Winter Week Near OKC: Museums, Lights, Zoos & Small-Town Magic

After a full month soaking up New Mexico sunshine, it was time to start the slow roll back north toward our home base for Christmas, and that meant a string of one-week stops along the way. One of our favorites was a cozy week in Edmond, Oklahoma, just outside Oklahoma City. We worked during the weekdays and squeezed in as much exploring as we could on evenings and days off, from the powerful Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum to catching the U.S. Capitol Christmas Tree when it stopped in town. We wandered the OKC Zoo, strolled Edmond’s festive “Deck the Downtown,” took a spontaneous evening trip up to Guthrie, and more. Here’s everything we packed into one short, wintry week in the OKC area!

Saturday: Arrival & A Sunset

Saturday we drove from Amarillo, TX to Edmond, OK- right outside of Oklahoma City. We stayed at Central State Park on Arcadia Lake and were greeted with the most beautiful sunset over the lake. Our campsite was right on the water, so it was especially magical.

Sunday: Pops, OKC Memorial, and Antiquing

Sunday we our one full day for exploring OKC. We started off just down the road from our campground at Pops on 66. This is a fun Route 66 stop that features a giant soda bottle that lights up at night, walls covered in vintage sodas, plenty of soda shopping, and a diner. We did a little shopping and got lunch at the diner. It was good classic diner food, so we were happy.

Then we headed into Oklahoma City itself for our main activity of the day- the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum. It was hard to tell from photos online how big the museum was, so honestly we just expected to breeze through- but we ended up spending quite a while here. It’s such a well done museum and there was a lot to see, read, and watch. It was a very somber experience, so I wouldn’t recommend bringing small kids. We go to so many museums and usually it all feels like distant history, but this was in our lifetime and something we (vaguely) remember, so it really felt different. There were a lot of screens with actual news coverage from the event, which really highlighted how recent it was. We both would highly recommend taking the time for the museum if you’re in Oklahoma City.

After the museum, we walked around the memorial. Again, it’s very well-done and an emotional experience. Even if you don’t have time for the museum, you need to visit the memorial.

We still had some time left in the day, so we finished off our OKC day with visiting two antique stores- Warehouse Antique Mall and Antiques in Moore on the drive back to camp.

Monday: Seeing the Capitol Tree

When we first booked this campground, I didn’t realize how close to Oklahoma City we would actually be (or how small OKC is), so I didn’t realize we would be able to go into the city more than one day. So Saturday night I was scrolling through local event calendars and came across a very exciting one- the US Capitol Tree tour was stopping in OKC Monday! We were able to make it to this event and it was such a cool and unique experience. Every year the US Forest Service supplies a Christmas tree for the US Capitol. This year’s tree was travelling from Nevada to Washington DC, and we were able to see it at this whistlestop. The tree is in a special semi trailer with clear panels so you can see it. The coolest part was that we also got to sign the banner on the truck! There were a couple of booths, too, with info about the tree and National Forests, and of course we had to buy a souvenir ornament!

Tuesday: Oklahoma City Zoo

Tuesday was Veteran’s Day, so Josh had off work. We decided to spend the day at the Oklahoma City Zoo, and we basically spent the whole day there. Our home zoo is Brookfield Zoo in Chicago, so even when zoos are nice, they usually seem small to us- but OKC was definitely a good sized zoo! The exhibits were very good (and we’re picky about this) and there was a big variety of animals to see. It was also a fun time of year to visit because they were getting ready for their Safari Lights Christmas lights event. It actually started after we left (wish we could have gone!) but the lights were all set up, so we still got a daytime preview! A lot of the light display is basically big lanterns in all kinds of shapes, so there was surprisingly a lot to see in the daytime even. Overall, we loved this zoo and highly recommend it.

Wednesday: Disc Golf

Wednesday we didn’t have a lot of time to do stuff after work, so we went over to another part of Arcadia Lake to play disc golf. We played half the course and had a good time. It was a good basic course, part field and part woods, but nothing super special.

Thursday: Deck the Downtown in Edmond

Thursday evening we headed into downtown Edmond for Deck the Downtown. We got a good spot for the city tree lighting and then checked out the event. They had a block with vendors and Christmas activities, and it looked fun, but was SUPER crowded, so we didn’t really do anything. We walked around a little downtown, though, and even though most stuff was closed by now, it looked like a really nice downtown.

Friday: Trip to Guthrie, OK

Friday evening we drove out to the town of Guthrie, OK to explore. We had a few stops planned here and would definitely visit again to see more of the town- it’s a very charming little town with a lot of historic buildings.

Our first stop was the local cemetery to visit the grave of Elmer McCurdy, an outlaw who’s story got even more interesting after he was killed by a sheriff’s posse. The undertaker who preserved McCurdy kept his body on display for years, and eventually he somehow made his way to a carnival. During the filming of a documentary in the 1970’s a cameraman accidentally discovered that one of the dead body props in a fun house was actually a real human body… and it turned out to be Elmer. He was eventually returned to Guthrie and buried for good.

Next, we went to Guthrie Brewing for dinner. Unfortunately, they were out of a few beers we wanted to try, but we found a few to try still. The main star here was the chicken & waffles pizza. It was incredibly good! Definitely something we still talk about.

We walked through downtown to our next stop- Wanderfolk Distilling. We loved the vibes here and the artwork on their bottles. Josh got a flight that he really enjoyed and I got a cocktail with their coffee liqueur that was also really good. We ended up getting a couple bottles (for us and for a gift).

Saturday: Driving Again

Saturday we headed out of Oklahoma and onto Arkansas- a brand new state for me!