Bartlesville, OK June 18-21, 2012

Why are we in Bartlesville, well, B’ville as Bob referred to it is the corporate headquarters for Phillips Petroleum Company, the company who paid him for his services for 27 years.
We are parked in the only RV park in town, called the Riverside RV Resort & Campground.  They are a Passport America Park so our four day stay here only cost us $64.  We have 50 amps with water and a nice gravel based site, no grass or mud!  The site we are in has no sewer hookup and the park has no dump but they do offer, for free, a pump out of our tanks three times a week.  First time we have ran into this kind of situation.

Bob has fond memories through his Aunt and Uncle of Tom Mix Westerns, his Museum was located near here in Dewey.

He is the one who was to have made this canyon leap.  No one knows for sure if he did it, or if a stunt man did it, or if it was ever done at all.


This is the Nellie Johnstone #1, the first commercial oil well drilled with a cable tool drilling derrick in what will become the state of Oklahoma.  This type of cable drilling could drill about 50’ per day, this well was 1320’ deep.  This well was located in what we also know as B’ville.

Our visit to Woolaroc took an entire day.

“Frank Phillips, founder of Phillips Petroleum Company, created the Woolaroc preserve in 1925 to retain the essence of the West as he had known it before the turn of the century.”
Bob remembers coming out to Woolaroc for many dinners at the Lodge when he was visiting B’ville on business.  Frank Phillips was not a hunter, so the animal heads you see are from animals he brought to the ranch to see if they would thrive in this area.

We saw these zebras today, they are stunning animals and very curious.


The above canoe has an interesting story.

Last week I saw my first shrunken head and now on display at Woolaroc is seven of them.  I don’t want this to be a trend.

At the Mountain Man demo area I tried my hand at hatchet throwing, not so good.

And so did Bob, he was able to stick 2 out of 3 throws, see the hatchet in mid air.

This is a Cattlelo, one half Herford and one half buffalo.

Below is the modest home, just kidding, of Frank and Jane Phillips in Bartlesville.

We are heading on down the road tomorrow to Fort Smith, Arkansas.