Busy Day

this morning i woke up coughing and hacking, not even wanting to get out of bed to take the girls to school. so what did i decide to do, take them on a road trip instead. what am i , nuts? on our summer to-do list, which we copied from valerie, we put down that we were going to visit the tallgrass prairie outside of pawhuska, just like valerie did last week. she has so many good ideas! my little growing family has a couple of close friends whose family owned the ranch. their grandmother was a genuine cowgirl back when and has written a book about her days growing up there. my Greek has it tucked away somewhere...otherwise i'd tell you the name of the book. it was fun to drive through there and think of them as my kids' age running around all that land playing and riding horses. amazing.

well, we drove to pawhuska and went through the "gateway" to go get our chance to see the bison.

here we are looking at a lookout for bison

we finally drove through to the ranch house and information center. just as some sprinkles of rain came down. we signed the guest book and went in to look at all the bones, pelts, teeth, horns, and other odds and ends they have on tactile display there. just don't touch the stuffed animals for sale, the women working did not like the girls feeling the merch. we used the restroom and headed out to visit the trails.

i couldn't walk along the whole mile trail. i got tired after 100 feet. 34 weeks pregnant, with a cold, a bum leg, can't imagine why i couldn't make a mile.

on the way out of the reserve we did see a herd of bison near the horizon, far far far far far away. o well. maybe next time. we did have to stop for a herd of cows in the middle of the road we saw earlier behind the fence. how they got in the middle of the road, i don't know. getting to see the cows in the road was very entertaining. it was like when i would drive this back road to culinary school just so i could see if these pigs that lived on a farm behind the school got out so i could usher them back in the fence. i love farm animals.

we drove back through the gorgeous hills of OKlahoma to our beautiful green city of Tulsa. it really was a beautiful drive, i could barely keep my eyes on the road. part of me wishes i'd stayed in bed to fight off this cold, but i am glad we went.