#18: An Art Museum

Oklahoma City Museum of Art

We went to the OKC Museum of Art because I desperately wanted to see the special exhibit they had on display this summer - "Sketch to Screen: The Art of Hollywood Costume Design." There has been quite a bit of hype about this display, and a coworker told me that we could pay less for tickets if we went on a Thursday evening. Sure enough, admission is only $5 after 5:00 on Thursdays. I think Mom and I were more excited about this outing than the kids were. The special exhibit includes 85 original costumes and accessories worn by some of Hollywood's greatest actors. My fave was a pair of Fred Astaire's tap shoes. Sadly, we were unable to take pictures in the exhibit, but I found some of our favorites for you to enjoy, too.

The first items we saw were Charlie Chaplins famous bowler hat and shoes which he wore as "The Tramp" and Buster Keaton's hat and skates.

Claudette Colbert wore this skimpy costume when she played Cleopatra on the big screen.

Next, we saw three of the gowns worn by Vivian Leigh in "Gone With the Wind." They were stunning!

I was thrilled to see these accessories from "To Kill a Mockingbird." Can't you picture Gregory Peck in those glasses?

When we turned the corner and entered this room, C said it took his breath away! There was Wolverine's costume with gloves!

C liked the costume which Russell Crowe wore in "Gladiator," although C has never seen the movie. Neither of my children recognized this ornate hooded coat and gloves from "Camelot."

If you can't make it to OKC and would like to see more pictures from the exhibit, visit this site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50041916@N07/sets/72157624033442822/show/

From there, we rode the elevator up to the second floor and quickly worked our way through art from both American and European artists. My children liked the artwork but didn't spend much time admiring the paintings or sculptures.

This oil on canvas, titled "Girl in the Woods," is attributed to Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

This piece by Alfonso Ossorio is called "INXIT" and is considered an assemblage piece, although Ossorio called it a congregation. It is a wooden door and frame, decorated with odds and ends, such as animal bones, horns, mirrors, knobs, dominoes, and anything else he found lying around. Oddly, there are a lot of eyes on it. I don't know why. And, as C found out, if you stand too close to it, a doorbell goes off, and a museum employee comes running!

A sweet, unexpected find on the third floor of the museum was a display of glass artwork by Dale Chihuly. I didn't realize as I entered the exhibit, that I had seen his work previously - on the lobby ceiling of the Bellagio in Las Vegas! I can't even express how beautiful his pieces are, and the pictures just don't do them justice.

Standing beneath a flat glass ceiling, with Chihuly's glasswork lighted from above, was amazing!

A:

The art museum was one of my favorites! Seeing all the different art was very fascinating! My favorite part of the art museum was the glass on the third floor. The glass was blown in so many different shapes! My favorite piece of glass artwork was the glass that was in the ceiling!!!!! It was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!!! It was also very colorful. You can see it in the third picture up from where I'm writing. I loved seeing the glass!!!!! We also got to see some costumes from different movies, and paintings that were very pretty! I liked the art museum a lot. I want to see it again!!!!!

C:

At the art museum, we saw glass statues. They were cool because in one of the halls, if you looked up, you will see glass. And not regular glass - they were flower-shaped glass. The building we went in was 3 stories tall. On the third story was the glass display. We saw a movie that showed us how to make the glass flowers. On one of the 3 stories, there was a door. It had a doorbell if you got too close to it. It was awesome! My favorite costume was the Wolverine costume.

#83: A Legendary Location

Centennial Land Run Monument in OKC

This has to be one of my most exciting discoveries to date! I never would have seen this, had I not been searching the internet, googling "Land Run". Stories of the Oklahoma Land Run abound. Even our own town has an interesting story of Kentucky Daisey, a woman who reportedly talked the train engineer into letting her ride on the cowcatcher of a train going into the territory which is now Guthrie. As legend goes, she jumped the train, staked her claim using her petticoat as a flag, and reboarded the train before it passed her by.




The story may or may not be true, since no one can verify the story. But it make for fascinating legend!

For those who don't know, President Harrison made a proclamation in 1889, which opened up over 2 million acres of "unassigned" land in Indian Territory and supposedly prevented anyone from entering the territory before April 22, 1889. At noon on that day, the cannons fired and over 50,000 people raced to stake their claims.




