Crisscrossing America

The main reason that Oklahoma City was selected as part of our itinerary was because Joyce wanted to visit the Oral Roberts Prayer Tower. To that we added the Murrah Building Memorial and various antique shops. So when we arrived at the Oklahoma City KOA Campgrounds the first thing that Joyce asked was directions to the Prayer Tower. Oh, the Oral Roberts University and Prayer Tower are in Tulsa, not Oklahoma City. And with that, Joyce took on the appearance of a lost puppy. This was something she had wanted to do for years.

We had already zigged north from our intended route to go to Kansas City. From Kansas City it would not have taken much to drive by Tulsa. It's now about a two hour drive back in the direction we had just come from to get to Tulsa. I told Joyce we could drive up there as a day trip, but she said no, we can just do the other stuff in Oklahoma City. It took a lot of arm twisting to get her to agree to the drive to Tulsa, so after breakfast we headed back, northeast to Tulsa in the car.

The trip up was uneventful, but halfway there, while Joyce was pumping gas, I decided to check the AAA book regarding the Prayer Tower. Open Monday to Saturday. Ok so far, this is Thursday. Open from noon to 5. Still ok, it's 11:00. Closed during spring and fall breaks. Still ok, this is summer. Call to verify hours. Uh oh. Nah, not gonna do it. We're halfway there, we'll just go on. If it's not open, we'll just deal with it. Don't want to give her an excuse for turning around.

Arrived shortly after noon. Saw the tower from the parking lot. Walked up to it - no obvious entrance. Ah, there are stairs down to a garden - the entrance must be at the garden level below. It was. Pulled on the door handle and in we go. A nice experience. Joyce was obviously moved. Spent about 25 minutes of the 30 allotted.

Joyce and I at the Administration Building with the Prayer Tower in background.

Ah, the Administration Building. We had asked about a gift shop and we were directed there. It's not the Administration Building, but the actual name escapes me. At any rate we headed upstairs to the student store inside. In the lobby we find they are having an Open House (for prospective students? parents of prospective students?). We by-pass that, go into the store and make our purchases. Exiting the store and back into the Open House area, we explain that we are just visitors, but we are encouraged to go through the displays, uh-huh-ing as we go, picking up a cupcake here, candy there, sandwich, soda, chips. Can't believe we are crashing their Open House. Free lunch today for us.

We later found a couple of antique stores in the area and pretty much filled up the rest of the day with that. We did have a bit of an unusual experience on the trip back, though.

Interstate 44 is a toll road. When we got to the toll booth at the entrance, we found that it handled traffic that would travel in either direction. If going east, the toll was 25 cents. Travelers heading west would pick up a ticket and pay later. (My first thought was, if I were heading east, I would just say that I was heading west, pick up the ticket and take the road east, thus saving myself a 25 cent toll. Joyce countered with the notion that there were probably cameras there and it would probably cost me much more than the 25 cents that I saved when they caught me.) I just took the ticket and headed west.

A few miles down the road we came to a toll booth, paid the $4.00 toll noted at the sign at the booth, got the receipt and headed on. The next exit was ours and there was another toll booth. The sign said it would be 25 cents. At this point I realized that we still had the ticket from when we first got got on the highway. I gave the ticket and the receipt to the guy at the toll booth, saying I didn't know what happened. He tried explaining the process, which I am really confused about now, and handed me $2.25 and the original ticket. So instead of $4.25 my total cost was $1.75. Dunno, but ok with me.