Our FIRST time in Oklahoma! (Driving ROUTE 66 from Tulsa to Oklahoma City)

We've made it to our 43rd state of Oklahoma. Despite growing up in Texas, we have never spent any time in Oklahoma, and it's about time we changed that. Over the next week and a half, we're going to be exploring all around Oklahoma, including larger cities, roadside stops, and nature spots, and to kick things off, we're going to be road tripping from near Tulsa to Oklahoma City. These two cities are only about 100 miles apart if going the highway, but for those who enjoy a more leisurely route, you can also take Route 66 between the two. Route 66 was one of the original US highways and may be the most famous highway in America. It ran 2,248 miles from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, all the way to Santa Monica, California. We'll tell you more about its history later, but since we've never really driven any part of Route 66, we thought it would be a fun way to experience this part of Oklahoma, and first up, we're heading to a quirky roadside attraction just northeast of Tulsa, the Blue Whale of Catoosa. The Blue Whale of Catoosa is an iconic Route 66 landmark in Oklahoma. It's 20 feet tall and 80 feet long, and was built by a zoologist named Hugh S. Davis and was completed in 1972 after two years of welding and applying hand-mixed cement, one five-gallon bucket at a time, and it has been a popular place for visitors ever since. Although you can no longer swim here, you can still check out the whale. We are about to enter the mouth of a whale, hopefully the only time in our lives we will ever say that. Even though you can't slide off the slides and swim in the little pond here, you can still climb up on various parts of the whale. We're gonna climb up the whale tail first. Standing on a whale tail. This would be so fun on a hot summer day, come up here, jump off into the water. Oh man, I would spend hours doing this. I'd probably jump off it a hundred times a day. This is kind of sketchy. There is no railing up here. I could just fall over right now. Oh, I don't really like this. Holding on to the wood. You can also go up into its brain. This ladder is straight up. All right, are you ready to get your kicks? Oh yeah. We made it to Tulsa, and before we head into the city, we have a couple more stops on Route 66 that we wanna check out. And first up is a gift shop called Buck Adams Cosmic Curios, which is hard to miss along the road because it has this giant space cowboy out front. Although right now, he's a spooky Halloween cowboy called Buckula. Y'all, that is the best gift shop of all time. There are so many cool items in there, and most of them are locally made. I think there's 50 local artists' work inside of the shop. They have all kinds of souvenirs, and the owner, Mary Beth, is the nicest person we have ever met in our entire lives. So we just had the best time in there, and we got us some goodies. We got ourselves a little buck who's gonna go on some adventures with us. We got some local coffee, some postcards, and some stickers. Oh man, that was just the coolest place. That was so much fun. You have to stop there. There's just so many neat things in there, a mix of kind of like vintagey items as well as more like modern items. Just the best. This is the best. We also got our Oklahoma Route 66 passport. This book has 66 stops in here along the 400 plus miles of Route 66 in Oklahoma. We've hit up two of the spots already, and we're about to go check out another one. For lunch, we came to Mother Road Market, which is Oklahoma's first food hall. And fun fact, Mother Road is actually a nickname for Route 66, given to the road by John Steinbeck in his book, Grapes of Wrath. This market is located right on Route 66 and has a super cool indoor and outdoor space, local shops, plus tons of places to eat with all sorts of cuisines. So it sounds like we're gonna have a very difficult decision ahead. We love these food halls because there are a bunch of different options and we can try different things all in one place. I went to Dr. Custom and got the picanha sandwich. Oh my God, I'm so excited. This is eight ounces of grilled steak picanha, Dr. Custom signature sauce on a fresh ciabatta bread with baby lettuce and torched Havarti. And I got it with fried polenta and it's topped with Parmesan cheese. That is one big sandwich. Look at that thing. That is so much meat. Oh my gosh. Whoa, this might be one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth. As soon as you're about to take a bite, your sniffer just gets overloaded with the smokiness of this meat here. Oh, and it's so peppery and tender and juicy. And then you got the creaminess of the sauce in there and the cheese, a little freshness of the lettuce and this ciabatta roll. Got a nice little like, you know, stiffness on the outside. Does the ciabatta make you holla? Does the ciabatta make me holla? Yeah, this, I'm gonna come back for this. I haven't had any of the other places here, but you gotta come and try this. Holy smokes. We read that this isn't an everyday thing. It's only on Thursdays and I am so glad that we came on a Thursday because this is a happy day for me. And I went to a spot called Ann Taco to get some birria tacos. Oh man, look at all that meat, tons of gooey cheese and then you got the consomme to dip it in. That is a dang good taco. The meat is stewed beef and it's just so juicy and tender. And then look at this gooey cheese. And then when you dip it in the consomme, it adds even more flavor, even more juiciness. For the rest of the day, we're straying away from Route 66 to check out a little bit of Tulsa. Tulsa is the second largest city in Oklahoma and is known for its growing art scene. So we came to the Arts District in downtown to check out some murals and wander around a bit. I've just been loving these cities we've been visiting the last