This event is known in history as the "Land Run of 1889" or "Harrison's Race." There would be other runs, but this was the defining moment in our state's history. As people settled in the territory, town sprang up and cities grew. In 1890, Congress proclaimed the unassigned lands to be named Oklahoma Territory, which is a Choctaw name, meaning "Land of the Red Man."
The Centennial Land Run Monument is a sculpture in progress by an artist named Paul Moore. The first pieces were put in place in April of 2003, and when completed in 2015, the sculpture will be 365 feet in length, stand 16 feet tall, and depict 45 land run participants. The monument will begin with a soldier and cannon and will contain 24 horses and riders, a buckboard, two covered wagons, a buggy, a sulky, a dog, and a rabbit.



For those who don't know, this is a sulky - a two-wheeled cart with only a seat for a driver.

I cannot go into detail about how the bronze scultures are made, but you can read about it here:

http://www.okc.gov/landrun/process.html

The two men seen here are from a bronze sculpture restoration company. They come out one a year, during the summer, to treat the sculptures. If I understand the process correctly, the man heats up the sculpture with a tool and coats it with wax. This protects it for another year.

The sculptures were giant!

A:

This trip was really fascinating. I had never known that this sculpture was being built, but come to find out, it had been being worked on since 2003! Now no one would know that the sculpture was back there, because it was hidden to the south of Bass Pro Shop! We found it though, and it was so amazing! There were sculptures of people that were bigger than life-size! There were probably 20 people or so, out of the 45 that was intended to be built! The full sculpture won't be done until 2015, but what they have finished now is really cool! There were people riding on horses, kids riding in wagons, dogs running, horses that were about to trample me.......... It was a really fun experience! I can't wait to see that finished product!

C:

The Land Run statues had people on horses, and I got see a dog statue, too. I learned that the Land Run was people running for the land. Nobody was running in the statues. They were all on horses.

#43: A Repair Shop/#84 Your Parent's Workplace

SuperD is the manager of a computer repair store.

I know absolutely nothing about computers. I check my email, blog, post on facebook, play games, and use a few desktop applications. Other than that, I am lost. SuperD, on the other hand, can usually fix my problems without having to even be in front of the computer. Of course, because he works on them all day, he hates using them at home. It's too much like work. The kids love going to his store, not that there is anything for them to do. There really isn't even any place to sit!

A:
My dad works at a computer repair shop called Computer Masters. He fixes and sells computers. We go up and visit him at work every now and then, and when we do, we sometimes help him! This last time we went, I got to help my dad work on a computer! (Honestly, I don't like working on computers. It's not that fun.) It is fun getting to see my dad though! My dad works for our landlord, so our family is friends with his family. This trip to see my dad was fun, like always!

C:

My dad's work is cool! He has computer pieces. We saw computers, mouses, and lots of other stuff that people can buy. My dad fixes computers, and people buy stuff from him. The computers there are really expensive, I think. My dad's boss is one of his friends. I really like his boss.

#99 - A Greenhouse

Hardy bananas, huh?

I remember TLC Nursery from the 80's when I was in Edmond as a teenager. They were just a Mom & Pop business back then, with only 5 family members working the business. Now, they employ approximately 100 people at their two locations, which span over 150,000 square feet of greenhouses and over 10 acres of garden and nursery sale items. Here is a small list of what they sell: over 400 varieties of perennial plants, over 400 varieties of annuals, over 30,000 poinsettias, over 20,000 garden mums, over 40,000 geraniums, over 100,000 flats of garden plants, and over 300 varieties of rose bushes. Now that's a lot of flowers and plants!

Jeff, the terrific employee, showed us to the rear of the greenhouse where they are already growing poinsettias for the Christmas season. They don't look like much yet, but they were everywhere!

A:

The green house was really colorful! I saw lots of different flowers! My favorite flower is the Dahlia! It's so pretty and they come in different colors! I had hoped to see some, but we couldn't find them. While we were there, we asked a man who worked there if we could see the place where they grow all the flowers and veggies! We got to see some Poinsettias that were growing! It was awesome! We also asked a lady if they had any Venus Fly Traps, but they were all out! We would have bought one, but we will have to wait a couple more weeks! I really enjoyed the greenhouse! I want to come back again!

C:
I love tomatoes! I've seen green tomatoes, orange tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, and red tomatoes. This one was a little tomato. They're all good kinds of tomatoes. I saw eggplants, too. I saw a red, spicy pepper. We looked for a cucumber plant and a Venus Flytrap, but they were all out. We hoped that we could buy one for my birthday.

