway from us, Riverside Ford of Tulsa, and he says pretty much the same thing. Dennis mentioned to the guy that we are just passing through town and asked if there was any way he could work us in. Guess what? He did. They were gonna see us on Monday! Sweet! Dennis also told him that the sensor he pulled was fine. The guy said that that alarm could be for other problems too. But they would check it all out for us.
For my birthday, Sunday, I started my day off with this:
BECAUSE I CAN!!
Later, we got together with the family to inform Katie that her birthday is over and mine has just begun. We played games and then went out to eat at the Fish Daddy restaurant. Man, that was delicious. Most of us got some sort of Salmon and mine was grilled to perfection as were all. Will decided to treat us all to Starbucks after that. What a nice guy. ANOTHER GREAT DAY.
So Monday, Dennis left me snoozing and took the truck into the dealership at 7:00 AM. They had a shuttle bring him back home. We hung around the RV all day and ordered Pizza Hut to be delivered, because it is the 20th of the month and as some of you know, THAT IS PIZZA DAY! The dealership called about 2:00 with the news. Ford had extended the warranty on the parts that were bad because of an issue, apparently not bad enough for a recall. So the sensors were covered and there were only 2 that were bad. Dennis had also seen that the transfer case appeared to be leaking while he was under the truck and they replaced a seal and fixed some idler arm that was making noise. So we got off pretty easy with a mere $750 bill! I was a pretty happy camper with that news.
Bryan and Traci came out to the RV hood an brought snacks Monday evening. They have tons of cucumbers and they had talked about an appetizer they had made for some get together with smoked salmon and cucumbers. It was called Cucumber Salmon Coins. So Bryan got finished working and went to putting that together and also got some yellow fin tuna and seared it and did another batch with that. They were delish! I wish I had taken a picture, but I did get a picture of the recipe. You should try this!
He also made some jalapeño poppers with some of his fresh jalapeños!!! It was a very refreshing supper after that heave pizza lunch.
Tuesday, our last day in Tulsa. We went out to the Oxley Nature Center and spent the morning walking all the nature trails. We did not see much wildlife, but the cicadas were singing and the birds would chime in every now and then and it was so nice. They have a marsh area that we went around. Reminding me of home! they have creeks and a lake and so many pretty things to see. But what got me most was the clean fresh smell. AHHHH! The last trail we were on before heading back to the truck had some huge trees and these worms building cocoons. We first saw a couple of cocoons and wondered what they were going to come out as and then started seeing them hanging from the tree weaving their cocoons right in front of us. Fund out they are bagworm moths!
There were other interesting things we saw. I cannot tell you have many different types of dragonflies we saw, but I couldn’t get many pics of those fast boogers. I also so an armadillo. I haven’t seen one of those in forever and had to come to Oklahoma to do it at that. So below are my favorites from the nature center.
It has been a great week in Tulsa and thank you brother for entertaining us, although this is a great town with much to do. We could certainly entertain ourselves.
Tomorrow we leave for Wichita, Kansas area. We will actually be staying in Augusta Kansas. Neither of us have ever been to that state. But rest assured, if I see Dorothy or Toto I will certainly let you know.
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