dual personalities

Everyone has a bucket list I guess. I know I do. But while many people may dream of traveling to the Amalfi Coast or other far flung locales, I would like to go to Oklahoma. Yes, I know…but Oklahoma is a state rich in history! It is, after all, the “I.T.”–the Indian Territory.

It is also the home of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, which I have always wanted to visit. I especially want to visit since finding out that my ancestor, John Wesley Prowers, is one of the “Great Westerners” in their Hall of Fame.

There he is listed right after John Wesley Powell (the famous one-armed geologist) and before Ronald Reagan. He was inducted in 1963.

Pretty cool, eh?

How can you not love a museum that has honored this guy?

John Wayne being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1965

On the way to Oklahoma City, I would stop in Tulsa, which is the home of the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art, which houses the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of art and artifacts of the American West.

Tulsa is also the home of the Philbrook Museum of Art, located in part in the 1920s villa of oilman Waite Phillips (of Philmont fame).

So one of these days we’ll get our kicks on Route 66 and head to Oklahoma.

It’s on the List.

*Oscar Hammerstein, “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”