The Round Barn

 The village of Arcadia OK, along Historic Route 66, was home to a second interesting roadside attraction:  the Round Barn. (The other was POPs, featured in the last blog post.)

It was built by local farmer William Harrison Odor in 1898 using native bur oak boards soaked while green and forced into the curves needed for the walls and roof rafters. Local red Permian rock was used for the foundation. The barn housed hay, grain and livestock.

the black arrow shows Hwy. 66

The Arcadia Round Barn is 60 feet (18 meters) in diameter and 43 feet (13 meters) tall. The barn was built in a round shape because Odor thought tornados would go around the building rather than through. 

The volunteer in the first/lower level of the barn shared the round shape was also to keep evil spirits away. 

Three of Odors workers thought the loft would make a great dance floor and offered to pay the difference in price of replacing the planned rough plank flooring with smooth hardwood flooring, IF they could hold three dances.

The loft can still be rented today for dances, but no alcohol can be consumed in the barn.

In April of 1946, ownership of the barn passed to Frank and Katie Vrana. For the next 30 years, Vrana used the barn to store hay and as a work place. A large door cut into the north-east side of the barn weakened the structure and high winds from a storm caused the barn to lean. The barn was rapidly decaying and a target for arsonists and vandals when it was placed on the Historic Register of Historic Places in 1977.

basket weave design of the roof

Luke Robison, a retired builder and carpenter, became aware of the barn’s plight and formed The Arcadia Historical and Preservation Society with his wife Anna and Beverly White. On May 27, 1988 Frank Vrana's descendants donated the barn to the Society.

Robison had just begun to shore up the structure a few days before when, on June 29, 1988 at 12:09 pm, the decaying roof of the barn “just kind of sighed and fell in, like a soufflé,” according to one witness. The Society remained undeterred, determined to proceed with the restoration. Work began in 1989 and was officially dedicated April 1992.

There are numerous old pieces of farm equipment on site. Hubby remembers neighbors using a similar potato planter.

an out house

Yep. Everyone had one. (remember to click on the photo to get a larger view.) I wonder if it is used during the dances as there is no bathroom in the barn. 

We were led to believe we could purchase Round Barn Root Beer at the barn, but they only sold bottled water. That is why we had to go back to Pops (visit #3) and then found out they did not have any bottled Round Barn Root Beer in stock!

 

Pops

 We drove in and parked in the parking lot because we were geocaching. But we could not find the answers we needed to get credit for our geocaching find, so I went inside to ask an employee for some help. Going inside was like going down the rabbit hole. 

One might do a double take at the price of their fuel and unless your tank is down to fumes, fuel can be purchased for 90¢ a gallon less just 10 miles down the road.

The unique architecture and size of the building might have a passerby wondering the reason Pops is on the outskirts of a 'little podunk community' near a much larger metro community.

But it is the iconic soda bottle or bottle of pop (if you are from South Dakota) located on the premises that has travelers from all over the US stopping for a photo and just maybe, like me, entering the building to check it out.

Pops is along Route 66, the Mother Road. Route 66 was established November 11, 1926 and will celebrate its 100th birthday in 2026. Running from Chicago IL to Santa Monica CA, it was originally 2448 miles long. It was removed from the US Highway System in 1985 when stretches of Interstate highway replaced sections of the original Route 66. A strong sense of nostalgia has had a substantial impact in bringing the old Route 66 back to life. While it is no longer a major destination route, it still draws thousands of tourists to its destination points each year. The stretches that are left have been getting recognition because of the upcoming anniversary and because of geocaching. That is why we stopped...three times! 

Usually, Route 66 stops for geocaching are at historical sites along the road, often original buildings or the remains of the original buildings. Pops was established in 2007 so it was not there in the early years. 

“Basically there was a small gas station that sat here for years and years; just your standard little rural gas station. The owners retired and sold the property. Pops Founder Aubrey McClendon bought the property and seeing as it was on the historic highway felt the store should capture some Route 66 nostalgia. For McClendon, that nostalgia included memories of road tripping as a kid and the different types of soda he could get as a kid in different parts of the country,” said Marty Doepke, vice president of the company.

McClendon hired acclaimed architect Rand Elliott, the same architect that worked on the Route 66 Museum—located a couple hours from the c-store—to design and expand the old c-store into a 5,000-square-foot soda ranch. Elliott created an ultra-modern design with a 1950s-style soda counter and all glass shelving to hold the glass soda bottles. ~ CStoreDecisions, April 2018

Soda Ranch

The north and south walls of the building are all windows lined with glass shelves displaying glass bottles of colored sodas from all over the world. In fact, 700 kinds of soda. 