couple weeks in the Midwest and now here in Tulsa and Oklahoma, they all just have these really neat areas with tons of trendy shops and restaurants, tons of brick buildings, which I love because it just kind of gives it a more historic vibe. And then of course, one of our favorite things, lots of street art. Something cool about Tulsa is that it is the center of the universe. Although we've been to a handful of places that claim they are the center of the universe, so we're not sure which one's true and we'll just keep going to each one and hopefully one of them's the true one. But what makes this one unique is that if you stand right here and talk, it echoes and you can hear yourself louder than the volume you were talking. So let's test it out. Hello, hello, hello, hello. Oh, oh, oh, can you hear it? Woo, hello, hello, hello, hello. Oh wow, what the heck, how does this work? Kona, do you hear it? Kona. Kona, Kona, Kona. Oh my gosh, it's echoing so much in this spot. It sounds like I'm speaking into a microphone or something. Oklahoma. I don't think that the camera actually picks up the echo, but you'll just have to believe me, it really does it. And if you come to Tulsa, you'll have to try it for yourself because that is just really cool and also kind of trippy. One of the places we have been most excited to visit, not even just here in Tulsa, but in all of Oklahoma is the Gathering Place. This is a free 70 acre park along the Arkansas River with the most epic playgrounds, cool structures, gardens, and so much more. And the thing we were most excited to do here was to tear up the playground and go down all the slides, but then we got here and we saw that there are millions of children here. It's a weekday, so we thought maybe there wouldn't be as many kids, they'd be in school. And there are no adults on the playground, just kids. We thought that might be kind of weird for two grown adults without a child with them to be playing on the playground with kids. So unfortunately, our slide dreams are dead, but we're still gonna explore the rest of the park. Score, we found some swings with no one around, so we don't look cool. Even though we couldn't fulfill all of our dreams at this park, it is still an incredible park and it's definitely one of the coolest ones we have seen in the US. Today, we're continuing our Route 66 road trip to OKC, but before we hit the road, we're at the Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza, which is the symbolic midpoint of Route 66. As we mentioned earlier, Route 66 was one of the original US highways and was established in 1926 and was a primary route for those who migrated west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Over the years, US Route 66 experienced many changes and improvements, but in 1985, it was removed from the US highway system and was completely replaced by segments of the interstate highway system. You can no longer drive the highway from start to finish uninterrupted, but many sections of the highway have been kept alive with fun and quirky roadside stops. We have a few more Route 66 stops that we plan to make today. Route 66 passes through several major cities like Chicago, St. Louis, and Los Angeles, and also tons of little small towns that you may or may not have visited otherwise. And we just made it to Sepulpa, Oklahoma, which has a historic downtown area, and we're gonna grab some coffee from CTX Coffee and walk around a bit. We got coffee drinks that perfectly describe who we are. They're called the Certified Basic Girl, and you already know what it is. It's a pumpkin spice latte. What's super funny is it says Basic Adam on here, which, Adam's so basic, but it is de-licious. Mm. I'm a Certified Basic Girl today, and I'm okay with it. This town is super cute and charming, and you may have noticed all of these overhangs. They've actually closed the main street to vehicles because they're currently setting up for a big Christmas event called the Christmas Shoot. There are about 10 of these overhangs on the main street, and each one is decorated a little bit differently. We were chatting with a local named Cassidy in the coffee shop, and he was telling us this is the first year that they're doing it. It starts in early November, so if you're coming around that time, definitely come check it out because it looks like it's gonna be super fun and festive. This is the Waite-Phillips filling station, which is an actual gas station that was built in 1923, and it's now a museum, but it is a good example of what gas stations looked like back during the earlier days of Route 66, and speaking of gas stations. Sapulpa is also home to the world's largest gas pump. This is a replica of the type of gas pump that was commonly used when Route 66 became a national highway in 1926. It was originally supposed to be 66 feet tall, but it's actually a little bit taller, and there's also an auto museum here if you wanna check out some old cars. While Route 66 isn't exactly like it was many years ago, the Rock Creek Bridge here in Sapulpa is a steel truss bridge that was built in the 20s and was along the original Route 66, and what is really neat about it is that it has brick paving, which we have never seen before, on a bridge. We were gonna drive across it, but our van's too tall. Womp womp. This stretch of Route 66 has been really nice and so different than the first part of the drive. We've left the more urban areas, and we're now just kind of out in the country. There's tons of trees, rolling hills, farms, and of course, more really cute small towns. Over the last few weeks, as we've traveled through the farmlands of Nebraska and Kansas, we've seen tons of barns, but we have yet to see a round barn. This round barn was built by local farmer William Harrison Odor in 1898, and it is an iconic landmark along Route 66 because of its unique shape. It's 60 feet in diameter