Riverbend Journal

  My wife and I are most definitely foodies and so whenever in new places, we like to seek unique places to eat at. On our final evening, we ate at a place called Mad Eats in the suburbs of Tulsa where our motel was and we were not disappointed with the food. The service lacked something to be desired as our appetizer arrived then minutes after our entrees. Above are the tuna poke tostadas with avocado mash my wife ate. (As well as posting in reverse order, Blogger decided to rotate this one and the one below to boot.) I had the grilled chicken chimi with pico de gallo and cilantro lime crema.  My girls who weren't hungry yet when we entered the place downed their typical fried chicken tender dish as well as a monster sized shake called "The Loot" that had white cake, fruity pebbles and lots of sprinkles and marshmallow.  With the kids safely ensconced in the motel with a bag of Chick-fil-a, my wife and I had a nice five course dinner date night as a farm to table placed

  For some reason, Blogger would only let me post these pictures in reverse order. I could have corrected it by adding them all one at a time but since it probably doesn't matter to those of you who weren't on our trip, I decided to go the easy route and just leave them in reverse order. Above on our final day, we stopped at one of many Route 66 stops where they had an Ark above in pretty poor condition and a better conditioned whale below. As we stretched our legs and posed for pictures, at these largely deserted sites, I told me family all about Route 66 and what it was like back even before my time. Prior to Route 66, we spent an afternoon at an aquarium in Tusla at the request of my daughters. One of the exhibits has a bunch of seahorses hanging around. I couldn't help but wonder if it is socially acceptable to ask a male seahorse if they are pregnant or if that is just a beer gut. No surprise that my kids love the large jellyfish exhibits the most. For the most part, I

On day two, we actually drove down to Dallas to spend the day with some family before heading out again on day three. This time we drove a bit west to visit a bucket list stop for my wife, Waco, Texas and home of the Gaines family. I'm sure many of you know who I am referring too especially if you watch home renovation shows.  When my wife asked if we could stop there, I put my foot down and told her we would stop there if she wanted, and so we did. It was a huge tourist trap as I figured it would be and full of people like us on spring break. There were huge lines to get in the more popular places which we skipped and just walked around for awhile, enjoying the sites and eating lunch from provided food trucks. I do recognize that they put a lot of work into making it a family friendly place, I assume to extend the length of time one stays there and most likely maximize their revenue. This included lots of artificial turf areas for kids to frolic and perhaps play a pickup came of w

This trip started off with the premise that we hadn't seen much of Oklahoma. We've been along the east side of the state on our way to and from Dallas where we have family but have never explored much of the rest of the state. So we set off south without any real definitive plans but a list of places we would like to see if in "the vicinity."  Our first stop was at the National Memorial, site of the infamous bombing of the Murray Federal Building. In the photo above, the street was turned into a reflecting pool and the chairs in the grassy area to the right are memorials to the victims set in the remains of the building's footprint.  It was a very touching memorial, especially when one gazes upon the small chairs representing the children that died in the blast. Many had change laid upon them and a quick tabulation of the amounts, told me many were to symbolize how many years had passed since their deaths, i.e. many had 26 cents to denote the 26 years since the bo