DeLappenings: Our Annual Oklahoma Bison Day!

Hellooooooo, peeps, from the flip side of a wonderful, adventuresome, cultural, scrumptious, Oklahoman, HOT (HOT, HOT) summer day!

And by HOT, I mean that we’ve been mildly spoiled (at least in SA) this summer with tolerable temperatures and a lot of afternoon rainstorms. So this is the first week the heat index has really SOARED—both back home and here on our grandparent visit—and it’s absolutely slaying us.

As in, we’ve officially made it to the lotion-just-drips-off-your-face, you’re-soaked-the-minute-you-walk-out-the-door, you-could-fry-an-egg-on-the-asphalt, can-I-just-chop-all-my-hair-off-to-feel-the-breeze-on-my-neck kind of weather.

Its…BRUTAL.

But we’re Oklahomans and Texans here, so a little heat never kept us from some fun (though it does ramp up our whining, ha—don’t let all the smiling pictures fool you; we’re wilting inside whilst simultaneously sweating our body weight).

If you can believe it, this is now our third annual trip (during our late-July grandparent visit) to the beauty of Osage County to connect with the Oklahoman side of our lives, enjoy the beautiful prairie land along the drive, and hopefully pass along just a tiny bit of Native American awareness to my Texan babies.

Our first year, as novices, we took the admirable but difficult (and hilariously unsuccessful path) of trying to track some bison:

http://delappenings.blogspot.com/2019/07/tuesday-do-day-pawhuska.html?m=1

Then wised up the next year when we realized we could make it a whole lot easier on ourselves—and get a massive dose of culture by switching locations:

http://delappenings.blogspot.com/2020/07/in-heart-of-oklahoma.html?m=1

I adore how much my kiddos were looking forward to this day in its entirety, and I hope this can be a tradition for many years to come.

Here we are in the morning, before starting our journey, when we were only sweating about 10% (you know, from the oppressive walk from the garage to the car, ha).

And ever picture thereafter, you can pretty much assume the sweat has increased by 5%, bare minimum. Until the end of these pics, when we’re sweating at a 1,000% level.

This year, we switched up our “picnic” locate to a site closer to the museum building, since they’ve completed a giant, new playground and pavilion area that the kiddos—particularly Chicklet and Little Man—dug, BIG TIME.

Now. At this point, by the time we finished eating and traversing the parking lot twice to put away our food supplies and then walk up the hill to the museum, we were nothing but puddles of heat exhaustion…

Chicklet literally sprawled out flat on the cool linoleum, just to cool off. And then pretended she couldn’t walk for a few minutes, ha.

But, man, was it blissfully cold in the museum—and the kiddos dug the dim lighting, for sure. And I’m actually so proud of how curious and attentive they’ve been, both times we’ve visited.

Little Man even declared “the paintings” one of the best parts of his day. And this one, in particular, is a highlight for me:

I just think the detailed musculature of the painting is incredible. And this pic doesn’t even do it justice…

I really am so grateful that my babies enjoy this day-trip of ours each year and express happiness to be there. It’s such a good thing.

Even when it’s 108 degrees with the heat index. :(

At least we’d cooked down just enough to manage a few pics (and lots more sweating) on our way out, tehe.

Now.

The final leg of this adventure day of ours always involves driving on to Pawhuska for some PW treats. It’s absolutely the best to buy an obscene number of desserts and just go nuts.

This was just one of our boxes, tehe…