and 43 feet tall, and we had read that it was built in a round shape so that, in theory, tornadoes would just go right around it, but we talked to a man inside, and he said, no, that's not the real reason. He said it was built for religious reasons, so who knows what the real story is. This ceiling is insane. One thing that really impresses me about this barn is all of the curved wood. I read that they soaked the wood in a river and then dried it in a curved form, and that just seems like, with how much wood is in here, that had to have taken forever. All right, and now for a quick one-minute drive down the road to our final stop on Route 66, Pops 66. Pops is a gas station, store, and diner, and is also home to tons of different flavors of soda, including some very weird ones, which is why we're here. We visited the world of Coca-Cola in Atlanta once and got to try unique sodas from all around the world. Some were very good, some were not so good, but it was a really fun experience, so we're gonna try to pick some very strange sodas here to try out. Black olive soda. I'm on a hard pass on that one. What's that one? Mustard. I like mustard, but I don't know about that. I'm having a really hard time convincing Adam that we should get weird ones, like enchilada sauce. How nervous are you for our choices? I don't think nervous is the right word. I'm just not excited. We got four sodas total, two that we're pretty sure we'll like and two that we may absolutely hate. Starting with, we have Strawberry Kiwi Breeze. That one sounds nice. We have Peanut Butter and Jelly. This was in the So Disgusting area, but I think this is one of the more delicious sounding So Disgusting ones, so it's kind of a safe bet. We have Pineapple, and then the one I think we're both dreading the most, but it was just too unique to pass up. Ranch Dressing. It kind of smells greepy. I feel like Peanut Butter and Jelly Soda. Doesn't sound that bad. I don't know. If you blindfolded me, I don't know. Actually, I am tasting it now in the aftertaste. I was going to say, if you blindfolded me and had me try this, I wouldn't be able to tell you what it was, but now in the aftertaste, I can really taste the jelly and the peanut butter, kind of a little bit of saltiness to it. It's actually not that bad. I love Ranch Dressing, but will I like Ranch Dressing Soda? Ooh, should I smell it? Oh, no. It does not smell very good. It smells musty. It just smells kind of musty and sour. Oh, but it just tastes sweet. Yeah. It doesn't taste overly ranchy. I kind of get a little twinge of the taste, but it's mostly just sweet. I guess I thought these would be sour sodas. It's not bad. I don't think I'd ever order it, but it smells worse than it tastes, in my opinion. Yeah, that smells like feet. It definitely smells like ranch. Oh, yeah, you do get the ranch flavor in your nose. It is sweet and soda-y, carbonated and all that, but the aftertaste, the whiff through your nasal passage of that ranch, yeah. I don't think I've ever seen you look so disgusted before. Yeah, that is not good. This one transports me to Hawaii. Oh, that's way better than that ranch one. That is so good. We have made it to Oklahoma City, which marks the end of the Route 66 portion of our time here in Oklahoma, but before we end this road trip, we gotta try an iconic Oklahoma food, onion burgers. Onion burgers are burgers with grilled onions smashed into the patty, and they are nicknamed depression burgers because they were created during the Great Depression, beef was expensive, and onions were cheap, so they smashed a bunch of onions into a burger patty to cut down on costs, and it's been an Oklahoma staple ever since. And for our onion burgers, we came to Tucker's Onion Burgers, which has a few locations around Oklahoma City. Look at this bad boy. I got a double, and you can see all the onions on top of there, and they're grilled, as you can see. Oh, heck yeah, mm-hmm. I'm a big onion guy, and this thing is loaded with onions. They are sweet and juicy, flavorful, got that grilled flavor, and the meat has a nice little crisp to it from the grill, from the griddle. So much cheese. This thing is so big. Holy cow, look at that, all the gooey cheese. So I got mine lettuce-wrapped, as you can tell, and this is probably gonna be the messiest thing I've ever eaten. To be honest, I don't like onions that much. I like the flavor of onions, I'm just not a big onion texture kind of person, but you can't come to an onion burger place and not get an actual onion burger, so I'm going for it. Am I cleaned up? Yeah, you're good. That is a solid burger. The cheese is so melted and gooey. I love gooey cheese on my burgers. The meat is so juicy, and despite not being onions number one fan, this is actually really solid. The onion flavor just gives it so much flavor, so I can tolerate the onions in this onion burger. I'm very proud of this one. This is the girl that asked me to, if there's an onion in a recipe, hey, can you put it in the blender and completely blend it and pulverize it so it's basically an onion shape? My parents are probably laughing right now because that's what they have to do for meals. Yeah, and now she's eating nice big chunks of onions. But don't get any ideas, I still want them blended. We loved driving part of Route 66, and we'll definitely have to drive more segments of it in the future, but if you're wanting to drive Route 66 and are looking for more things to do, our friends Wonderful Revolution have a bunch of videos from when they drove the entire Route 66 last year, so go check them out. But for us, we're gonna spend the next few days here in Oklahoma City exploring as much of it as we can, and we can't wait to show you some of the many things to do here. Onion breath in here, big time. On your onions and peanut butter and jelly soda. Ranch dressing soda. Y'all get your fixin's, you hear?