Wes & Erica's vacation photo album - Tulsa, OK - September 2021

We're travelling again!! It was a short "practice run" trip this time around but we are hoping to take actual road trips soon. 😁 Since everyone loves (#sarkmark) looking at their friend's vacation photos, here's our Tulsa vacation album. 

NOTE: I know it's annoying to share vacation & food pictures, but these have really helped us out. There have been so many times when Wes or I will say, "where was that awesome brunch place we went to in Texas with the blah blah dish and the great coffee," and I've been able to find pictures/descriptions from previous blog posts. Great for my failing memory! 

We went to Tulsa mainly to go to the Philbrook art museum to see the Dalí's Alice in Wonderland exhibit.

We started with lunch at the museum café. Wes got the s'mores pancakes (with eggs and bacon) and I got the pimento cheese toast. It was a gigantic sandwich instead of toast. The pimento cheese was good... the rest of it was not. 😒 I've never had challah bread before... and I learned that I do not like it. There was also a red pepper jelly on the sandwich that I wasn't too fond of. The tomato soup was amazing, though. 

After lunch, we strolled the museum's garden (before it got too hot... which it was already hot but there was a breeze and, luckily, a majority of the gardens are under shade). We went in search of all the sculptures and cats. We saw one cat and all but two of the sculptures. My favorite part of the garden was the cabin. It is a beautiful modern log cabin with stained glass windows and a glass roof covered in colorful papier maché.

We also ventured through the Victory Garden. The café's menu offered a Victory Garden salad and I was curious about this garden. It mostly grew squash.

Garden stroll is over... time to go inside!

The Dalí's Alice in Wonderland exhibit was so good! At first, I was surprised at how small the exhibit was, but then I realized that he only illustrated one book... and one book can only have so many pictures. LOL The drawings and concepts are a perfect blending of Salvador Dalí's work and the telling of Alice's time in Wonderland. I liked that Dalí blended his signature elements into the drawings. 

Since we were already there, we took some time to browse the remaining exhibits at the museum. I'm sure I'm biased, but I think the Oklahoma City Museum of Art has a better permanent collection. But, then again, the Philbrook has a mummy so maybe it wins. LOL 

After we finished up with the museum, we drove about half an hour out of our way to get boba tea at Boss Tea. It was soooo worth it! I brought my mask from Babble (boba tea in OKC) on our trip and I thought, "oh no, I'm going to go in wearing a competitor's mask... oh, but we're in Tulsa, no one will know what Babble is." The first thing the barista did when she saw us walk  in was ask if I was wearing a Babble mask! 😮 Turns out, she is originally from Oklahoma City and loves Babble, too. LOL I got the brown sugar matcha milk tea with boba and it was probably the most delicious one I've ever had. Their cups are made from a thicker plastic than the regular boba cups and the lid has a cap, which is great for people like me who take forever to finish their drinks.

Next stop was resting at the hotel. I'm old and can't pack my days with activities like I used to. 😆 Oh, we went to Barnes & Noble when we first got into town so I could buy my Unicorno. I started a tradition of buying a tokidoki Unicorno figurine from every place we vacation... and the first place I bought one was at this Barnes & Noble when we saw Judas Priest in 2018. After resting up, we headed out to dinner. As we were walking to dinner, we passed this art space with a very interesting-looking exhibit.

But, no time to stop in... we had reservations at Sisserou's and it was time to eat! Sisserou's is a Caribbean restaurant. I've never had Caribbean food and was eager to try it. We started with bread and a very spicy habanero sauce. The waiter said it was "no joke" and he wasn't lying. I couldn't handle it but Wes loved it. We wanted a bottle to take home but they didn't sell any. Wes got the shrimp curry and I got the house burger. Both were fantastic! The cocktails were tasty, too! The elotè was the best part of the meal.

Our extremely friendly waiter suggested a tiki bar or a posh bar "where you can go if you want your bartender to talk down to you" for after dinner but instead, I rushed us back to the art space with the interesting dresses. The exhibit closed at 9pm and we were those horrible people who show up 15 minutes before closing expecting a tour. 😅

We had to run through the exhibit pretty quickly so I didn't really get to learn about the artist's vision or message. I believe it was one of those "stick it to The Man" protest pieces.  I thought the dresses were really cool and sort of haunting at the same time. 

DAY 2 - The Cave House!!!

The main reason why we stayed overnight in Tulsa instead of just taking a quick day trip was because I wanted to tour the Cave House. Our tour was at 12:30pm so we had some time to kill in the morning. We had breakfast at Savoy and did some shopping at The Farm Market (I think that was what it was called... I didn't take any pictures). We stopped in a yarn shop, Get Stitchin', and I almost bought a ton of wool merino yarn for a sweater Lacey & I have on our "things to crochet" list but I stopped myself. 

Wes got the traditional two egg breakfast, which he thought was good, and I got the eggs benedict. I'm glad I like hollandaise sauce because it was literally covered in it. Savoy is known for its cinnamon rolls but we were so full after breakfast that we didn't get one. Next time!

The Cave House was the highlight of the trip for me! Linda, the owner and tour guide, is a wonderful host and great storyteller. She bought the house on a whim and learned all about its history. It was formerly a speakeasy and warehouse for bootleggers. It's now decorated with finds from "curbby's boutique" which is things Linda has picked up from the curb on Big Trash day. LOL The house's renovations relies heavily on Elmer's glue (which she says is the only thing that works with the house's natural moisture). She's added crumpled up Wal-Mart plastic bags to the wall for a textured effect. It looks so good... maybe I should try that for our next decorating project! 

Linda collects keys and I wish I knew because we have a random set of keys that the previous owner left in our house that don't go to any lock. I would have totally brought them for her! She installed a slide that goes from the bed room to the sun room. She slid down and pointed at me to slide down next (she singled me out as the "cool kid" 😎). I would have slid down even if she didn't pick me! At the end of the tour, she had us all sign the guest book and say what our favorite thing about the house was. I said the mastodon tooth and Wes decided on the collection of bones. She also insisted on taking our pictures. 

We had originally planned to visit the Vintage Sewing Machine Museum but it was temporarily closed due to the pandemic so instead, we drove along Route 66. We stopped in Decopolis per Linda's suggestion. It is a local gift shop with fun statues around the perimeter. We also had lunch in the Mother Road Market -- a local food court. I know this is me being biased again, but The Collective Food Court in OKC is way better. LOL We got lunch at an Asian fusion restaurant. Wes got the kimchi burger and I got the satay Thai  fries. I don't even remember what it was called but neither of us were impressed with our meal. And, that's a wrap on Tulsa. It was a nice two days filled with art and food... two of my favorite things!