My birthday weekend get-away

My birthday isn’t until Thursday but David and I did our usual “weekend at the Skirvin” celebration this past weekend. We went up Friday evening after David got off work, stopping in Norman for dinner at Panera Bread so we could also buy cherry danish pastries to take with us. Because…CHERRY DANISH PASTRY! 

After we checked in to the hotel, we changed clothes and went to our favorite OKC hangout – the Red Piano Lounge in the Skirvin. We know most of the bartenders there and always have a good time chatting with them and people-watching. Mostly, we just tried to relax and decompress from the busy weeks we’ve both had recently. 

We generally don’t make any plans in advance when we take these little get-aways but this time I had a couple of things in mind. If you follow me on Facebook you probably know that David and I love to stargaze. A few weeks ago it occurred to me that there is a small planetarium at the OKC Science Museum. After lunch at The Garage Burgers and Beer (quite tasty, by the way) we headed to the museum. The planetarium is included in the general admission to the museum and since we had about a 40 minute wait until the next show we decided to walk around and check out the museum. It’s a cool, hands-on place. We had taken our kids a few times but it’s been YEARS since we’d been there. Yeah, it’s kind of for kids but we still had fun. 

After the show we spent another 45 minutes or so checking out the rest of the museum. We especially enjoyed the train and space exhibits. David has always loved model trains and I love riding on real ones. I think we need to plan another train trip soon. 

We stopped at a Sonic for a Butterfinger Blast (David) and root beer float (me) then headed back to the hotel. We relaxed a bit then got dressed up for dinner. One of the other things I wanted to do was to eat dinner by water. I’ve really been craving the ocean but since a trip to the coast isn’t in our near future I figured the next best thing would be a large lake. I had read excellent reviews for Redrock Canyon Grill on Hefner Lake. We called for reservations but they don’t take them. It was after 8 p.m. so we figured it probably wouldn’t be that long a wait. We were wrong. They told us it would be a 70 minute wait! Ordinarily we would have gone somewhere else but it was a gorgeous night, we weren’t very hungry yet (thanks to the late afternoon stop at Sonic) and the restaurant has an outdoor patio with a bar. They also had live music. 

We spent a very contented hour listening to music, sipping our drinks and admiring this view:

It was totally worth the wait. I had the rotisserie chicken, glazed carrots and the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever had. This may very well be my favorite restaurant in OKC now. 

Back at the hotel, we settled in at the bar which was pretty empty for a Saturday night. However, that didn’t last long. There were four weddings that night and the place filled up quickly with a crowd that provided good people watching, to say the least. Over the course of the evening, there were at least seven glasses broken. The all-female team of bartenders and servers kicked it into high gear and it was like poetry in motion. Or, as I said to David, it was like watching a ballet behind the bar and a 4th grade playground on the other side. Truly entertaining. 

We never seem to get up in time for breakfast at the hotel but this time we did. Well, it helped that they serve breakfast until 11 on Sundays. We had just about finished eating when a man with several guitars set up his gear right next to our table. Turns out this was Edgar Cruz, an amazing guitarist. (You can read more about him on my Well-Groomed Hippie blog.) We stayed and listened to a few songs and had a short chat with him about getting him a show here in Ada. 

When we bought our tickets we found out that there would be a tour starting in about an hour. David wisely suggested we go look at the exhibit ourselves first which turned out to be an excellent plan. There must have been 100 people in the tour and it would have been impossible to get a good look at everything while in that crowd. The tour was absolutely fascinating and the exhibit items were stunning. Now I’m on the lookout for documentaries on the Romanov family and Fabergé. 

We stopped in Norman on our way home so I could pick up some groceries at Natural Grocers. We got home late afternoon, ate an early dinner, unpacked and watched the final episode of Astronaut Wives Club. Oh, how sad I am that the show has ended! We then tried to work in a little stargazing before bed. It wasn’t exactly cloudy but the moon was bright and there was so much humidity that we couldn’t see many stars. After a few minutes of looking at pretty much nothing we decided to call it a night. We were both yawning by that time and David had to be up by 5:45 a.m. Today it was back to the rat race but oh, what a nice weekend we had!