Fact #5: How long does it take to clean all those shelves?

If you struggle to keep your shelves dusted at home, just imagine the daunting task facing POPS staff. With dozens of glass shelves lining the walls all around the building and hundreds of bottles of soda artistically arranged on those shelves, keeping them clean is a year-round job. But just how long does it take to clean the shelves at POPS?

“Roughly two weeks.,” Marty says. “Restaurant staff are assigned two shelves to clean each shift, excluding weekends. It’s all monitored on our shelf chart. Once the chart is filled, we start over again.” ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

blue carbonated drink

Fact #3: The Weirdest Sodas

If you’ve ever browsed the shelves at POPS, you might have noticed bacon-flavored or peanut butter-flavored sodas. Interested in knowing which one Marty would consider to be the weirdest? “There are too many in the running for most unusual,” he explains. “But some of the top contenders would be Beefdrinker’s Teriyaki Beef Jerky Soda or Lesters Fixins’ Ranch Dressing Soda. We also feature sodas with some pretty unusual names, including Avery’s Kitty Piddle or Pimple Pop.  There are some unusual fruit sodas, too, including Sioux City Prickly Pear and Hot Lips Marionberry.”

And POPS sodas truly come from all over the world. “In terms of soda that has traveled the farthest distance, we feature Bundaberg sodas from Australia,” Marty adds.  POPS features sodas from 13 different countries, including Austria, Italy, England, El Salvador, Brazil, Lebanon, Canada, Jamaica and Mexico. ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

McClendon called his father ‘Pops.’ “His father Joe was a soda jerk when he was a kid and Aubrey called his dad, Pops, and that really contributed to the name,” Doepke said. That and the plethora of soda pop options.

“When we opened the doors we had 400 different types of bottled pop, all packaged in glass bottles from all over the U.S. and around the world. We quickly saw the popularity of what we had to offer and went from 400 to 500 types of pop very quickly,” he said. ~ CStoreDecisions, April 2018

Pops carries 80 different root beers and is the only place where Round Barn Root Beer can be purchased, That is related to the next blog post.

The top two best selling pop flavors haven’t changed since Pops first opened its doors. Sugar-cane-based Dr Pepper, which comes in an eight-ounce glass bottle, has been the best selling soda flavor since day one. The No. 2 best selling pop flavor has always been Round Barn Root Beer, which is bottled locally. “It gives a nod to another Route 66 icon, which happens to be about a quarter mile across the street from us. The Round Barn is in Arcadia itself,” Doepke said.

It’s no secret that carbonated soft drink sales have declined at convenience stores as customers seek more health-conscious alternatives. Many beverage manufacturers and c-stores have responded with craft sodas featuring more natural ingredients.

The effervescent retailer has seen a similar trend. “Most of our soda does feature cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup. The stigma of the high fructose corn syrup has been a negative on soda sales over the years,” Doepke said. “As a result, we’ve seen the mass-produced brands suffer in sales over the last few years. Meanwhile, we’ve seen a surge in craft soda sales. It’s amazing to see how many brands are out there and most of them do include cane sugar as the sugar substitute, or Stevia in some of the more natural brands.” ~ CStoreDecisons, April 2018

At a height of 66 feet (get it? 66?) the massive Pops Soda Bottle was considered to be the tallest soda bottle in the world, weighing in at over four tons. It was constructed by WW Steel in Oklahoma City at their fabrication plant there. Once completed, it was delivered in one piece and took an entire day to move to its new home. Its red rock and steel trusses are covered in hundreds of multi-colored LED lights that can be seen from miles away at night. ~ Wander Wisdom, Eric Strandridge; May 11, 2022

So why did we stop three times???

This ultramodern gas station showcases thousands of colorful soda pop bottles. In addition, POPS includes a popular restaurant featuring a traditional soda fountain, mouth-watering burgers and hand-dipped milk shakes that serves approximately 475,000 people each year. ~ 5 Things You Never Knew About Pops by Brooke Barnett

We enjoyed classic cheese burgers and fries and Round Barn Root Beer for lunch. (We were in the area geocaching and we needed to eat.) And I browsed the gift shop for the second time and found another something I had to buy.

The third stop was because we wanted to buy some bottles of their best selling, locally brewed root beer after we had completed the reason for heading back to Arcadia today. But alas, it could only be purchased as fountain drinks as they were all out of the bottled Round Barn Root Beer.

