Tulsa and OKC: Celebrating 100 Years of the Mother Road
My first real experience with the Mother Road actually came in high school. One of our summer reading assignments was The Grapes of Wrath. I made it deep into the book, all the way to Chapter 3, where Steinbeck spends what felt like an eternity of pages describing a turtle trying to cross a road.
I know. I know. It's a metaphor.
But I was 16. I had absolutely no appreciation for Steinbeck's symbolism, and apparently I didn’t have the patience of a turtle. So The Grapes of Wrath and I parted ways somewhere around that turtle. That was pretty much my entire experience with Route 66 until this trip.
After spending a few days exploring the Mother Road, I'm thinking it might finally be time to give The Grapes of Wrath another shot. You know, now that I'm old enough to appreciate a turtle crossing roads.
A quick note on the timing: Route 66 officially turns 100 on November 11, 2026, exactly a century after the road was named and connected eight states from Chicago to Santa Monica. We visited during the lead-up to that centennial, and the energy along the Mother Road right now is something special.
Day 1: Dinner at Mother Road Market
After a long day of travel, we arrived in Tulsa at dinner time. Our very first stop was Mother Road Market, and it immediately set the tone for the entire trip.
If you travel with kids or picky eaters, a food hall is one of the greatest inventions in the history of family travel. Nobody has to compromise. Nobody sulks. Everyone wins. Abby chose ramen from Akira. Jill and Reagan went with pizza at Zasa’s Pizza & Wings. Paige picked a burger with Tater Tots from Howdy Burger. Amanda went with barbecue from Nicky’s Smokehouse. I channeled my inner seagull by eating whatever looked best from everyone else's plates. Plus I got a sushi push pop from Akira. It was perfect. Not only does Mother Road Market have a ton of food vendors, but they also have shops and entertainment.
After dinner and checking out the shops, we headed outside to play the Route 66-themed miniature golf course, a fun way to stretch our legs after a day of travel.
While wandering the market, we noticed a few signs for Super Secret Donuts. It did feel super secret because we walked around the food hall and couldn’t find it. We eventually asked the info booth, and they let us know that they are outside in the Airstream by the miniature golf. Unfortunately, they had already closed for the evening, which meant I had a mission for the morning. Instead of donuts for dessert, we opted for the usual. ICE CREAM! The ice cream from Big Dipper Creamery didn’t disappoint.
Day 2: Route 66 Roadtrip (Tulsa to OKC)
I slipped out early the next day on a super secret mission to grab donuts. I came back with Tiramisu, Lemon Supreme, Peach Sando, and a few E.V.s (Their spiced classic with cinnamon, clove, ginger, nutmeg, sea salt, and sparkling sugar). Worth every minute of the early morning solo run. If you're in Tulsa, find this place.
With donuts consumed, we set off along America's Mother Road toward Oklahoma City. One of the great joys of Route 66 is that there is always something waiting around the next corner. We didn't have to look hard.
Our first stop was only 10 minutes down the road at the Route 66 Historic Village. The Route 66 Historic Village is an open-air museum that brings together several pieces of Tulsa's Route 66 and oil history. The centerpiece is a massive 194-foot oil derrick that reminds visitors of Tulsa’s oil boom. There is a historic locomotive, caboose, and passenger car that were used in passenger service in the 1940s-1960s. Last but not least, the visitor center at the Village is modeled after a 1920s gas station. It's a quick, easy stop that gives you a feel for how oil, trains, and Route 66 shaped Tulsa.
Next, we stopped to see the “Guardian of the Plains” Bison Sculpture. It’s a massive bronze bison sculpture that was created as part of Oklahoma's 2007 Centennial celebration. It is 12 feet tall and 18 feet long. The bison is hard to miss as it stands between Interstate 44 and the Route 66 corridor.
Then we drove into Sapulpa, specifically the corner of Water and Hobson, to see a restored Gulf Oil Station. It provided the kids a snapshot of what Route 66 looked like in its heyday.
Our next stop of the morning was just around the corner at Gasoline Alley Classics. This is a vintage souvenir and memorabilia shop that was fantastic from front to back. It is an old Ford Model T showroom that’s filled with vintage road signs, gas pumps, and a ton of great merch. The owner, Michael, is incredibly friendly and talked with us about his store and his passion for Route 66. There is so much to look at, but the wood floor caught my attention as it is a custom map (I’m a sucker for maps) of the Route 66 Corridor going through all eight states! But somehow the biggest surprise was the restrooms. Yes, the restrooms. They might honestly be the coolest bathrooms that you can encounter anywhere along Route 66. We are not going to elaborate further. You just have to go. You cannot miss this stop on Route 66.
We were getting to mid-morning and needed to re-fuel on caffeine. We stopped in downtown Sapulpa and grabbed coffee from Crossroads Coffee Lab. The Coffee Lab is inside the Crossroads Cookery, which looks like a beautiful restaurant with an ice cream parlor too. The building was a grocery back in 1907 and then a five-and-dime store from 1930s-1970s. It had a really neat atmosphere, and I wish we could have had lunch there. I also learned that apparently Sapulpa goes big for Christmas. Their downtown is famous for the Route 66 Christmas Chute, which are canopies filled with 60,000 lights and 21,000 square feet of Christmas decor. It runs from the middle of November to the end of December. With coffee in hand, we headed to Oklahoma City.
