Tulsa (Oct. 27)
Our trip continued on Route 44 through the Ozarks. The first part of the drive was very pretty, with rolling mountains and lots of limestone rock cuts. This part of the country is riddled with limestone caverns, including the caverns used by Disney to film Tom Sawyer (for those of us old enough to remembr the scene of Tom and Becky lost in the cave with the wall of flowstone). Since our objective is now to get to Arizona in time for Thanksgiving, we did not stop.
Our campground just east of Tulsa OK, is at the Cherokee Will Rogers Down Casino and Racetrack. My initial dismay at being so far (2o miles) from Tulsa has been replaced by enthusiasm, as there are many advantages to being at a casino and racetrack.
Will Rogers was a famous American comedian, political satirist, show cowboy and journalist who died in 1935. He must have been famous in Canada, too, because I heard about him from my father, who would only have been 13 years old at the time of his death. What I did not know was that he was part Cherokee Indian. He grew up near Tulsa and there are many schools, parks and buildings here named after him.
We decided to visit the casino for dinner. It has a relatively small casino floor with various gambling machines. There is a larger bar and restaurant, and an even larger section that appeared to be closed for the evening, for betting on the horse races – both local and elsewhere. As the evening wore on, the restaurant filled up. Most of the men sported jeans, black cowboy hats and western boots. The women were a more mixed bunch. At 8:00, a country and western band started to play, and instantly the dance floor was filled with couples. Many of these folks were considerably older than us, but they were certainly in good dancing form. After a while we decided to dance too. We seriously need some lessons, but we had fun.
By the time we left, the place was really getting lively. By our bedtime, the parking lot was quite full. However, we found that Friday is THE night for dancing. Although there was also a band on Saturday evening, the crowd was much smaller.
We parked facing the race track, and so we had ringside seats for the Saturday and Sunday races. The races start at noon, but in the morning the horses were being exercised on the track. Later in the morning we watched as the track itself was groomed by tractor and water truck. 
It was really fascinating and reminded me of how we used to entertain ourselves in Montreal by watching the precision snow-plowing operations. This last item going onto the track is the starting gate.
All I know about horse-racing I learned from the crime novels by Dick Francis. In fact, I just finished one, called “Bolt”. So I had the basics, but had never actually observed an racing.
At this time of year, the quarter horses are being raced. As we learned in State College, quarter horses are bred for quarter mile races. Most of the races on we observed were 350 yards to 440 yards, although there was at least one longer race.
The horses 
are escorted to the gate by some type of groom, with the jockey riding high in the stirrups. 
It was quite interesting to watch the jockeys and their escorts line up at the starting line. We had an excellent view of the horses as they left the gate and could hear and feel the thunderous pounding of their hooves. It is quite exciting to watch.
Between football and horse racing, we had little reason to leave the RV on Saturday.
The past couple of days with Rumple have been tough. He is now getting 3 pills morning and night. To get him to swallow them, I have been sticking them in little balls of canned dog food. However, for the past couple of days he has rejected the canned food – with or without the pills. Last evening I wrapped the pills in butter and some of our left-over meat from our dinner. He still was not enthusiastic about swallowing them. And an hour later he threw everything up. This is very problematic. He has arthritis, allergies and a heart condition. Without his meds, he is going to be miserable.
So, I took a trip to the supermarket and got a variety of things that dogs are supposed to like, to try to hide the pills. So far, he has eaten the pills hidden in cooked chicken liver and in cream cheese. So far, so good.
Sunday we went into Tulsa for some sightseeing and bicycling. Tulsa looks pretty, but we did not really spend any time downtown.
We started by visiting the Woody Guthrie Museum. We learned a lot about the Dustbowl and also about Guthrie’s life and work. It turns out that a lot of songs that I thought were American folk songs were written by Guthrie. Besides being a songwriter, singer and political activist, he was also an accomplished artist, cartoonist and writer.
Oklahoma is heavily Republican, so it was quite interesting to see some very modern political commentary in the display. There was a film clip, running continuously, of a group of women in “Pussy hats” singing “This Land is Your Land” at the Women’s March. And there was an article by Guthrie, who in the 1940s lived in NYC in a building owned by Trump’s father, in which he denounced Mr. Trump’s racism.
The museum also had a special exhibit on the work of John Denver.
Across the road from the museum is Guthrie Green, a small park. There is a Sunday afternoon music series, and today there was also a bit of “Trick or Treat”ing for the kids. So after we ate we returned to the Greens to sit in the sun, listen to music and watch the kids in costume.
The Arkansas River runs through Tulsa. Both sides of the river have (separate) bicycle and walking paths, and there are several bicycle and walking bridges. In theory the path forms a loop, but due to construction this is not currently available.
We parked on the west side of the river, biked along the shore, across a bridge, and then down the other shore. We then came back the same way across the river, and went the other way along the bank. We ended up at a spillway the width of the river. Below the spillway were lots and lots of waterfowl including many herons, ducks and – to our astonishment – dozens of large white pelicans.
We decided to return to the casino for dinner. One thing about staying at a small casino – cheap eats. We had a very good pot roast dinner for less than $7 each.