What I'm Loving Wednesday and AVERT2015 Recap Part 1

I'm back after an AMAZING road trip last week. I had a blast. There is too much to put into one post, so I'll break it up into several posts (you'll get a sneak peak today). Be sure to check back for more updates on it. I always post on Twitter when I update my blog, so feel free to follow me there. We used the hashtag #AVERT2015 on Twitter and Instagram for our trip (feel free to search it if you want). It stands for "A Very Epic Road Trip". :)

My wonderful co-host Jodi is on a blogging sabbatical this week, but I would still love it you linked up with me today! 

I'm loving...

That I visited 11 states in a span of 10 days. And seven of those states were ones I had never visited before (I'm slowly working my way to all 50 states). 

I'm loving...

That my former college roommate Mel went on this road trip with me. We went on road trips when we were in college, and we had been talking about taking another one for a few years now. We finally did it! We even had a playlist on my iPod of songs we listened to in college. Ah, memories!

Before the start of our 11 state journey...

I'm loving...

That we weren't even out of Texas before our first unplanned stop took place. Road trips are all about making unexpected stops along the way (at least with us). We stopped in Denison to visit the birthplace of Dwight Eisenhower (it made sense to stop, since we were going to his presidential library in Kansas). This was also something I can cross of my 101 in 1001 list (#3 Places in Texas I've never been to before).

I'm loving...

This personalized autograph from Dick Van Dyke. As you know, he's my favorite actor of ALL time. Last month he and his wife mentioned on Twitter they had extra copies of his autobiography (which I already owned), but if you bought a copy through them, and told him what to write, he would personalize an autograph for you. How could I pass that up? I'll just own two copies of his book. But I'll treasure this copy for the rest of my life. And yes, I did ask him to write that. :)

I'm loving...

That I made the latest issue of the Texas Rangers Magazine (which is the souvenir program they sell at the games). They had a social media contest where you submitted a picture of you cheering on the Rangers at another ballpark (it's a segment called "Rangers Roadtrip"). I sent in a picture of me when I went to see the Rangers play at Fenway Park in Boston. They selected my picture for an issue and mailed me a copy of the magazine. I feel kind of famous. :) 

I decided to end my post today with a quick recap of the first two days of our trip. Like I said, we stopped at the Eisenhower birthplace before we got out of Texas. The first state of our trip was Oklahoma.

Why yes, we did sing the theme song from the musical Oklahoma as we crossed the border. And we realized we only knew the first few lines. Lol.

After driving almost 100 miles into Oklahoma (give or take a few miles), we finally found a place to stop and eat. We spend the night in Tulsa and the next day we went to the Hard Rock Casino...and discovered that gambling was NOT for us. We maybe spent an hour in there, but we spent most of that time taking pictures of the memorabilia. We both spent a dollar on the penny slots, and we both lost a dollar. I found gambling to be somewhat boring (I guess that's a good thing, right?) It was a cool place to visit though.

An Elvis jumpsuit. You know me, if it's Elvis related, I'm taking a picture

They told us not to take pictures of the slot machines (what can I say, I live life on the edge). Although you really can't tell there are slot machines in this picture. Oh well, I tried. Lol. 

We didn't eat here, but I did pose for a picture

After that, we visited the Tulsa Historical Society and Museum. Mel's cousin works there and gave us a behind the scenes tour. As a museum nerd aficionado, I really enjoyed it. I've been to many museums, but it was so cool to see what goes on in preparing the exhibits and how they catalog everything. If you are ever in Tulsa, be sure to check out this museum (click here for the address). I think it's one of Tulsa's best kept secrets. They have so many exhibits that include the first ever traffic Yield sign, the first Barbie doll, classic cars, old soda shop benches, and a death mask of Pretty Boy Floyd (the only other death masks of Floyd are owned by the FBI and the Ohio Historical Society).

1958 Ford Edsel

Cool like James Dean..

Thanks to Mel's cousin Ian for the tour of his awesome museum, we had a blast!

We ended our first (full) day with a stop in Abilene, Kansas. I'll talk more about our adventures there in my next post (I would love to say that would be tomorrow, but we all know my track record of updating my blog on a regular basis. It will be soon, I promise!) :)

I was singing "Carry On My Wayward Son" as we crossed the Kansas border (for someone who is tone deaf, I sure did do a lot of singing on this trip). Lol.

XOXO!!