May 26th, 2008  We Prepare To Leave Oklahoma & Head Back To California

Uncle Rick took Sarah out on the back porch to swing her and she had a blast with him.  He may be one of the things she loves more than swinging.

Now it's aunt Becky's turn to love on her before time to go.  I think they're counting toes.

Dang!  Wow is this guy hot?!

Uncle Rick playing with Sophia.  She has learned to crawl up on the couch and now she's up and down like a yo-yo.

Looks like aunt Becky and Sarah are daring Sophia to touch the dog.   Sadie is the dog.  She was very good with the kids and did not snap at them.

Of course Christopher has to put on his Dance Show,  Sophia joined in.

Sarah is looking cute as always.

Hey, what is that red light flashing?  Let me have it.

Who me?  You want to take a picture of me?

Looks like Christopher is trying to toot.

Ah.  I think he may have with this expression.

Sophia was not afraid to touch the animals we saw on our trip, and it was nice to see her want to pet them.

She was gentle with Sadie. We said our good byes and drove off on old Route 66.

As we traveled out of Claremore on Route 66, we passed over some big rivers.  I'm not sure of the name of this one, but I have seen barges moving up and down it.

Here we have another one with some people fishing.  I really like the way the trees hang over the water.  It makes me think of the Amazon river pictures I have seen.

This is the old water hole they used when Route 66 was the only route.  You could jump off of the whale or use the slide.  It is an attraction listed in may of the Route-66 guides.

This was a huge flag.  Look at the normal size flag on the pole.  It's great to see such patriotism.

This is downtown Tulsa Oklahoma.

And again.

If I had this car, I would not be following a cement truck that close.

Christopher was excited to see the BIG fire truck.

This is Downtown Oklahoma City.  Papa slept through town trying to rid himself of a sinus headache.  Since he lived here before, I guess he didn't miss too much.

Now this looked like fun but everyone fell asleep so I went by myself ... NOT.  Just kidding.

One of Daddies water tanks.  But this one is special.  Look at next picture to see why.

Ahhhhhh  Garth Brooks.

As we started to get to the west side of Oklahoma wheat fields were everywhere.

I like this better than driving down AZ or NM highways.

This is a corn Field and they created a maze in it.  There's one off of I-80 in Northern California made of hay bales.

Yes we are still on Route 66. We are stopping to eat.

Look what we found  Another old car.  Not just any old car but a Jaguar.  Papa couldn't make out the year, but it's probably from the 60's or early 70's.  I'll bet she was a classy ride in her day.

Papa was drooling all over this one.  I have to admit I was too.  I'm not a car person but the age and make and having never seen one struck my interest.  Oh yes we found this car in Oklahoma but it had California plates and was just sitting in a old open parking lot.

After we ate, I got on the internet because I saw Lighting to the north and wanted to know how bad it was.  As soon as I saw the radar  map I told Papa we needed to get out of here.  I was getting on the on ramp and the biggest Lighting strike I have ever seen branched out across the sky. I just about missed the on- ramp. Papa shouted your missing the on ramp.

I was so taken by the lighting I but the brakes on ( Papa would say Slammed on the brakes and I would have to say he is right).  My drink (coke cola) went flying and spilled everywhere.  But look at the picture with the car and see the sunlight. the next picture was taken only 5 minutes later the clouds made it look like night.

Every once in a while you could see the edge of the storm.

We got blown with very strong winds going north ... then all of a sudden it changed and went south. I saw a Tornado cloud starting to form a funnel.  It got about half way down and then broke up.

So the rest of the pictures are of the storm we did not get out of it until we were deep into the pan- handle of Texas.

This was one of the clouds that started to funnel.  The other one is the first picture after the car.

I was able to get some cool pictures

The sun was still above the clouds.

Almost looks like the heavens opening.

This just shows you how part could be fine and the other blacked out from rain.  The rain moves like a wall around here so it can be completely clear then raining then clear from minute to minute.

These are only a few of the hundreds of strikes I was able to catch.

Man what a show.  I loved it Christopher was scared at first, then really enjoyed it.

They were small compared to a lot of them I was not able to capture with the camera.  Video

After stopping for the evening I looked up www.weather.com and this is what they had for activity.  We traveled from the top north east corner all the way to the panhandle in Texas.  Yes, right through the darned things.

After arriving at the rest stop to stay the night, Papa and Christopher took a walk and found a trucker with ducks on his hood.  Reminds me of the "rubber duck" from the movie Convoy.

Papa's attempt at an artsy fartsy one.  If he could have gotten up so the lights were parallel and level, this could have been a GREAT shot.

More of Papa's attempts at art.  Can you tell what state we are in?  Can you say Texas.

Papa took these pictures I think he did a good job.

After all of the excitement Christopher crashed.  Only 5 days left until the end of our trip.  We sure had fun and learned a lot along the way.