Our primary destination in Oklahoma City was the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, and this stop was specifically for Abby. When I was researching Oklahoma for our trip, I found out that the Oklahoma City Museum of Art has one of the largest permanent public collections of Dale Chihuly’s work. Last summer, we visited the Chihuly Garden and Glass exhibit in Seattle. That visit ignited a passion in Abby, and she has been paying attention to Dale Chihuly's work ever since, like “Fireworks of Glass” at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. She even did a school report and poster board on Dale Chihuly. When you walk into the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, you are greeted by a three-story, 55-foot-tall Chihuly tower that is made up of over 2,000 pieces of hand-blown glass. The museum's Chihuly collection is extensive, featuring paintings, chandeliers, baskets, reeds, ceilings, and so many vibrant, show-stopping installations. Absolutely worth the drive.
We also stopped at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, and this one carries weight. We felt like the kids might be too young to spend a significant amount of time at this stop, especially going into the museum. However, the Oklahoma City Bombing was one of those major events that both Amanda and I vividly remember from our childhoods, which compelled us to make a short stop. We got out and walked around the Outdoor Symbolic Memorial, which sits on the site of the former Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. You walk through monumental twin gates that represent the moment before the destruction (9:01 am Gate) and the aftermath (9:03 am Gate). It then opens up to a massive reflecting pool. The most striking part of the outdoor memorial is the Field of Empty Chairs. There are 168 chairs, one for each life lost on April 19, 1995. The nineteen smaller chairs for the children in the Murrah Building daycare are the ones that stay with you. Although we didn't go into the museum this visit, the outdoor memorial alone is deeply moving.
We stopped at Rev Mex for dinner. Then we jumped back on Route 66 to swing by the Oklahoma State Capitol for an I’m Just a Bill photo. We continued along Route 66 to see quirky landmarks like the Milk Bottle Grocery, the Blue Hippo, the Retro Toy Robot in Uptown OKC, and the Gold Dome Building.
No Route 66 trip through Oklahoma is complete without Pops in Arcadia, and we intentionally timed our visit for dusk. We ordered milkshakes, browsed hundreds of unique sodas lining the walls, and waited for the sunset. As darkness settled in, the giant, 66-foot-tall illuminated soda bottle came to life. It's one of the most photogenic moments on the entire stretch of Route 66, and planning your visit around sunset is absolutely the right move. On our return trip to Tulsa, we also saw the illuminated Route 66 Midpoint Statue and the Cyrus Avery Centennial Plaza glowing in the dark. A perfect ending to a full day on the Mother Road.
Day 3 & 4: Choose Your Own Adventure
The next morning I headed to my conference after fueling up at Cirque Coffee with a breakfast burrito and coffee. Amanda and the girls had their own agenda, and it was a good one.
The Gathering Place in Tulsa gets described as one of the best playgrounds in America. That is not an exaggeration. It is a 100-acre park on the banks of the Arkansas River with playscapes, water features, and enough to explore that the girls could have stayed all day and still not seen everything. While I was in conference sessions, they were climbing and exploring everything the Gathering Place had to offer.
After my conference wrapped up for the day, we reunited in Tulsa's Blue Dome District for dinner at Albert G's BBQ, which lived up to its reputation. We also walked over to the famous Center of the Universe, which was unfortunately undergoing repairs during our visit. Another one for the next time list.
Dessert from Braum's. Because Ice Cream!!!
The following morning we split up again.
Amanda and the girls headed to Tilly's Diner for breakfast before spending the morning at Discovery Lab. Pro tip: get there early before the summer camps arrive. Their website actually has a Field Trip Forecast so you can check crowd levels before you go, which is exactly the kind of research tool we appreciate. The girls spent most of their time in the central gallery, launching paper airplanes and taking turns with scarves in the wind tunnels. Simple stuff that somehow becomes the thing they talk about most.
I spent the day at the conference, and before meeting back up with the family, I walked over to the Greenwood District. The Greenwood District was once known as Black Wall Street, one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States. In May and June of 1921, it was destroyed in what became known as the Tulsa Race Massacre: a coordinated attack that killed hundreds of people, left thousands homeless, and was largely buried in history for decades. Greenwood Rising is a history center in the heart of the district that tells that story with care. I was there for about an hour, then walked the surrounding Greenwood District, where the weight of what happened and what was rebuilt afterward is present on every block. If you visit Tulsa, go here. It adds an entirely different dimension to understanding this city.
Day 5: One Last Cruise Down Route 66
With the conference complete, we made our way toward Arkansas, but first we squeezed in one final morning on the Mother Road.
Our farewell tour hit the Meadow Gold Sign, Land of Giants, Buck Atom's Cosmic Curios, and Decopolis. We also needed to stop at the Mother Road Market to grab some souvenirs. At The Curious Bison, we found an excellent wooden map designed for tracking our visits to all 50 states, which immediately became one of the best souvenirs of the entire summer. Given that visiting all 50 states is one of our three big family goals, finding a physical way to track it felt like the right purchase at the right moment on the right road.
Before leaving Tulsa behind, we also visited the Golden Driller and the Route 66 Rising. Our last stop was the iconic Blue Whale of Catoosa. Standing next to the Blue Whale felt like the perfect closing chapter of our Oklahoma adventure. Smiling, turquoise, sitting on the edge of a pond along a stretch of road that has been drawing travelers since 1926. It's exactly the kind of thing that makes Route 66 impossible to replicate anywhere else.
Exceeded Every Expectation
We came to Oklahoma for a conference. We left having experienced outstanding food, world-class museums, one of the best public parks in the country, a profound piece of American history, and some of the most fun stretches of Route 66 anywhere along the Mother Road.
Route 66 stretches from Chicago to Los Angeles and became the gateway to adventure, guiding travelers through breathtaking landscapes and untamed beauty. A hundred years later, it still delivers. Whether you're chasing roadside Americana, traveling with young kids, or simply looking for a destination that will surprise you, Tulsa deserves a spot on your list.
Next stop: Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas.
