I’ve spent the weekend in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, for a college friend’s wedding. I’ve been to Bartlesville before, in 2010, for the 4th of July. It had been two years since I got laid off, two years searching for permanent employment while also freelancing, and I needed a change of scenery. I got into my head that traveling Route 66 for a bit would be cool. It also ran through parts of the Midwest where I had friends from college that I hadn’t seen since college, and something you just need to be around those college friends. So I hit the road, made my way to Columbia, Missouri, down to Wichita, Kansas and then Bartlesville. Talk about a slice of Americana!
Think that started my travel blogging obsession.
When you think of quaint small towns, or see small American towns in movies, that is exactly what Bartlesville looks like. I heard, too, that a movie with George Clooney is being shot there but not this weekend. Figures. Last weekend was a bi-week for the Bears, so no football. And of course there would be no movie filming the weekend I’m in Bartlesville. Oh well. So it’s the quintessential small town America. Run by Connaco Phillips, the town’s, and perhaps the county’s, biggest employer. Think it’s mostly administrative but they do have quite the building complex in the center of town.
Bartlesville also has a Frank Lloyd Wright designed building, made more interesting by its odd angles. I think it’s completely made up of right angles at odd angles, if that makes any sense. The story goes he had a big skyscraper in mind, but Bartlesville didn’t want a skyscraper, so Wright scaled it down by 1/3, and scaled everything down by 1/3. You cannot fit more than 3 people in the elevator. Think of a trapezoid, cut down the middle. That’s the size of the elevator. There’s a really cool bar in the building though, called the Copper Bar. Small space, to be sure, but has a nice atmosphere.
Anyway. I forgot how flat Oklahoma is. You can see a storm brewing thousands of miles away. And it’s warm! It was 80 degrees for the wedding. 80! In October!
It strikes me how vast America is, and how the culture changes as you traverse it. Bartlesville is close to Kansas, and close to Arkansas, so it has some if the tendencies from those states. There is little in the way, and little to do yet people seem to gravitate to the area. The pace is slow. I thought Vancouver was slow! Or just more laid back. Bartlesville, indeed Oklahoma, is slow, as if time were infinite and you’ll get there when you get there. And it was interesting to catchup with friends of mine from college who now live elsewhere in the country.
Not quite sure what to make of it all, but I do bring a more Canadian perspective to conversations now, it seems.