Fifty-three geocaches hidden mostly in cedar trees and on fence posts are now found and signed with our geocachings handles. I will say OK has some fun geo-arts. We completed the I See Dead People one this spring. Curt has some more puzzles solved, but with snow and much colder temps in the forecast (it was 58º today), we will continue to head west and south. 

I See Dead People in Oklahoma

 We have spent two night near Oklahoma City on our northward journey. The reason was to complete another GeoArt. We had one in mind, but an email from some geocaching friends (Thanks Ruth & Chuck) recommended a different set of geocaches to solve and find. The GeoArt is called ISDP or I See Dead People.

We worked on finding the caches Thursday afternoon when we arrived in the area and completed it Friday at noon. Nice to have another one in our collection.

We had a half day to explore something else in the OK City area and chose the community of El Reno, a community along the Historic Route 66.

one of several buildings in the museum area

this is the FIRST Red Cross hut built in the US

erected in 1917 and rebuilt in 1975

served 50,000 troops in WWI

one of several historic building in El Reno

a mural showing the history of El Reno

in need of some TLC

more beautiful buildings along a dying Main Street

pad locks on the OK Route 66 sign

photo op location

When in the south...have BBQ. This was the third BBQ place we tried and the very best. If in El Reno, we highly recommend it.

another Historic Route 66 completed

there are a total of 90 Adventure Labs on the 2000 miles

from Chicago to Santa Monica

then we stopped in Yukon for this Adventure Lab

in the Yukon Cemetery

This was one of the most fun geocaches we found on this trip; a fake fire hydrant near a business in a location where a fire hydrant would not ordinarily be placed. 

We leave Oklahoma Saturday morning for home. Like horses headed for the barn...that is how we are both feeling after 9 days on the road.

22 OK counties before this trip

8 more counties added to the OK map

we'll leave the rest for another visit or two or three

Geocaching Summary Thus Far

 Covid and geocaching are the reasons for our meandering trip to our winter home. For folks not familiar with geocaching, the most common question we are asked, "What do you get?" Hubby loves to say, "Gas receipts." 

This post is a summary of what we have accomplished so far in our journey. Our personal goal is to collect counties on this trip. Once we have found at least one geocache in a county, it becomes green on the state map. There are 'bonus' geocaches we qualify for when we have cached in every county in a state, as we have in Arizona and South Dakota. There are also bonus geocaches if geocaches have been found in contiguous counties from border to border or ocean to ocean.

This summer a geocacher from Illinois passed through South Dakota and found some of our geocaches, adding to his county total. There are 3142 US counties in case you wondered. This geocacher was collecting his last 10 counties. THAT is a lot of gas receipts!

Hubby is a numbers guy. He keeps track of the number of geocaches we find, the number of miles we travel, the counties we collect.

our map prior to 10/16

our map on 10/18

Summary of Nebraska: 20 additional counties and an additional road trip of

350 miles and 450 to move from our NE campground to our KS campground.  

the map prior to 10/17

the map after 10/21

Kansas summary: a 375 mile road trip on 10/19 and more counties on a 450 mile road trip on 10/21 for a total of 19 more KS counties.

the map prior to 10/21

the map after 10/21

Oklahoma summary: getting the one "out of the way' county was part of the 450 mile road trip on 10/21.

We are now in Colorado and will be here for rest of the week. Daytime temps have been in the 70s and reached 81º on Tuesday. The evening temperatures are dropping into the 20s. We will be letting the water drip in the two sinks overnight. We have learned our lesson: the gray tank is empty and will hold the overnight dripping without causing any surprises like earlier this week.

As you know from the blog, geocaching takes us to some very interesting places we would not see if not for this sport/hobby/addiction/passion. So we do get more than gas receipts as we travel. The trips to our winter home would be pretty boring after 15 years without geocaching. The hunt continues...

Oklahoma City National Memorial

"On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a Ryder rental truck filled with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The resulting explosion killed 168 people and destroyed the entire north face of the building.

On October 1997, President Bill Clinton signed law creating the Oklahoma City National Memorial as a unit of the National Park Service to be operated by the Oklahoma City National Memorial Trust. The total cost of the memorial was $29.1 million. The federal government appropriated $5 million for the construction with the state of Oklahoma matching that amount. More than $17 million in private donations was raised." ~Wikipedia

This was our second visit to the memorial. (We were there in 2016) This time, because of geocaching, we took the time to wander throughout the memorial grounds, reading information, and processing the reason for the memorial. Because of the coronavirus, there were very few people in downtown Oklahoma City and even fewer at the memorial. This year was to be the 25th anniversary of the bombing.

