Richard's birthday was while Soren and I were in Utah :( so we celebrated the weekend before. Birthdays are a big deal to me (not just my birthday, of course I love mine the most, but I love everybody's birthday) and I love surprises. So I rarely tell Richard what the plans are for his birthday, it drives him a little bit crazy, but he is a good sport.
This year I was having a hard time figuring out what we were going to do. I was doing my daily Groupon perusing when I came across a two night stay in Tulsa, OK. So, I googled how far of a drive it is from Dallas to Tulsa and discovered it was just over 4 hours...we can do that, I thought and I proceeded to purchase the groupon.
On Friday, I told Richard that I was going to take him to work (he usually rides his bike) because I needed to pick him up so we could begin his birthday festivities. He had NO idea what was going on. So we started driving and he was very confused as to where we were going. There was a cooler and the stroller in the back seat so he thought maybe we were going to a park or something. Earlier in the day he had texted me, "if we are going to be outside bring me some shorts and a hat." So as we were driving he asked if I had brought shorts and I said yes. After about 30 minutes of driving I decided I was ready to spill the beans. It was about 5:30 and I told him that Sam (our GPS) said that our estimated time of arrival would be 9:30.
"FOUR HOURS??? Where are we going, what is 4 hours north of Dallas? Are we going to Oklahoma?"
"Yep. We are going to Tulsa."
"Haha, why?
"Why not?"
"Sounds fun to me, I'm excited."
And there you have it, I pride myself in my ability to surprise people. :)
Needless to say, there isn't much to do in Tulsa, but I had scoped out a few things (mostly places to eat).
Saturday morning we found a little diner for breakfast then we swam at the hotel.
For lunch I had scoped out a delicious looking taco truck, but we were disappointed to learn that it was closed on Saturdays (we soon found out most of Tulsa is closed on Saturday...weird). So we drove around, me very disappointed, trying to figure out where to eat, when we stumbled upon another taco truck. It was delicious! And you can't beat $7 to feed two people!
After lunch we went and walked around University of Tulsa. Richard loves walking around different campuses. It was very pretty. In the chapel on campus they were setting up for a wedding so that was cool to see.
After walking around campus we went back to the hotel so that Soren could take a nap. Then we headed downtown to walk around...again, Richard loves to walk around downtowns. He must be a civil engineer or something...
As we were walking around we quickly discovered something strange about this town. It is seriously SHUT DOWN on Saturdays. We were downtown, in the heart of the city, and no restaurants were open...not even Quiznos...weird...most of them were breakfast and lunch only M-F. It was weird.
Luckily the place I had scouted out on the internet for dinner was open...one of the few places that was...I was very close to being 0 for 2. We had dinner at Joe Momma's pizza. We waited for over an hour for our table (I guess that is what happens when you are the only restaurant open...), but it was well worth the wait. It was SO GOOD!!!
Sunday morning we found a 9:00am sacrament meeting to go to before starting our drive back to Dallas. But on our way out we had to go find Bixby High School. I know you are all saying, "Bixby, OK...what is so great about that...never heard of it." I know, but you should have heard about it. If you haven't heard of Bixby then you need to read the Midnighters trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. We have both read them and thoroughly enjoyed them.
