#36: A Sculpture Park, Part 2

I just had to take the kids to The Crucible Foundry & Gallery, when I found out that so many of the bronze sculptures we have seen around town were made here. And when I discovered that they had a Sculpture Park that was open to the public, I planned our trip. Their garden changes periodically, depending upon which sculptures they have on hand. We saw two bronze sculptures that are also on display in Edmond. The garden was a peaceful place, with stone benches for sitting, lots of shade trees, and a lily pad pond in the center.

This was my favorite.

We first saw this sculpture at the animal shelter in Edmond.

A:
The sculpture park was FULL of bronze sculptures!!!!! There were some of men, women, children, dogs, a pig and a chicken, and acrobats! "Acrobats" was my favorite sculpture!!!!! I don't know why I like it so much. It's just kind of fascinating! You can see it in the picture above. It has two men, one is holding the other one up, and the other one is upside down on the other's hands. It's really cool!!!!! I liked the sculpture park!

C:
We went to the sculpture park, and we saw "Ham and Eggs," a pig and a hen sculpture that is at the Around the Corner Restaurant in Edmond. There were tons of sculptures inside the gallery. One was called "Abstract," which is A's nickname. I think there was one called "Face Out."

"Abstract"

#17: A Kooky Capital

just south of Norman

The Timberlake Rose Rock Museum is owned and operated by Joe and Nancy Stine and is located in the Rose Rock Capital of the World - Noble, Oklahoma. The barite rose rock is the State Rock of Oklahoma, and if you've never seen one, I must tell you they are an amazing creation. They are a reddish brown, as is most of the dirt in the OKC area. What is truly amazing is how they are formed. Sandy crystals of barite form petal-like clusters that resemble a rose. I really don't understand the science of it, but can you truly explain God's creation? Rose rocks are found in Central Oklahoma from Pauls Valley to Guthrie, but mostly east of Norman and Noble. They have to be dug up by hand to preserve the rose formation.

a museum display of rose rock clusters

a large cluster of rose rocks

tiny rose rocks

A:

The Rose Rock Museum was pretty interesting. First of all, when we arrived, it was this dinky house that was out near the woods that had this sign that said Rose Rock Museum on it. When we went inside, we saw the history of the rose rocks, how they are formed, and which families found them and sold them. We saw a group of rose rocks that was as big as a microwave!!!!! It was huge!!!!! We looked at all the rose rocks that were for sale and all the other things we could buy. I found a slice of agate that I really liked. It was a pretty color of blue, and it can fit in your hand. That's what I bought when I went to the rose rock museum. I could have stayed there for a while, just looking at the different types of rose rocks, but we had to leave, and I was sad. I love rose rocks. They're really cool!

C:
I got to see rose rocks at the rose rock museum. I wanted to see one big rose rock, and instead of one big, I got to see thousands of rose rocks. We saw other stuff, too, like shark teeth, glass turtles, pieces of agate, a pen with rose rocks in it, and a wind chime made with agates. There were two dogs in the museum - real dogs! "No dogs allowed!" But there was dogs! There were also rocks with carved pictures on them. They had a lot of stuff for sale!

#65: A Newsroom

I was probably most excited about this destination. It was the very first on my calendar for the summer. Thanks to my childhood friend, Jenny Monroe, for giving us a tour of the station where she works as a Content Director. (Please pardon me, Jenny, if I don't get all the terminology correct on this blog.) One of my fondest memories from high school was when our youth group went on a Polaroid scavenger hunt. We had to find a celebrity. We decided to stop by one of the local news stations and ask if any of the anchors were still at work. Not only did the sports guy pose for a picture with us, but he took us onto the set for the picture. I will never forget it!

I was hoping to recreate this excitement for my children, and I think this day surpassed it! In the vicinity of the News9 station there must be dozens of antennae. That is what we first noticed. While waiting in the lobby, we admired the station's many awards it has one throughout the years, including what I believe was an Emmy, although the receptionist didn't know. We followed Jenny through the building to a room where all the reporters were busy at work. Here, we met Ed Murray, the morning and noon news anchor.

Kelly Ogle, award-winning evening news anchor, stopped to pose for a picture.

On our way in to see the set, we met Congresswoman Mary Fallin, our District 5 Representative to the U.S. Congress and a Gubernatorial Republican candidate for Oklahoma. She was kind enough to pose with the kids before she left.

The set was much smaller than I imagined, and all of it was on wheels so they can rearrange things as needed. Blue tape was all over the floor, marking where sets belong and where people should stand. This keeps them from having to reset lighting. There were four cameras in the room, including this jib, a boom device with a camera on the end which operates like a seesaw (Look, kids! A lever!)

The only thing C wanted to see at the station was the green screen. He looked like he had died and gone to heaven when he saw it. But that was nothing, compared to when the cameraman set it up so that he could try it out!

This shot says it all!

At this point in time, he hadn't even noticed the monitors on either side of him. He was so entranced with his image projected on the camera screen. The people in the control room were fabulous! They put images of different weather maps behind him, and they even placed him in other scenes, too, like the World Cup Soccer game, the Supreme Court Congressional Hearings, and Let's Make a Deal. C was dancing around, pointing at things. It was incredible!

And two pretty women helped him figure out how to point at the temps!

A says they were interns.

Now he's got it!


A BIG thanks to the cameraman and team who made my son's year!

We couldn't leave the weather center without saying hi to Gary England, the number one meteorologist in Oklahoma.

Finally, Jenny introduced us to Mason Dunn, pilot to SkyNews 9 HD, the station's helicopter. According to the News9 website, it is basically a flying news station. The camera has special gyro stabilization which records high definition images which are smooth and clear. It has its own private hanger just outside the newsroom so that pilot and helicopter can be in the air in a matter of minutes.

What an incredible experience! I know this will be among my top 5 memories of the summer of 2010!

A:
News9 was my favorite thing that we have done so far! It was so much fun! We got to meet some of the crew. We also got to meet Gary England, Kelly Ogle, and Ed Murray. While we were there, we also got to meet our Congresswoman that works in D.C. We got to take a picture with her. After that, we got to go to the newsroom. We got to see the green screen, all the cameras, the interview stations, the sports station, and the TV's the meteorologist uses to see himself. That was my favorite part of News9. After we went to the newsroom, we went to the control room. We got to see what they do. Then my mom's friend, Mrs. Monroe, said we should go aoutside and see the helicopter. When we went out there, we saw the cockpit and the sky camera and the place where the people in the back sit. I enjoyed my day at News9. It was so much fun!

C:
News9 was a really cool place! There was cameras, green screens, wires above your head, wires below you. My mom wanted to see the control room. My sister just like being there because it was fun to her. I wanted to see the green screen. It was pretty cool! It changes pictures when the people press the buttons in the control room. I liked it when they put me on a soccer field. I pretended like I was playing soccer at the World Cup!

#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.