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New Experiences
March 28, 2007
Christa and I have recently spent some time exploring – we’ve driven east on Route 66, north on US 77 and south I-35.
We’ve gazed at new wonders on SH 66 – the old Route 66 – Pops! We’ve passed through Guthrie, the first State Capitol, Perry, the home of Ditch Witch and Kumback Lunch, and eaten at Eskimo Joe’s in Stillwater, home of OSU.
We’ve wandered around downtown Fort Worth, trespassed for photographs and ogled at the wonders of urban redevelopment.
All in all, it’s been a fantastic past couple weeks of exploration. More after the jump.
The Friday evening before St. Patrick’s Day we decided to drive east on the old Route 66. It’s an American wonder, and it travels throughout Oklahoma, but we’d never driven any portions of it. We took it east from Edmond and drove out to Arcadia. We happened upon the new wonder of Route 66 being built just outside Arcadia. Pops is a new gas station and attraction being built by the co-founder/Chairman of Chesapeake Energy, Aubrey McClendon. Aubrey, as some of our West Michigan readers might know, is the owner of the Denison dune property near Saugatuck. Pops is being designed by the locally famous architect, Rand Elliot (see Metropolis, December 2006). It includes a 50-foot tall, LED lit pop bottle, amongst other things. The development should be incredible. On our way home from this trip, we were treated to a most beautiful sunset.
On Saturday, after observing the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in downtown Oklahoma City (and obtaining the requisite year’s-first-sunburn), we decided to take a drive north into central Oklahoma. After a short stint on I-35, we split off onto US 77 through Guthrie and up into Perry. Perry is a small town which plays host to a large company – Ditch Witch. It’s also host to a locally-favorite restaurant, Kumback Lunch. Unfortunately, it’s not open after 2:00 pm on a Saturday, so we weren’t able to partake in the local flavor. We did, however, head south down to Stillwater and spent an hour at Eskimo Joe’s. Eskimo Joe’s is internationally famous… more because of its marketing success than anything. The food is tasty, but doesn’t necessarily rate higher than a typical chain restaurant.
The week following our Oklahoma travel weekend was Christa’s Spring Break… unfortunately, we couldn’t take off work to enjoy it fully, but we did manage to escape away to Fort Worth and Wichita Falls for a couple of nights. Immediately after work on Friday we hopped into our chariot and started on our way to Fort Worth. We stopped at an Interurban for dinner in Ardmore – across the highway from a large Michelin factory. It was a surprisingly fast dinner, thirty minutes in all at a sit-down restaurant, especially fast considering that parties larger than two were waiting for seats. After dinner we continued down to our Homewood Suites in Fort Worth. On a side note, we definitely recommend these hotels. The suites are spacious, clean, inexpensive, and the complimentary breakfasts are tasty.
Saturday morning we awoke to a partly cloudy, 65 degree day. It was a fantastic beginning to our day. After breakfast at the hotel, complete with little egg-burritos, we drove off into downtown Fort Worth. We started with two hours of walking in the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. The Gardens are beautiful – especially in early springtime. After the Gardens, we went on over to the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. After a pleasant hour of gallery walking, we went out for lunch at Chipotle. The burritos were fantastic! Too much food though…
After lunch, we spent a little time just driving around. It was amazing! Downtown exploration is an endeavor everyone should take on. Fort Worth has a good amount of urban redevelopment going on. We drove past a large mixed-use development called Montgomery Plaza. It looks incredible. The development contains the requisite Starbucks, PF Chang’s, a Super Target, and more.
Further into town, we came upon the current Amtrak station, right in the heart of downtown. The Amtrak station is also home to Greyhound and the Trinity Railway Express, the commuter rail service between Fort Worth and Dallas. The station is next to the old Santa Fe station, which still has its big blue sign proudly displayed. However, the real treat, located just mile or so to the west, is the old Texas and Pacific Passenger Terminal, Warehouse, and US Post Office.
The Texas and Pacific Terminal is a 13 story building built in 1939. The grand entrance lobby, three stories tall, has been restored to an event center, and the 10 floors above, along with the old warehouse facility to the east, are being restored into urban lofts. The redevelopment looks to be progressing quite well, with the City even helping out by completing a large streetscaping project out front. The Post Office facility to the west still looks active, and is a beautiful example of Postal architecture. Further to the west is another massive warehouse (I believe it’s another Texas and Pacific facility) that has fallen on hard times. The architectural detail on the building is amazing. Fort Worth deserves a lot of credit for keeping these buildings standing.
One of the other highlights of our downtown tour was more fascinating to me than Christa (but she enjoyed it too). While passing the Post Office and the warehouse, I looked between the buildings and spotted the Union Pacific Railroad’s business train. The business train is used to carry executives, members of the press and others on tours of the railroad. It’s a beautiful treasure of the railroad’s past. Unfortunately, the train was not being pulled under steam power, but was led by a diesel locomotive (a GE engine, I believe). However, it was still a cool for a rail buff like myself.
After the downtown tour, we drove on up towards Wichita Falls. We drove by Radio Shack’s massive new corporate headquarters on the north side of downtown, and drove through Fort Worth’s Stockyards district. The district seemed much more of an entertainment district than Oklahoma City’s – Oklahoma City’s Stockyards are very much all about the business of cattle, not the cowboy entertainment of Fort Worth. Just before hitting US 287 north to Fort Worth, we passed by the United States Bureau of Engraving and Printing facility in Fort Worth. It’s interesting to see where money is produced.
All in all, we’ve had an amazing past few weeks of travel. Now we’re gearing up for our (hopeful) trip to Austin (Round Rock), Texas to see Keith play in the Texas state soccer finals. After that trip, we’ll have our late spring/early summer trip to Michigan, via Nashville.
Posted by paul at March 28, 2007 10:11 PM
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