OK Vacation - Woolaroc

We drove back to Bartlesville last night and brought everyone (except Mark, who was working) to Woolaroc just outside of town. I had been here lots as a kid as it was the closest museum to us growing up. We'd never brought the kids and Alex had finished a Native American unit at school earlier this year. Woolaroc used to be the country lodge, ranch, and retreat for oil tycoon Frank Philips (of Conoco-Philips fame). It was named for the WOods, LAkes, and ROCks that surround this region. We ate a picnic lunch that we brought and then headed to the museum. The main museum has a mosaic with several Native Americans depicted in traditional ceremonial costumes, which we thought was a great place to pose. (I had gotten a short haircut the week before, and I thought that today would be a good day to spike it up.)

The problem with a museum is that the interior lights are not very bright and they don't allow flash photography. This means I got a lot of blurry, poorly lit pictures. Alex was smiling in the 1st 3 shots of him near the headdress, but by the time I held the camera still enough for the 4th to come into focus, he had had enough. The museum was still in great shape, and they had expanded it since I had toured it last. The kids loved the animals, the artifacts, and the huge paintings. Nana used to be a docent, so she had given tours of this museum and pointed out many of the highlights to the grandkids.

There were numerous stuffed animals, some of them gifts to Frank Philips, and some of them were from his big game hunting expeditions. The ranch portion of Woolaroc had numerous live buffalo, but Aaron posed by this stuffed one.


The Woolaroc Airplane, that is on display at the Woolaroc Museum, won the "Dole Derby," a glorious race from Oakland to Hawaii in 1927. More than a dozen airplanes entered the contest, but only two made it to Hawaii. Ten lives were lost during the race. Phillips Petroleum sponsored the Woolaroc in the race, and hired stuntman Arthur Goebel to pilot the plane.
A summary of the race is found at the San Francisco Museum website. As you can tell from the picture, it was well-lit:)

We took the kids to "Arrows Skyward" which used to be a multiple screen movie/slideshow that taught viewers an old Indian lesson about taking the hard but correct path. The message is intact, but the presentation wasn't. They were down to one screen, but still used the same slides, which meant that the narrator would refer to something that should have been visible on one of the other screens but wasn't. Moderately disappointing. We drove out, like we did when we came in, past all of the zebras, buffaloes, deer, mountain sheep, and ostriches that dot the ranch. I think the next time we're in town, we'll have to check it out again.