My Weekend!

On Friday I took my final for my first summer class! Yeah, I feel so relieved to be done with that class! I ended up with a "B" in the class and I really have no idea how that happened. I was just hoping for a "C." Now, I only have two more classes this summer and I am done with college!! Yeah, I just wish it was right now! I went to one of my classes today and I believe that it was the most boring 3 hours of my life!!! It is going to be a REALLY hard next month!

Ok, so I had a great weekend. Probably the best weekend that I have had in Oklahoma in a really long time! A few months ago, Josh and I were watching tv with my sister Shawnee and her now finance, James. We were watching the food network show about small diners and there was one in Oklahoma that was on the show! We were all like "we have to go there." So, we have been planning to go for several months, but it kept getting postponed either from our wedding stuff or Shawnee and James' wedding planning. This weekend we finally made it though! The diner is called Clanton's and it is in Vinita, Oklahoma! Vinita is in northeast Oklahoma between Tulsa and Joplin. It's part of the old Route 66 and actually claim to be the oldest family run cafe on the historic Route 66. The population of Vinita is about 6500, so it's a pretty small town and it is actually the second oldest town in Oklahoma! So, there really isn't a whole lot to do in Vinita. Here are the things that they spotlight on the side of the turnpike for you to see when in Vinita. Ok, so enough of boring facts about Vinita.

We left early Saturday morning. We actually took the turnpike on the way up there. We missed our exit and had to drive about 20 minutes out of the way. During this 20 minutes, James and I (Josh was sleeping as usual) had to listen to Shawnee crying and whining about how hungry she was and that she couldn't believe James could miss the exit, etc. I was really annoyed with her at this point. Luckily, I was able to keep my cool though. Once we got all turned around and made into Vinita, we went straight to Clanton's. They are known for their calf fries, so James and Josh made me and Shawnee try some. Here are some pictures of us eating them:

After trying the calf fries, we all got real food. It was really pretty good. We all got country fried steak. For my sides, I got a salad, baked potato, green beans and a roll. All of this yummy food for only $6.50! We got dessert too, which was awesome. Really, the food was GREAT, especially for diner food. Here are some pictures that we took outside of the now famous Clanton's diner. (Yes, we realized that we were matching before we left the house, but neither of us really felt like changing)

Yeah for sisterly love!

After leaving Clanton's, we drove around the town of Vinita for a little while and visited an antique shop that was really pretty cool. Driving through Vinita didn't take very long, but it was still a pretty cool town. I thought their city hall looked way cool, so I took a picture of it!

On the way back from Vinita, we took Route 66. It was a way fun trip. We stopped several times. The first stop we made was to one of the world's largest McDonald's. It used to be the largest with some 29,000 square feet, but I think they have since built a bigger one. This McDonald's used to be called the Glass House. It is an archway over the interstate and is pretty cool. We stopped and got some ice cream and just walked around.

(Somehow I was able to take this picture with basically no cars underneath, not sure how I got so lucky!)

They had a really cool statue of Will Rogers.

For some odd reason, Shawnee felt like she had to do this pose like every time I took a picture:

This is a view from inside the McDonald's:

Ok, we're almost done...sort of...anyways....Our next stop was at a flea market that was just one the side of the road that had really cool statues outside that made us want to stop. This was the fun part of the trip...we could stop whenever we wanted. We were in no hurry to get anywhere and when we wanted to stop, we did. It was like a mini-vacation in Oklahoma. We walked around the flea market and talked to the owner. It was pretty fun. They had some neat and some not-so-neat things there. Here are some pictures we took. (sorry for the picture overload in this post.) (This was just an old sign that they had laying on the side of the building. I thought it looked pretty cool.)

(Me and the donkey)

(Shawnee and the Donkey)

(James and the Statute of Liberty
We all really wanted this, but none of us had the
ridiculous amount of money they wanted for it.)

The next place we stopped was completely random. We just saw it and had Shawnee jump out. Her middle name is Starr, so we had to take a picture. I'm not even sure what kind of office this was, but it had Shawnee's name it.

(Shawnee and her weird pose again)

Ok, we are almost there. Our last stop on the famous Route 66 was in Catoosa, Oklahoma! This was a planned stop. We had a hard time finding because the directions were a little off and they told us to go to a dead end then to turn around. How weird is that? Since when have you ever been told to go to a dead end just to turn around? Anyways, the last stop was at a giant blue whale. I guess the story goes that a man made this for is wife as an anniversary present. It was way cool. I wish we could have gone swimming in it, but it looks like no one has for years!

(Yeah, Oklahomans can't spell!)

(All four of us on top of the whale)
We had such a fun day! One of my favorite times in Oklahoma! Thanks to Shawnee and James for the great day! We really just had a ton of fun, even in the car! This is a trip that we would recommend to anyone! Thanks again!

Ok, so sorry about the VERY long post and the picture overload, but I couldn't help myself. We had tons of fun and just a great weekend! On Sunday, our primary kids were even really good to end the weekend an a great note! What is your favorite, random trips that you have taken?