Arkansas and Oklahoma Road Trip: Part Five
Still in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, we walked across the street from the Cherokee National History Museum to the Cherokee National Supreme Court Museum. That museum was also well done, but some of the texts seemed to be repeating what we had just learned at the previous museum, especially about Sequoyah, the Native American man who created written characters representing syllables in order for the Cherokees to read and write their language. However, it was good to reinforce our learning!
We then walked to the Spider Gallery to see artwork completed by Cherokees, which were just beautiful! I absolutely loved looking at the paintings and sculptures. There was such good talent on display! Also, one of the employees was quite chatty and enjoyed talking to out-of-towners! We ended up getting a magnet of a bear by a Cherokee artist, since I like to collect magnets on my travels, and David likes bears.
Next, we drove to the Restaurant of the Cherokees. I was looking forward to trying some traditional Native American food! Unfortunately, their website wasn’t updated, and we found a notice on their door that they had been closed since February 2021! Our road trip was in May and June 2021, so they had been closed for over three months already! We were disappointed, so we found another restaurant to eat at, and then we drove to our next destination: Tulsa, Oklahoma!
Once there, we luckily found a parking spot at The Gathering Place, a huge outdoor park, playground, and botanical garden on the outskirts of the city. It was so nice to walk around after being in the car, and the weather was so nice! Even though it was warm and sunny, it wasn’t overly crowded! The park was laid out well, and offered pretty spots to either hide away in to enjoy nature or play. We happened upon Swing Hill, which didn’t offer many swings, but there was an empty one that I was able to use for several minutes before kids came by, and I got off because I felt guilty for taking up a swing, since I was an adult.
After walking around for awhile, we started getting hungry for dinner, so we ventured into downtown Tulsa, found a parking spot in a parking garage, and made a pit stop at the Center of the Universe before heading to a restaurant. I had discovered the Center of the Universe on Pinterest, and I thought it’d be a neat touristy roadside attraction sort of spectacle. Well, it was a spectacle, alright! It didn’t have a sign indicating it as the Center of the Universe, and most of the bricks laid out in a circular pattern were torn up or broken! It was not as cool as Pinterest made it out to be! We then walked to Yokozuna to have amazing sushi, as well as chicken and pork belly steamed buns!
*I was not compensated for the reviews of any of these businesses.