The Survivor Tree

This American elm stood just yards away from the explosion and shouldn't have survived the blast. However, this amazing tree not only survived, but it still thrives today. Hundreds of seeds from this tree are planted annually and the resulting saplings are distributed each year on the anniversary of the bombing. Thousands of Survivor Trees are growing in public and private places all over the US. The Survivor Tree is a symbol of hope and resilience for the community.

Rescuers' Orchard

"A grove of Oklahoma redbuds, Amur Maple, Chinese Pistachio, and Bosque Elm trees are planted on the lawn around the Survivor Tree. The trees represent the rescuers who came to the aid of the survivors; hence the rescuer's orchard surrounds the survivor tree. The non-native species represent those rescuers who came from outside Oklahoma to help." ~ Wikipedia

Reflecting Pool

"A thin layer of water flows over polished black granite to form the pool, which runs east to west down the center of the Memorial on what was once Fifth Street. Although the pool is flowing, visitors are able to see a mirror image of themselves in the water." ~Wikipedia

Field of Empty Chairs

The Field of Chairs contains 168 empty chairs handcrafted from glass, bronze, and stone representing those who lost their lives, with a name etched in the glass base of each.

The chairs are arranged in nine rows to symbolize the nine floors of the building; each person's chair is on the row (floor) on which the person worked or was located when the bomb exploded.

Nineteen smaller chairs represent the children killed in the bombing. Three unborn children died along with their mothers, and they are listed on their mothers' chairs beneath their mother's names.

The Survivors' Wall

"The only remaining original portions of the Murrah Building are the north and east walls, known as the Survivors' Wall. The wall has several panels of granite salvaged from the Murrah Building [lobby], inscribed with the names of more than 600 survivors from the building and surrounding area, many of whom were injured in the blast." ~Wikipedia

Oklahoma City National Museum

On the north side of the memorial is the museum, formerly The Journal Record. It now features numerous exhibits and artifacts related to the bombing.

Children's Area

Nestled in the Rescuer's Orchard "more than 5000 hand-painted tiles, from all over the US and Canada, were made by children and sent to Oklahoma City after the bombing in 1995. Most are stored in the memorial's Archives, and a sampling of tiles is on the wall in the Children's Area." ~Wikipedia

replicas of some of the tiles

The Memorial Fence

"A 10-foot-tall chain link fence was installed around the area that is now the Reflecting Pool and the Field of Empty Chairs to protect the site from damage and visitors from injury. The Fence stood for more than four years, becoming notable as the place where visitors left stuffed animals, poems, keychains, and other items as tributes. During the construction of the Outdoor Memorial, 210 feet of the Fence was moved to the west side of the Memorial, along the 9:03 side or the 'healing' side. The remainder of the Fence is in storage. Visitors may still leave small items along the Fence; the mementos are periodically collected, cataloged, and stored." ~ Wikipedia

And Jesus Wept

"Across the street from the 9:03 gate is the sculpture of Jesus weeping erected by St. Joseph's Catholic Church, one of the first brick-and-mortar churches built in the city. Jesus faces away from the devastation, covering his face with his hand. In front of Jesus is a wall with 168 gaps in it, representing the voids left by each life lost." ~Wikipedia

Nineteen black granite pillars of varying heights are on the steps and platform of the statue. They represent the nineteen children lost in the bombing.

St. Joseph Old Cathedral was severely damaged by the bombing and had to be extensively repaired, while the old parish rectory had to be demolished. The statue was erected in the place of the old rectory.

Paul Meyer is the architect for this statue and memorial area

(click on the photo to enlarge it to see the detail in the statue)

The Gates of Time

Twin bronze gates frame the moment of destruction (9:02) and mark the formal entrances to the Outdoor Memorial. This is the eastern gate, representing the last moments of peace at 9:01. The western gate marks the moment of recovery, 9:03.

We come here to remember Those who were killed, those who survived and those changed forever. May all who leave here know the impact of violence. May this memorial offer comfort, strength, peace, hope and serenity.

The first part of the memorial was dedicated on April 19, 2000 on the five year anniversary of the bombing. The Memorial Museum was dedicated on February 19, 2001. Over 4.4 million visitors have been to the memorial since its opening. It averages 350,000 visitors a year.