If it were up to me, kids would never grow up and holiday traditions would never change. That’s not really true. Of course we want our kids to grow up, be successful and find happiness. That aside, I sure do miss the Christmases of old. I miss attending the school holiday plays, driving around to look at Christmas lights while listening to Christmas music, decorating Christmas cookies, and all the other activities that surrounded Christmas. Even if I wasn’t personally decorating the tree or baking the cookies, I sure enjoyed being around it. There won’t be any more school holiday… (read more)

Over the weekend our family celebrated Mason’s birthday, who turns 21 years old today. No matter how old we get, I don’t think our brains are wired to ever see our kids as adults. Logically I understand that today Mason is 21, but… my brain just can’t seem to comprehend the fact. I worry about Mason driving to Norman late at night and worry when he goes out of town with his friends, and in the same breath I realize that Susan and I were younger than Mason is today when we took our first road trip to see the… (read more)

It’s been just over a month since I completely destroyed my knee. The younger version of me might have hurt my knee by jumping out of a tree, falling off a skateboard, or performing a wild karate kick. 49-year-old me hurt his knee stepping out out his car. My left leg got caught underneath my body while I was getting out of my car and my knee bent backward as far as it could bend, which is apparently further than it is supposed to. For the first few weeks, every time I stood up to walk my knee would lock… (read more)

Susan and I saw a lot of fun things along Route 66 post that didn’t quite warrant entire blog posts. To wrap up this week’s series of posts, here are a few of the odd and ends we saw along the way. POPS 66 Pops is a restaurant located on Route 66 not far from I-35, and was one of the first things we saw along our route. It was too late for breakfast and too early for lunch when we passed Pops, but we did stop and pick out a couple of drinks from Pops selection of more than… (read more)

Prior to our recent trip up Route 66, I was unfamiliar with “Muffler Men.” Aaccording to Wikipedia, Muffler Men are “large moulded fiberglass sculptures that are placed as advertising icons, roadside attractions or for decorative purposes, predominantly in the United States.” Most Muffler Men are around 20′ tall and share a similar stance. According to the article, the original Muffler Man was a Paul Bunyan figure designed to hold an axe; subsequent figures have been seen holding mufflers, car tires, a giant hot dog, and in at least two cases, a rocketship. All Muffler Men are made of fiberglass, and… (read more)

Route 66 is all about cruising, and during our short trip down Oklahoma’s portion of Route 66 we encountered not one but two museums — one dedicated to vehicles with four wheels, and the other was stuffed which two-wheeled ones. Both were just the right size to stretch your legs and see some cool rides in the process. SEABA STATION MOTORCYCLE MUSEUM 336992 E Hwy 66 – Warwick, OK Link: SeabaStation.com The first museum we encountered along our journey was a motorcycle museum located just outside Chandler, OK in the former “Seaba Filling Station.” From the outside, the building appears… (read more)

Westworld — the original, released by Michael Crichton in 1973 — was a fun little film about a western-themed amusement park filled with lifelike androids programmed not to harm the park’s human guests… until they did. In the 1980s, every video rental store had a copy of Westworld on their shelves. The tape’s cover had Yul Brenner’s face partially removed, revealing the internal gears and wires controlling the unrelenting android. It is easy to see the influence Westworld had on science fiction, including The Terminator, Blade Runner, and another Crichton novel in which things went wrong in a theme park,… (read more)