#81: A Place Where They Make Cool Stuff

It doesn't get much cooler than fresh doughnuts, hot off the line! My family loves to visit Krispy Kreme and watch the doughnuts as they make their journey from rings of dough into an Original Glazed Doughnut. I didn't realize that Krispy Kreme has been in business since 1937 with their secret recipe for doughnuts. Vernon Rudolph bought the recipe from a New Orleans French Chef. He rented a building to make the doughnuts and then sold them to grocery stores. But so many people smelled the fresh doughnuts and stopped to ask him if they could buy a fresh, hot doughnut that Mr. Rudolph cut a hole in the side of the building and began selling to customers on the sidewalk. Maybe that's why Krispy Kreme still offers warm doughnuts to their customers. If you've never seen it, you must visit the doughnut shop when the HOT light is on in the window, and they will give a FREE doughnut! Be sure to be polite and buy something, too. I'm betting you won't be able to eat only one!

The dough is fried on one side...

then the machine flips them to fry them on the other side.


The doughnuts travel up and down the conveyor belt as the oil drips off and they dry.

Oh - the glaze!

Even SuperD enjoys a fresh doughnut and gets a little grumpy when it's time to go.

Yes, my diabetics do eat doughnuts. They just don't eat them often,

and they don't eat a half-dozen at a time.

A:

Every time I go to Krispy Kreme, I always watch the donuts go through each stage. The dough, the frying of the dough, the flip of the donut, the icing, and the packaging! It's so much fun to see!Now when I get a donut from Krispy Kreme, I always get it straight from the line. They are soft and chewy! They taste so good! I love Krispy Kreme donuts! They are my favorites!

C:
I ate a doughnut at Krispy Kreme. It was a glazed one because the light was on, and it was free. They flip the doughnut over because there is oil and both sides have to be cooked in the oil. After that they go a thing that puts the glaze on it. It was fun watching it because I love doughnuts fresh of the line!

#88: An Airplane Hangar or Collection

Airplane hanger at Tinker Air Force Base

For Father's Day, we went to the Star-Spangled Salute Open House and Air Show. None of us had ever been to an air show, and our excitement grew when we saw the planes flying loops over the highway where we were driving. The walk from the parking lot to the display area seemed to be 1/4 - 1/2 mile long, and the heat was practically unbearable. By the time we arrived at the planes, we were dripping with sweat and very thirsty. I was determined to find an airplane hanger for our scavenger hunt and to see the aerial demonstrations.

inside the hanger

Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center

We didn't get to see much of the air show. By the time we walked to the airfield, the small planes had landed. This is all we could see from the ground display area.

I'm pretty sure this was the B-1 Bomber, although there was no one available to ask. The bomb compartment flaps were open so we could see inside.

This was the KC-135 that was open for the public to tour.

The wheels were larger than C expected.

KC-135 pilot

KC-135 co-pilot

The center of the plane had these seats.

The KC-135 refuels other planes while flying. This is the area in the rear of the plane where they lie down, flying backwards, and oversee the refueling.






After our tour of the plane, we went to the airfield to watch the air show. Team Tinker was just taking to the air. The team consists of three planes: E6, E3, and KC-135. They were all larger planes and did nothing but flyby's and touch-and-go's. It was still incredible!

E6

E3

Airborne Warning and Command System (AWACS)

The radar disc weighs 30,000 pounds.

KC-135

an aerial refueling military aircraft

the longest building I have ever seen

A:

When we went to the air show, we saw a lot of airplanes! We even got to go inside of some of them! One of the airplanes I went into was an airplane that is used to carry fuel in it, and it is supposed to refill planes that need fuel! It was really cool! The man who refuels the planes has to lay down on his stomach! That's amazing!!!!! After we looked at the airplanes, we went to look at the air show! The air show was awesome! We got to see different planes fly in the sky and do tricks! There was also a man that was telling us about the airplanes and what they do! I didn't like having to be in the heat though. It was so hot outside that I thought I was going to pass out! The experience was wonderful! I liked it!

C:

At the air show, I got to go in a plane and see what was inside. I saw seats, a pilot's seat, and the pilot. My dad said that the wing would be a good place to skateboard, but I said no because I could fall off. I got to see a plane that had this thing that was round on the top. My mom said it was 30,000 pounds. There was one with this thing that looked like a fishing rod. My mom thought the person was supposed to put his hand out to wave, but he wasn't. He was shaking the thing that looked like the fishing rod. [The announcer asked us to wave at the man who was in the back of the plane with the refueling line. He waved back by maneuvering the line back and forth at us.]