Most I-35 Drivers Miss The 77-Foot Waterfall And Stone Castle Ruins Hiding In Oklahoma
I only planned to stop for gas and a snack somewhere in southern Oklahoma, nothing fancy. Then a curve in the road showed me rugged hills, a roaring sheet of water, and an old...
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Oklahoma’s World’s Tallest Hill Near Poteau Has A Summit Drive Families Make Every Fall
Some of the best family memories start with a sign by the road and a quick change of plans. In eastern Oklahoma, there is a free, winding drive that climbs to a view most people...
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Families Dig Real Selenite Crystals Out Of The Ground And Take Them Home At This Oklahoma Park
Somewhere on a quiet stretch of northwest Oklahoma, the ground turns white and starts glittering under your boots. You pull over expecting a quick photo, and an hour later your...
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Hot Kolaches And Onion Burgers Make These 5 Oklahoma Small-Town Spots Worth A Saturday Drive
The building looked like nothing special, just a small storefront with a few cars parked out front and a smell drifting out the door that made me pull over anyway. Twenty minutes...
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Fall Color Rolls For Miles Along Oklahoma’s Talimena Drive, And The Overlooks Are Free
Some of the best things in Oklahoma never ask for a dime, and they rarely make a fuss about themselves. Picture a mountain road in the far southeast corner of the state where the...
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Kids Get Their Hands On Real Tornado Science And A Planetarium Dome At Science Museum Oklahoma
I figured we would spend an hour poking at a few buttons and then head out for burgers. Instead, my kids were spinning up tornadoes, staring at millions of stars overhead, and...
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Lanterns, Creaking Floors And Old Stories Fill This Grand Oklahoma Mansion Tour After Dark
I went looking for a quiet back-road detour in Oklahoma and ended up staring at a house that seemed far too grand for the street it stood on. Folks around here talk about it in...
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Thousands Of Old Brick Buildings Make This Oklahoma Town Feel Frozen In The Early 1900s
I pulled off the interstate in Oklahoma expecting a quick gas stop and maybe a sandwich. Instead, I found street after street of red brick and sandstone that looked like nobody...
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Most Oklahomans Have Never Driven Through This Gorgeous Little Town That Likes It That Way
Some of the best places in Oklahoma never show up on a billboard. You find them by taking the slow road, getting a little hungry, and pulling over somewhere you only meant to pass...
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This Old Oklahoma Fire Tower Still Stands Watch Over Fall Forest At The End Of A Rugged 4×4 Trail
Some of the best places in Oklahoma never show up on a billboard, and you only find them after the pavement gives up. Picture a steel lookout poking above a sea of red and gold...
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This Oklahoma Pottery Studio Puts You At The Wheel To Throw Your Own Clay Mug
I walked in expecting a quick craft class and walked out with wet clay under my nails and a grin I could not shake. Somewhere in Oklahoma, a small studio is handing beginners a...
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Fall Turns This Clear Northeast Oklahoma Lake Quiet, Wild And Almost Empty
I went looking for a quick autumn drive and a snack stop, and I ended up staring at water so clear I could count the rocks below the surface. Most folks in Oklahoma think of lakes...
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Why Hikers Keep Climbing To The Old Stone Castle Ruins Tucked Into Oklahoma’s Hills
You turn off a quiet road in eastern Oklahoma, trees close in overhead, and then a stone castle suddenly fills the windshield. It feels like a wrong turn at first, the kind of...
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What One Boy Started Collecting At Seven Now Fills This Free Claremore Museum With Outlaw Relics
I only pulled over because I needed to stretch my legs and the sign said the door was free to walk through. Two hours later, I was still wandering rows of glass cases, staring...
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This Quirky Tulsa House Looks Like It Melted Out Of A Storybook And Hides A Hand-Built Speakeasy
You have probably driven past a building so strange that you slowed down, stared, and promised yourself you would stop someday. In Oklahoma, one of those odd little places turns...
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Shut Off Your Engine At This Oklahoma Ghost Town And All You’ll Hear Is The Wind
I only meant to take a short detour, the kind you forget by suppertime. Instead, I ended up parked on a quiet country road in western Oklahoma with the engine off, the windows...
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This Veteran-Owned Oklahoma Family Farm Delivers Grass-Fed Beef And Pastured Pork Right To Your Door
I figured the best pork chop I would eat this year would come from a diner counter, not a cooler on my own front porch in Oklahoma. Then a small family farm with no storefront,...
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A Tiny Oklahoma Town Museum Holds Thousands Of Fossils, Arrowheads And Oddities And Charges Nothing To Enter
You pull off a quiet two-lane road in southeastern Oklahoma expecting maybe a dusty room and a few old photos. Instead, a towering dinosaur stares back at you, and drawers of arrowheads...
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This Oklahoma Garden Lets You Feed Koi For Quarters And Wander Eight Acres Of Blooms
I pulled off the road expecting a quick stretch of the legs and maybe a few flowers. Instead, I found winding paths, bridges over koi-filled water, and a quiet so deep I forgot...
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This Small Oklahoma Restaurant Smothers A Green Chili Burrito Worth The Drive Across The State
You pull off a quiet main street expecting a quick lunch, and a plate of green chile somehow rearranges your whole afternoon. That is the kind of surprise Oklahoma still hands...
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The Cherokee Nation Tells Its Own History Inside The 1869 Capitol Building In Oklahoma
I almost drove right past it, a stately old brick building sitting under shade trees like it had nothing to prove. Then I stepped inside and spent the next two hours completely...
