With the heat being what it is, I had to continue being creative with what I did during the day, unless I wanted to hide out in the air conditioned hotel room with the dogs. But there’s no shortage of exploring to do in Tulsa, so the dogs and I had a wonderful day.
One of our first stops was Big Baby Rolls and Donuts. They were new since my last visit to Tulsa and had vegan donuts, including my favorite- bavarian cream! The coffee was only ok, but the donuts were AMAZING. I shared a couple of cake donuts with the dogs, but the Bavarian Cream was all mine.
After I was fueled up, I drove just a short jaunt down the road to Generations Antique Mall. They very kindly let the dogs come in with me. The dogs checked out all the merchandise, leading me to furniture they thought smelled especially interesting. I found a few books at a both I seem to find books I want on every visit to Tulsa, and a couple of other odds and ends.
Afterwards, I went down the road just a few more blocks to Next Generations Antique Mall where the dogs were welcomed once again. Every few minutes someone would stop to love on the dogs, which they adored. I was making out like a bandit, hauling finds to deposit at the counter before going back to my rummaging. $1 books will be the death of me. I just can’t NOT grab every one that looks interesting, especially when there are zombie books. Don’t ask me why there are zombie books at the antique mall, but there were and I bought them all. I also scored a couple of flocked animals to add to my collection of fuzzy forest wildlife figurines.
As I was shopping, an older gentleman entered the store and was greeted by name by the proprietor and offered a chair by the counter. The dogs loved him, sitting between his feet, leaning against his legs and soaking up all the love while he rubbed their ears and told me about all the dogs he’d had in his life, going back to the shepherd he brought back from ‘Nam with him in ’67. He told me about living in Tulsa all these years and how he knew Frank Lloyd Wright when Wright was building his brother-in-law’s Tulsa home, about how he’d met Walt Disney and other more local celebrities over the years. He told me of great places to explore out in California and good places to go nearby. And he explained that he visited the antique mall on this day every week when his wife goes out with her friend. He thanked me for letting him pet my dogs, said it was very nice to meet them, and seemingly as an afterthought, said it was nice to meet me as well. That was just fine…I get dog people.
When I left the antique mall, I headed to pretty little neighborhood park he told me about. It was too hot for my old dogs to go play and run, but I parked where they could watch the geese and ducks. The dogs were so happy with this arrangement that I stayed there for an hour, browsing on my phone and reading my book.
After the dogs stopped being entertained by the birds and looked to be more interested in napping instead, I took them shopping again, this time at reStore Rack where, when I asked if the dogs could come in, they replied with “Well, we’d rather them be in here than out in the heat!”, and then they lined the bottom of the shopping cart with paper bags so the dogs could sit comfortably on the wire. They were so kind and sweet and everyone I talked to there made me smile.
I ended the day with dropping the dogs off at Natasha’s so they could hang out with her dog while we went out to dinner at our favorite local restaurant The Local Bison https://www.thelocalbison.com/ . If you’re ever in Tulsa, The Local Bison is a MUST visit restaurant. I’m vegan and Natasha hates nearly all vegetables and we both are always in love with our meals there. Its locally owned by some truly wonderful people.
And I’ll just end with a picture of my beautiful bestie being beautiful:
