Greenwood Rising

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

I woke up in Arkansas, stopped in Oklahoma, and believe I'm currently somewhere in Kansas! It's amazing what can be done when you aren't bogged down with the jobs and the day to day things.

A sweet old man with a dog offered to take a picture of me with Beast Mode and he did but his finger was over half of the lens. I didn't have the heart to ask him to try again b/c the dog was very hyper and almost knocked him over multiple times. I promise I was here too!

My first stop today was Greenwood Rising. This museum explores the history of the Greenwood District in Tulsa. It does an amazing job of capturing the joy and spirit of the people and culture prior to the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and through to rebuilding.

Even the website is a great resource: www.greenwoodrising.org

This was the start of the tour and a complete gut punch when you know what is coming.

I thought this was the most impactful part...it was a video running while survivors spoke on their experience of the day.

You could sit in the chairs while it looked like the holograms were cutting your hair in the mirror. This gave the sense of the barbershop and thriving of the district before 1921.

The tour ended with a wall where you can put what you commit to do to take action. It was a powerful room to read others commitments.

This reminds me of Dialogue on Race and many talks with Maxine.

Not far from the museum was the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park. Best Mode and I took a walk around and ate lunch by the tower of reconciliation. It was a beautiful day! There are also a lot of murals on the way.

Made it to Kansas and had another random person take our pic...which then prompted someone to ask me to take his pic. We didn't speak the same language so it was an entertaining little exchange and in a perfect karmic shuffle, the first picture I took, I cut off half the sign so he had to ask me to take it again.

Book One - DONE

One audiobook down! It was SO good. One to Teroy's recommendation of The Untethered Soul next.

And on to the 40s vs. 20s road trip. Beast Mode has declined working out as she's given up caring about fitness. She has promised to do the blog while I run. I was having a moment with all of the mirrors "why yes, I DO need to clear my mind and energize my mood!" I swear I completed that workout below but I forgot to set it to treadmill so the constant updates of "you have gone 0.0 miles" while sweating and being unable to breath was not cool.

The 20-something version of workouts on road trips consisted of saving my BFF from a shark attack. Driving to mountain tops for good photo ops that look like you might have worked out prior. And after the long day on the water in Chattanooga (yesterdays post) we shot five hour energy and headed to a spin class taught by Nicole that was on the lake with me all day. I don't know how we used to do that but it didn't seem to hurt in the moment.

You could also keep it simple and say replace all of the museum stops with bars and replace all audiobooks with party music and that would reflect the shifts in trip activities pretty well!

I'm safe and sound for the night until another adventure tomorrow. To Colorado we go. I hope everyone back home is enjoying their spring break!