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Over 150 Shops Fill This Oklahoma City Antique Mall Where A Whole Saturday Disappears
The building did not look like much from the parking lot, and I almost kept driving to find lunch instead. One step inside changed my whole afternoon, because the rooms just kept...
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This Oklahoma Café Ladles Gravy Over Biscuits At Any Hour And The Pancakes Overhang The Plate
I almost drove right past it. A small building in the lake country of eastern Oklahoma, a name that made me laugh out loud, and a parking lot already busy at seven in the morning.
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This Oklahoma Route 66 Diner Serves Hundreds Of Sodas Under A 66-Foot Bottle
I only pulled over because the gas light blinked on somewhere in central Oklahoma, and I figured I would grab a snack and keep rolling. An hour later I was still inside, holding...
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An Entire Oklahoma Town Lies Under Lake Altus And Surfaces Whenever The Water Drops
I pulled over in southwestern Oklahoma expecting nothing more than a quick stretch and a look at some water. Instead, I found myself squinting at a row of old bricks poking out...
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This Oklahoma Dairy Farm Sells Fresh Cheese Curds And Raw Milk Straight From Its Own Shop
Some of the best food in Oklahoma never gets a sign bigger than a mailbox. Out on a gravel-shouldered country road northeast of Tulsa sits a small farm building where the milk...
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6 Oklahoma Restaurants Serving Lumpia, Pancit Or Adobo Plates Made The Way Families Make Them
Some of the best meals in Oklahoma come from buildings you would drive past twice without blinking. Behind a few plain storefronts and strip-mall doors, somebody's family recipe...
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This Oklahoma Sanctuary Lets You Meet And Feed Its Rescued Farm Animals On A Private Tour
Some of the best afternoons in Oklahoma start on a gravel road you almost drove past. I expected a quiet pasture and a few friendly goats, and instead I found a place where every...
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Drivers Still Slow Down For This Narrow Iron Bridge Left Over From Oklahoma’s Route 66 Days
Some Oklahoma landmarks announce themselves with billboards. This one just sits there, rusting quietly at the edge of a lake, waiting for you to notice that the road narrows and...
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This Claremore, Oklahoma Sheep Farm Hands You Raw Wool To Card And Spin Into Yarn
Somewhere off a two-lane road in northeast Oklahoma, there's a red barn where a stranger will put a handful of freshly shorn wool in your palm and show you how to turn it into...
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Twenty Thousand Red Cedars Stand Six Feet Apart Inside This Strange Oklahoma Forest Near Lawton
Some Oklahoma places give up their secrets from the parking lot, and then there are the ones that make you walk a hundred yards before your brain catches up. I pulled off a two-lane...
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Booths Of 1950s Furniture And Old Signs Sprawl Across This Enormous Oklahoma Vintage Store
Some Oklahoma buildings look like nothing from the parking lot, and then you walk in and lose track of two hours. That happened to me at a warehouse-sized shop off a busy expressway,...
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This Oklahoma Scoop Shop Makes Every Flavor In Small Batches And Serves Six In One Flight
Some of the best food in Oklahoma hides behind a plain storefront on a busy street, and you drive past it a hundred times before someone finally drags you inside. That was the...
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Rows Of Lavender Turn This Oklahoma Farm Into Something Closer To Provence Than Prairie
You expect red dirt, cattle fence, and a whole lot of sky when you drive the back roads south of Tulsa in Oklahoma. What you don't expect is to crest a ridge and catch the smell...
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Hot Yeast Rolls And Garlic Dressing Come Before The Steak At This Old Oklahoma Roadhouse
Some of the best meals in Oklahoma hide behind plain brick and a neon sign that has been buzzing for longer than most of us have been driving. I walked into one such place expecting...
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An Afternoon At This Tulsa Glass Studio Ends With A Hand-Blown Ornament You Made Yourself
There is a low brick building tucked inside an Oklahoma city park where the air hums with furnaces and the floor is scattered with tiny flecks of colored glass. From the parking...
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These Oklahoma Floating Cabins Let You Step Off The Porch Straight Into The Lake
I thought I knew what a lake cabin meant until I stood on a deck in southern Oklahoma and realized the water was directly beneath my feet, not somewhere down a hill. There was...
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Outside Sallisaw, Oklahoma, This Tin-Roofed Roadside Shack Smokes Hickory Ribs And Thick-Cut Bologna Sandwiches
Some of the best food in Oklahoma hides behind screen doors and gravel parking lots, and you usually smell it before you see it. I had my window down on a two-lane road when the...
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This Back-Road Oklahoma Kitchen Grills Pound-Sized Burgers And Sends You Out With Cobbler And Ice Cream
Some of the best meals in Oklahoma come from buildings that look like a strong wind could rearrange them. I pulled up to one on a two-lane road in the Wichita Mountains, saw the...
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Inside This Oklahoma Museum All 39 Tribal Nations Share Their Own Words, Art And History
You can drive past it on I-40 in Oklahoma and mistake the earthen mound for a landscaping choice, which is exactly what makes the first walk inside so surprising. What looks like...
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At This Oklahoma Sanctuary A Rescued Wolf Will Roll Over For Belly Rubs From Strangers
Some of the best days in Oklahoma start on a gravel road with no billboard telling you what's ahead. I pictured a fence line, a few pens, maybe a goat or two, and then a wolf flopped...
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